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The Real Muslim Rage

Posted September 23rd, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

Oh what a bandwagon that noxious little anti-Islamic video has set in motion.  There seems to be no end of people eager to hop on it for personal and political gain, no matter how many lives it costs.

There’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, reeling from backlash against his support of Bashar al-Assad’s ongoing massacre of Syrian civilians.  What a perfect opportunity to deflect criticism by calling for more and larger protests — not against the Syrian regime, but against America, in the name of “defending the Prophet.” Except that’s not what he’s doing. To cite the headline of Nick Kristof’s NYT column today, he’s exploiting the Prophet.

There’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she of the soft voice and the compelling back story, who just can’t stop talking about what she calls “the Muslim mentality.” (Pop quiz:  if someone who generalizes about a stereotyped “Jewish mentality” is an anti-Semite, what’s someone who generalizes about a stereotyped “Muslim mentality”?  Click here if you don’t know.)  Hirsi Ali told her story yet again in Newsweek‘s “Muslim Rage” issue (to which the best answer was the often hilarious #MuslimRage meme on Twitter).  Strange to think that the rapidly failing Newsweek was once a reputable publication.

There’s the sophomoric French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose idea of cutting-edge humor is cartoons of politicians with their pants down around the ankles.  This week they ran similar cartoons of Muhammad in order to inject some life into their plumetting circulation by creating controversy.  Oh, and as a beacon of free speech, of course.

There’s Pakistan’s Minister of Railways — the man responsible for the system’s chronic debt, constant strikes, and devastating crashes. What better way to distract people from his total failure than to make himself out to be a “defender of Islam” by offering a $100,000 bounty for the life of the director of that inane video?  There’s nothing quite like incitement to murder to cover up your own corruption.

There’s more — there’s always more of such people, including of course the miserable little bigots who made the video in the first place —  but that’ll do for now. Because none of this reflects the real Muslim rage:  the palpable outrage not only at the killing of Ambassador Stevens, but also at the blatant attempt of Islamic extremists (and their Islamophobic counterparts) to hijack Islam.

Listen, for instance, to Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, aka Sandmonkey, who was one of the voices of 2011’s “Arab spring” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.  Violent protests over the video are “more damaging to Islam’s reputation than a thousand so-called ‘Islam-attacking’ films,” he writes, and calls on Egyptians to condemn Islamic fundamentalists as “a bunch of shrill, patriarchal, misogynistic, violent extremists who are using Islam as a cover” for political ambition.

Twitter is spilling over with similar protests and disgust from Muslims all over the world at the way the “defenders of Islam” are destroying it from within.  And this disgust was acted on in Benghazi on Friday when 50,000 Libyans marched to demand the disarming of the extremist militias suspected of attacking the US consular buildings, then stormed the headquarters of two of the biggest militias and forced them out of town.  Two other Islamist militias instantly disbanded.  Yes, if you unite, you can face down the thugs, even well-armed ones.  This, of course, is not something you’ll see on the cover of Newsweek.

As Libyans, Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis, and with especial pain, Syrians know, the “Arab spring” is not a matter of a single season.  The moniker itself is a product of Western media shorthand, of the desire to label a “story” and assign it a neat, self-contained timeline.  But this was no mere story for the people living it.  It was and still is the beginning of a long process.  But one that once begun, cannot be undone.

All over the Middle East, real voices are making themselves heard, unmediated by government control whether in the name of “security” or of an extremist travesty of Islam.

And this is surely the real manifestation of that much abused principle:  freedom of expression.

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File under: fundamentalism, Islam, Middle East, sanity | Tagged: Tags: anti-Islam video, Arab spring, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Benghazi, Charlie Hebdo, Egypt, Hassan Nasrallah, Libya, militias, Newsweek, outrage, Pakistan, Sandmonkey, Syria, Tunisia | 14 Comments
  1. anon says:
    September 23, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    when CNN uses Ambassador Stevens diary—“free-speech” goes out the window. Anything embarrassing to the U.S. government or military and there is no free-speech—-anything insulting to Muslims—and “free-speech” suddenly becomes important to Americans!!!!

    By the way—Muslim-minority countries are also allowing protests in their countries—seems “anti-americanism” isn’t confined to Muslim-Majority countries alone……

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 23, 2012 at 6:53 pm

      Stealing and using anyone’s private diary sounds Murdoch-sleazy to me. Can’t see that it has anything to do with free speech. And as for “allowing” protests, doesn’t that word “allowing” tell you something?

      • anon says:
        September 29, 2012 at 2:13 am

        “sound Murdoch-sleazy to me”—that is exactly my point—Americans may “claim” free-speech”—but it DOES have boundaries—some things are just not acceptable—because they are “sleezy” or unpatriotic, or….etc……There were U.S. muslim students who were arrested because they protested a speech by Israeli ambassador, there was a Judge who banned hateful protests at funerals of American soldiers……

        people in different parts of the world have sensibilities that may be different from an American criteria—for example, in some countries in Asia—speech defaming the monarchy is against the law…..We have to be able to respect each others differences……….Non-Americans need to understand that America has its own criteria—and Americans need to understand that non-Americans also have their own criteria…..

        “Allowing protests”—yes, for much of the rest of the world “freedoms” are still very much a “work-in-progress”—even in the democracies of Asia.

        (by the way—I do agree that moderate/mainstream muslims MUST counter the narrow, extremist ideology that encourages violence)

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          September 29, 2012 at 10:44 am

          You get the difference, though, between what’s acceptable and what’s legal in the US. Expressions of antisemitism and racism are legal, but no longer acceptable in the mainstream. I’m convinced that this will happen too with Islamophobia — i.e. it will be marginalized. The hard thing is that it takes time, and as you say, understanding that we all need to speak out against extremist ideologies and hatred on all sides. Freedom of expression is a terrifically tough concept to get one’s mind around — I still have great difficulty with it, and sometimes find myself raging against the American Civil Liberties Union. But I send my check to the ACLU nonetheless, because next time round, it could be me whose freedom of expression is being threatened.

  2. naveed says:
    September 23, 2012 at 8:23 pm

    You have correctly pointed out people who have cashed in on ‘muslim rage’ but these are not the real reasons for the rage. From one who is enraged: May I give the real reason for my rage? The American support to its stooges in Muslim countries, the mechanisms of regime change in Muslim countries and the American occupation of Muslim countries are the reasons for ‘Muslim Rage’

  3. Emad Yawer says:
    September 25, 2012 at 11:48 pm

    If the US and Europe so keen on free speech, whay I can not USE the Swastica, WHY I can not critisize ANY jew, jewish thing or deny the Holocost took place, WHY there is so many restrictions on what they call “HATE” , but it is all different against Islam?????????

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 27, 2012 at 10:28 am

      I don’t know where you live, but the fact is that in most of the world, you can. And in many parts of the Middle East, antisemitic cartoons, images etc are common in school textbooks and newspapers. As I’ve written here before, antisemitism and Islamophobia are mirror images — actually, twinned images — which makes it all the more miserably absurd when there are Muslims who are antisemitic, and Jews who are Islamophobic.

  4. Sohail Kizilbash says:
    September 26, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Look Guys, lets us not be naive and banal. USA is THE superpower and she has to do a lot of things to maintain that status. If you don’t like it, you can lump it. Having said that, I don’t know of any other country where people are more free and freedom comes at a price. I totally agree with a Muslim who appeared on the TV a few day ago who said that the best country to practice Islam, is the USA.

    • Naveed says:
      September 30, 2012 at 10:51 am

      You are right USA is THE superpower. Dont forget that not too long ago Britain and then USSR were superpowers. Dont lose sight of the fact that in less than five years China will be a Superpower. Scientific and technological development can neither be halted nor contained sooner or later small countries and even stateless groups will accquire yet to be invented weapons of mass destruction. The survival of mankind depends on realizing that there can be no prosperity without peace and there can be no peace without justice.

      • Sohail Kizilbash says:
        September 30, 2012 at 2:48 pm

        Absolutely no argument there, Naveed. The seeds of destruction are embedded in the fabric of an empire. All empires, until now, have degenerated into dictatorships, arrogance, conceit, intolerance, superiority complex and gone into a comfort zone, bringing about their demise. Hopefully this will not happen to the USA as it adapts to changing times. See the change from a slave owning society, to a country where a half black is President. Now people proudly declare that they have native blood. One has to live in the USA and read history to see the change. The self critical nature of the Americans is one of their biggest strength.That is just my humble opinion.

        • naveed says:
          October 1, 2012 at 4:35 am

          Very well written Sohail. I had the privilege of living and working in USA as an alien resident for several years. I whole heartedly agree that America is a great country; the vast majority of Americans are forthright, honest and fair-minded people. We in the third world owe America and Europe a huge debt of gratitude for the benefits of science and technology. Unfortunately Americans are themselves the victims of a foreign policy influenced by lobbies whose allegiance lies outside its shores. For the sake of people of America and the people of the world. For the sake of peace on earth, we can only hope and pray that the future leaders of America will be great people like Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin, people who would base their decisions on principles of right and wrong rather than on opinion polls, oil money and directives of foreign lobbies. Kissinger said “ Real politick not a moralistic approach to foreign policy would best serve American interests” ( perhaps he really meant Israeli interests ) Americans are being led by neo-cons and evangelists who base their foreign policy on biblical prophesies.

          • Sohail Kizilbash says:
            October 1, 2012 at 7:36 am

            Alas. Sometimes the tail wags the dog.

  5. Sohail Kizilbash says:
    September 26, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    By the way Lesley, if you are on the FB you might enjoy the comments on my recent posts on this issue.

  6. irfan says:
    October 1, 2012 at 7:33 pm

    .hope the peaceful message will get more support

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Blasphemy-in-Islam-The-Quran-does-not-prescribe-punishment-for-abusing-the-Prophet/articleshow/16631496.cms

Anti-Semitism = Islamophobia

Posted March 8th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

This past weekend, I spoke to a Hadassah meeting – the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.  The subject, of my choosing, was “What’s a ‘nice Jewish girl’ doing writing so much about Islam?”

The easy answer to the question I’d self-imposed was “Why not?”  A perfectly reasonable answer, perhaps, but not with bigots like Peter King about to begin his witch hunt this week in the form of congressional hearings on the alleged “radicalization” of American Muslims.

The real answer is that it’s precisely because I’m Jewish that I find myself writing so much about Islam these days.  Because as a Jew, I know the dangers of prejudice.  And I can smell it a mile off.  When I hear someone talk about “the Jewish mentality,” I know I’m listening to an anti-Semite.  How else stereotype millions of people that way?   Just as when I read someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali talking about “the Muslim mentality,” I know — no matter how pretty she is, how soft-spoken, and how compelling her life story – that I am listening to an Islamophobe.

And I recognize that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are two sides of the exact same coin:  the stereotyping of millions of people by the actions of a few.  That is, prejudice.

So it’s particularly painful, let alone absurd and self-defeating and dumb, to see that some Islamophobes are Jewish.  And equally painful – and absurd and self-defeating and dumb – to see that some Muslims are anti-Semitic.

I have no statistics to say what proportion of Jews are Islamophobic or what proportion of Muslims are anti-Semitic (though I could doubtless make some up and throw them out there with such an air of authority that they’d be repeated ad infinitum until they achieve the status of “fact”).   But the Muslim Brotherhood, for all the changes it has undergone, still distributes The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  And while anti-Zionism does not necessarily mean anti-Semitism, there is a clear overlap, with a venemous hatred finding its outlet in what is now the more acceptable form of anti-Zionism.

So we need to be clear.  We badly need it.

“Islam” did not attack the US on 9/11;  eighteen people with a particularly twisted and distorted idea of Islam did.  “The Jews” do not shoot Palestinian farmers in the West Bank;   Bible-spouting settlers with a particularly twisted and distorted idea of Judaism do.

The Quran is no more violent or misogynistic than the Bible.  In fact it’s less so.  If you insist, as Islamophobes do, on highlighting certain phrases, then you should turn around and do the same with the Bible, which you will find ten times worse, with repeated calls for the destruction of whole peoples. Only the dumbest, most literal, hate-filled fundamentalist, Jewish or Muslim, takes the rules of ancient warfare as a guide to 21st-century life.

We have to stop this stereotyping.  Now.  All of us.

We have to recognize prejudice not only in others, but in ourselves, Jewish or Muslim.

We have to be able to see that the anti-Semitic trope of “the Jews” trying to take over the world is exactly the same as the Islamophobic one of “the Muslims” trying to take over the world.

We have to acknowledge that an Islamophobic Jew is thinking exactly like an anti-Semite.  And that an anti-Semitic Muslim is thinking exactly like an Islamophobe.

We have to realize that American Jews need to stand up with Muslims against Islamophobia just as American Muslims need to stand up with Jews against anti-Semitism.

Because Islamophobia is, in essence, another form of anti-Semitism, and vice versa.  And it’s in the direct interest of both Jews and Muslims — of all of us — to stand up and confront both forms of prejudice.

In the famous words of an anti-Nazi Protestant pastor during World War II:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

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File under: Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: 9/11, American Jews, American Muslims, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bible, bigotry, Hadassah, Islamophobia, Martin Niemoller, Peter King, prejudice, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Quran, radicalization, stereotypes, West Bank | 33 Comments
  1. Mykolas Kimtys says:
    March 8, 2011 at 9:40 am

    You go girl!

    • Maisha says:
      March 11, 2011 at 1:35 pm

      I agree with much of what was said in this post and have no problem with a Jew telling others what they know about Islam. That is, when the information is correct and for the most part, Leslie is correct.. But I think that her knowledge may be confinded to Quran, with out much knowledge of Haditn. And it is kind of hard to separate one from the other because Hadith gives a better understanding of Quran. According to Hadith, the “ancient warfare guide” for Muslims is: no killing of women, old people, non combatant men, and children,no killing of priest, nuns, monks etc., no destruction of holy places such as churches, synagogues,no destruction of crop and livestock.
      Considering that war is horror. Since it appears that war is here to stay. Some of that horror of war could be cut if armies and etc. followed this “ancient warfare guide”

  2. Herman says:
    March 8, 2011 at 10:23 am

    What you are stating makes sense theoretically,

    but practically I have seen very, very few people

    ready to stand up with the Jews when anti-semitism

    appears. Almost no Muslims.

    • JJ says:
      March 14, 2011 at 8:16 pm

      BS

      http://www.thestreetspirit.org/Feb2005/mosque.htm

      http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/4/854131/-Film-on-Arab-Schindlers-who-saved-Jews-in-WWII-premieres-at-MOTLA

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmEw5M-xK64

    • JustBob says:
      March 15, 2011 at 6:51 am

      Agreed Herman. We should hope more people, especially the Left, speak out against Holocaust denialism that has gone so far where nation states actually sponsor conferences on whether the Holocaust actually happened or not.

      To this day, I have yet read one single person condemn the anti-Semitic beliefs in many parts of the world who believe New York Jews were in on 9/11 and did not show up to work that day.

      Most would rather ignore Antisemitism. This type of selective silence proves some are only interested in pushing their agenda rather than combating all forms of hatred and paranoia.

  3. Tea-mahm says:
    March 8, 2011 at 11:04 am

    This is great. Wish you could have this conversation on CNN. Tm

  4. Adila says:
    March 8, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    Lesley, I like you. You have sight.

    🙂

    Herman, I’d like to think I’d stand.

  5. sa says:
    March 8, 2011 at 10:20 pm

    Islam is the only faith tradition that declares “There is no Compulsion in Religion”. Its founder, Prophet Mohammed, created the Charter of Medina which protected the rights of both Muslims and non Muslims alike living in Medina. The 47 clause document contains all the characteristics of the preamble to the US constitution. Similarly, the charter of privileges gave protection and rights to the St Catherine’s Monastary in Alexandria, Egypt. This was all necessary because Islam was founded in an unjust and hostile environment and giving protections and creating protectorates was necessary. Today these cultural dynamics are still at play as are geo political issues and other complexities around the world.

  6. Lynn Rosen says:
    March 8, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    You nailed it. You simply nailed it.

  7. Meezan says:
    March 9, 2011 at 1:21 am

    Hear hear.

  8. Yazid Erman says:
    March 9, 2011 at 2:16 am

    I totally agree with you Lazely, and i am a very strict Muslim! 😉

  9. Kamil says:
    March 9, 2011 at 3:13 am

    I’m a Muslim who currently live in London. I studied Jewish Philosophy and the holocaust for A-Levels when I grew up in Hong Kong. I absolutely agree with everything you wrote in this blogpost. I am shocked by the level of anti semitism I find in the communities today and I guess you will find the same vice-versa.

    Thank you for blogging this and hopefully we can all wake up and understand each other’s struggles in so many decades (and centuries). I think what the Muslims are going through today in the western world (at least here in Britain) has a lot of parallel with the Jewish emancipation in the 1800s and we have a lot to learn from each other.

    May Allah swt bless you for your work.

  10. Aijaz says:
    March 9, 2011 at 4:27 am

    I don’t know how much anti semitism is anti Israeli and anti Jewish…Islamophob is anti Islam, not anti Muslims or anti extremism.
    Whoever had invented anti semitic had cleverly covered all the zionist and Israeli crimes under one flag of anti semitic and then made it a Taboo.
    A stand up comedian in Chritian majority USA can easily make Jesus the butt of his joke but before making anti semitic remarks he will think twice.

    IMO theres no equivalence between anti semite and Islamophob.

    I have no idea Iran is making nuclear bomb or not but if they were making bomb then its the result of propaganda under Islamophob.
    After 1979 revolution Iran ban on all nuclear activities but then they were forced into 10 years war with western supported Sadam.
    War mongers in arms industry are loaded with money so same fear was used but as shiaphob.

    In this video a Muslm is protecting a Jewish couple from Christian mob…Had he known their ID would he still protect them….answer is simple…..YES.

    No Christian, no Muslim, no Jew is devoid of human feelings….all are made with same heart with bloody flesh which pump harder when witness human misery.
    The only difference is greed for power and money…that desire of few benficiaries is trying hard to keep hostage the human feelings and to supress extra pumping of human heart…

    The key is fear and promotion of fear through propaganda.
    The war mongers in the name of religion are used as a tool…the beneficiaries are power brokers and Arms industry and Arms traders and media. I am afraid all three primary beneficiaries are zionist based, the secondary beneficiaries are Arab Tyrants, Kings and Dictators.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrjMl3ISkTE&feature=related

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 9, 2011 at 7:38 am

      Alas, you demonstrate my point. Anti-Semitism is a Zionist ‘invention’? You might want to read some history.

      Meanwhile, this from Jean-Paul Sartre, as relevant I think for Muslims as for Jews: “If Jews did not exist, anti-Semites would have had to invent them.”

      • Aijaz says:
        March 9, 2011 at 8:29 am

        I think I am getting closer
        Perhaps anti semitism is just like Taliban and Al Qaida, as no one literally knows who they are and what they are but everyonee knows why they are.

  11. Aijaz says:
    March 9, 2011 at 4:41 am

    Drawing U.S. Crowds With Anti-Islam Message
    By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
    Published: March 7, 2011

    FORT WORTH — Brigitte Gabriel bounced to the stage at a Tea Party convention last fall. She greeted the crowd with a loud Texas “Yee-HAW,” then launched into the same gripping personal story she has told in hundreds of churches, synagogues and conference rooms across the United States:

    As a child growing up a Maronite Christian in war-torn southern Lebanon in the 1970s, Ms. Gabriel said, she had been left lying injured in rubble after Muslims mercilessly bombed her village. She found refuge in Israel and then moved to the United States, only to find that the Islamic radicals who had terrorized her in Lebanon, she said, were now bent on taking over America.

    “America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.”

    Through her books, media appearances and speeches, and her organization, ACT! for America, Ms. Gabriel has become one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors who warn that Muslims pose an enormous danger within United States borders.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/us/08gabriel.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1299610962-NGSvRzNNaIjSLZ0vYlUW9Q

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 9, 2011 at 7:43 am

      This article is linked to in the original post. Always a good idea to read before commenting.

      • Aijaz says:
        March 9, 2011 at 8:24 am

        forgive me for I am as clumsy as I could be.

        I try hard again to find the link about this NYT article or anything about Brigitte Gabriel in original post but miserably failed.

  12. Anti-Semitism = Islamophobia | :: MUSLIM DIALOGUE :: says:
    March 9, 2011 at 8:20 am

    […] http://accidentaltheologist.com/2011/03/08/anti-semitism-islamophobia/ March 9th, 2011 | Category: MUSLIM DIALOGUE, […]

  13. Lavrans says:
    March 9, 2011 at 10:19 pm

    It’s funny as I was just having this very argument with a friend who happens to be… a vegetarian.

    No, it’s not a joke. He was talking about how meat is bad, and brought up a video that made some valid points (animals raised on mega-ranches take lots of land and more resources than the average vegetable), and a lot of points that are subjective and meant to tug at a person’s visceral response (animals are tortured and killed just for human pleasure). My argument that the argument was self-righteous was taken as an indictment of vegetarians as a whole.

    The politics of religion is the same action. That video that was posted isn’t the view of all vegetarians, and while most vegetarians would laugh at it and agree with some of the points, not all are vegetarians for the same reason and not all subscribe to the same beliefs; not all will find the entire argument True. Groups always carry with them a certain amount of prejudice against other groups, the question is really to what degree and whether it’s a prejudice that diminishes their ability to empathize with that other group.

    What we have, in my opinion, is too many people who just can’t get past the concept that any large group carries many opinions. What one person or one part of that group says isn’t necessarily a Truth for the entire group, and very likely to be seen by some as ridiculous.

    I maintain that the most dangerous food out there is processed food. Factory food. Food that is barely recognizable in any part as what it came from. The soda that’s really a corn and oil distillation. The steak that’s softened by force feeding an animal that is kept alive only by the use of large amounts of antibiotics.

    I can’t help but see that as so true of the politics of religion. What’s dangerous isn’t the raw belief; the stories and tales that seeded the tree that has grown up and spread across the world; no, what’s dangerous is what’s been done when a branch is taken from the tree, chopped and processed into a new thing that is barely (if at all) related to what it was distilled from.

    That danger is to the tree itself, in that it adds something that may be a poison. That danger is to the tree in how it is seen by the person on the outside; if they don’t know what’s been done to make that processed, transformed thing, then they may ascribe all the dangers as inherent within the tree itself (rather than the processing).

    And that is the danger to those outside that tree’s canopy; ignorance and doubt are easy forms of belief that are hard to eliminate. If you’ve been taught that the tree is poisonous, it may take a stronger act than most could muster to risk grabbing a piece of fruit from the tree and eating it. Even when done, it will still take a long time to overcome that prejudice. See how many people still think that tomatoes are poisonous.

  14. Aijaz says:
    March 11, 2011 at 5:32 am

    Things could be more complex than complicated as presented by Lavran.
    Simplicity is the beauty of arguments and this simplicity adopted by all religions because religion is for masses not specifically for bunch of intellectuals.

    Theres nothing beyond scope of right and wrong…a complex or complicated aspect of right does no make it wrong.
    All the animals slaughtered for food are fast multiple and has short life span…when reaching a natural death their disposal may cause a serious problem and environmental mayhem.
    Torturous slaughter is valid argument by a vegetarian….every living thing has to endure the pain of death one day…people should be careful to cause minimum pain when slaughtering as much as they can learn scientifically….unfortunately none knows the pain of death and pain of slaughter.

    Disintegration of bones and losening of muscles with diminish senses as growing age, I believe is a mercy on mankind thats about time when natural death is happened.
    So in my guess natural death for all living things should be less painful than slaughtered.

    All of these are God sanctioned slaughters so argument can not be restricted to science only besides science can not prove for sure the amount of pain caused in both kind of deaths.
    A vegetarian can not love the rats and roaches damaging his clean home and furniture.
    Probably he will show mercy on a pop up snake in his household to capture and hand it over to wildlife…but roaches and rats he is forced to kill with poisonous torture.

    A very valid example of Tree and its branches was given…..A branch when seperated does not seek its ID but try to make its own ID…An ID which has no roots is the root cause of all problems.

    Religiously if we take Tree as one God and branches as group of people and leaves as people then it will be easy to understand the concept of Unity of God.
    The one leaf or branch which detach itself from Tree is living a life of its own not a borrowed life.
    This owned life knows its origin from father’s seed to mother’s womb then in being and vanished in darkness…this being which probably achieved status of self during the course of life but after death it becomes a number which was added once but now reduced.
    A self which is not more than a number is not different from an ant which was crushed to death among its flock and this is the result of a branch which try to make its own ID after seperated from Tree.

    Let me present an example to emphasize the simplicity of religion through simplicity of its personalities.

    One day an old woman, who had for many years heard of the greatness and magnificence of the Prophet, came before him. She stood tongue tied in awe of his presence. The Prophet, softly, kindly and simply took her by the shoulder and said, “Why are you afraid? I am the son of that Quraish woman who milked sheep. Who are you afraid of?”

    Though I am thankful to Lavran for generating such a beautiful idea of Tree and its branch to help me elaborate my views

    • Lavrans says:
      March 11, 2011 at 4:25 pm

      True- things are always more complex. The main point to the vegetarian is that it isn’t any more unnatural for people to eat meat than any other omnivore or carnivore.

      Complexity comes in with the addition of civilization (that is, living in cities). Then you have many food pressures- we know of no groups that were voluntarily vegetarian until after the introduction of cities and religion- and all of the reasons for a vegetarian diet are religious.

      With wealth comes the ability and freedom to choose whether you’re a vegetarian or not, and with that also comes other reasons for being a vegetarian- and yet, almost all of them still center on man as apart from and different from nature.

      That’s also a commonality of the monotheistic religions (well, most modern religions; at some point religions move from man being a special animal, but still an animal, to being something other than an animal); man as apart from nature.

      Thus, one’s food becomes a choice. This is part of the “processing” I mention. That thought is as much a process as removing the fat from milk or monofarming corn. The thought process is no more “natural” than a million acres of corn, or the idea that man is not just another animal.

      Continue the processing of thought and action and you can come to the point where raising an animal with the intent to eat it becomes morally suspect and the vegetarian starts thinking that the raising and killing is a callous act done in order to sate a taste for killing. When it’s really not that different from raising carrots with the intent to eat them; the main difference is that we see the animal as closer to us and, therefore, closer to god.

      Why is it not possible for the carrot to have a soul? If it does, is it morally problematic to eat the carrot? Or would that God have designed the various animals and plants to do and eat what they do?

      Again- it’s not the act, but the process by which one gets to that act. Very much like in religions, where all of the religions have the same basic rules and tenets, yet the process used to interpret them gives rise to all these opposing sects that become willing to denigrate or do violence to any “other”.

      That, to me, is the genesis and life blood of prejudice. Ignorance fueled by a processed idea that labels itself a morality while demanding an action in violation and opposition to that morality.

      • Aijaz says:
        March 12, 2011 at 1:28 am

        All things are true in their essence perhaps you mean Truth about certain things is complex.

        Truth of the matter is we don’t know how many things are living things of the total things known to us.
        Anything which breath has a life and subject to feel the pain.
        All the plants,vegetables,fruits,grass etc are living thing…sign of their life is they breath they get their naurishments and they grow….if not eaten mercilessly by a vegetarian in their lifetime they also die as they rots and thats their natural life span.
        A vegetarian, if he must eat apple then he has to wait until its rotten or in other words completely dead to cause no pain to partially alive apple.

        I see no difference between growing apples for the purpose to eat when they are ripe and still fresh and breathing AND breeding animals for the purpose to slaughter and to eat.

        Grass is alive as long as its green and it subject to feel pain also….a proud vegetarian feel no remorse to tread torturously on a lviing thing.

        All this fuss to complicate the simplicity of life into unnecessary complexity is the result of not having real issues faced by humanity and they are in abundance.

        Some says stones also breath but this much I know from Quran that everything living or dead to our knowledge praise God but we know not.

        I have no knowledge how other things are alive other than Human Being…are they ensoul or not…perhaps Lavran has more knowledge, he may enlighten.

        Soul in Quran is described as Amre Rab “Decree of God”.
        Amazingly in whole Quran nowhere plural is used for soul….so this is singular act of Al-Mighty to enliven a thing.
        Self(Nafs) has plural in Quran which is exclusively for mankind not other living things.

        So we are composed of three things…Body,soul and self.
        When soul leave the body we are dead and we are left with body and self…in few hundred years body also disnitegrate..the only thing left is self which is resurrected on judgment day and according to Islamic faith body testify against the self which it used to carry.
        The reality of mankind is SELF which is accountable not the body and soul.

  15. Muslim says:
    March 19, 2011 at 7:37 am

    Why do people claim anti-semitic as only referring to jews..
    semitic is relating to people who are of the groups that speak of Afroasiatic languages that includes Akkadian, arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Phoenician.

    so american english speaking jews are NOT semitic
    but on the flip side.. christian and muslim arabs alike in the middle east are ALL semitic.. so if you discrimate against a middle eastern muslim, you are being anti-semitic

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 19, 2011 at 8:50 am

      Strictly speaking, of course, you’re quite right, but such a definition then excludes the 80% of Muslims who are not semitic. You also ignore the fact that, though many centuries removed, Ashkenazi American Jews are semitic in origin, while Sephardi Jews are semitic in culture too.

      I can see the ironic appeal of saying “Hey, we’re all semites,” but A. it’s not so, and B. challenging prejudice on the basis of strict definitions really evades the problem, and could even deepen it by leading to the weirdly racist game of trying to figure out what percentage of blood origin — a quarter? an eighth? a sixteenth? — makes someone black or Jewish or Arab.

    • hossam says:
      March 20, 2011 at 1:40 am

      Why do we have to discuss what semitic means instead of discussing the actual issue, you are right in saying that semic peoples are not only jews, but to answer your question, the term anti-semitism has been coined and generally accepted to mean prejudice towards jewish people. Would it make a difference if it was called anti-judaism or anti-jew or jewophobia instead?

      we can also spend time criticizing the term islamophobia rather discuss the actual issue

  16. Maisha Liwaru says:
    March 20, 2011 at 8:59 am

    As an African American Muslim, I say we can spend our time comparing and licking our wounds and arguing over semantics or we can come together for human rights. Rather than anti Semitic, Islamaphobia, racism etc. why not use the words humane and inhumane.

  17. Rachel Thomas says:
    March 22, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    This is a really good article, and as a Jew I also see Islamophobia as the flip side of anti-Semitism. I shudder when I see members of my government targeting “the Muslim community” as a whole.

    I do want to make one suggestion/correction to your article. You seem to imply in paragraph 6 that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is about anti-Zionism. However, it also speaks directly about Jews without connection to the modern movement of Zionism. I think the word “Zion” in the title refers not to that modern movement but to the biblical term for Jerusalem. It’s important that people should know that The Protocols is primarily anti-Judaism, not anti-Zionism.

  18. Mazhar says:
    March 30, 2011 at 12:49 am

    I am extremely grateful for the way you have presented this issue. And I am touched by your ability to speak out with the analogy of Anti-Semitism.

    I have read Quran for more than 25 years. Yes it speaks about how jews interacted
    during the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but it also speaks about polytheism,
    about christians and about muslims who accepted islam but in their heart planned against the Prophet , and they are the worst [….] If you truly understand Quran, ALLAH’s displeasure is on any one who violates his instructions and that of his Prophet…may that be a muslim even. So I agree with you that to take as all Jews are worst is actually UN-ISLAMIC.

    In fact one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad was a Jew who accepted Islam….and sometime people would say that to her (that you were Jew) and Prophet (PBUH) would show great displeasure on such people. And one of the great companions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was Abdullah-Bin-Salam (blessing of Allah be upon him), who was a jew who accepted islam. And once a funeral of Jew (who had not accepted islam) was passing by and Prophet (PBUH) stood up in respect…and some people differed and the Prophet (PBUH) said his account was with Allah and as a fellow human being he demonstrated respect on his passing away.

    I am sorry the comment became lengthy…But I really wanted to appreciate your
    approach and share mine. We need more like you on both sides to put and end
    to this cycle of hatred, blame and violence.

  19. Anand Rishi says:
    April 15, 2011 at 3:14 am

    Well, any hate campaign against any community is deplorable. Those at its receiving end must fight this menace unitedly.

    Sorry for delayed comment. I am a new comer to this very sensible blog.

  20. Rabeeh Zakaria says:
    May 5, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    As a non-radical muslim, I salute you .. We need such a balanced look

    Thank you

  21. Zack says:
    May 16, 2011 at 6:49 am

    To the author of this article.

    Great article. I have posted it everywhere.

    Keep up the good work.

    God bless your kind soul

  22. Anti-Semitism = Islamophobia - Page 11 - Political Wrinkles says:
    January 28, 2012 at 11:47 pm

    […] Posted by Coyote Source: Anti-Semitism = Islamophobia The Accidental Theologist She makes good points No kidding. Some of us know this. And nice people like you come along […]

My Father’s Daughter

Posted June 29th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Last year, summer began in Seattle at the end of April;  this year, I find myself saying, we are paying for that.

And yet, record-breakingly gloomy as it still is, I can hardly believe I’m really saying such a thing.   True, I say it half-jokingly, but that’s the problem — at least half is serious.  What do I mean by “paying for it”?    Am I implying there’s some kind of divine retribution at work, biblically cruel and vengeful?

In fact I’m not sure if I think of this strange weather as a matter of divine intervention, or climate change, or simply the way of the world.  But I do suspect I’m subject to some kind of hangover from childhood — an almost superstitious way of thinking in which one needs to be aware that every good may be balanced by bad, and nothing good can be taken for granted.

I was reminded of this by something in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book ‘Nomad‘ — an unpleasant read as it dawns on you just how reactionary her views are, starting with her constant harping on “the Muslim mind”  (replace the word Muslim with male, female, Jewish, black, gay, or any other category, and you’ll see how gross such a generalization is, let alone how absurd).    At one point, she fumes at her sister’s constantly adding “Insh-Allah” to the end of any sentence about something planned for the future.  In Hirsi Ali’s newly atheist and devoutly anti-Muslim eyes, her sister is a believing fool.

I found this fuming particularly grating because my father, a deeply observant Jew, used to do the same as Hirsi Ali’s sister, employing the identical phrase in English:  “God willing.”

Even as a child, I registered this less as a profession of faith than as one of deep insecurity.   For all his religiousness, my father clearly doubted the benignity of God’s will, as any thinking person inevitably must.   It was as though to plan for good could only tempt fate and invite the possibility of bad.  But then his own childhood — an almost Dickensian one of beatings and abandonment — had given him good reasons to mistrust the world’s capacity for kindness, let alone God’s.

Once, not long before he died, he asked me very seriously if I thought that God really exists, and the way he asked made me realize that he must have put this question to each in the series of rabbis who’d presided over the Reading Hebrew Congregation over the years, and never with any satisfactory answer.

I wish I’d said simply “I don’t know.”   Perhaps we all wish too late for greater kindness to our parents.  Instead, I ran on about the idea of God and the nature of belief and the human need for mystery — an evasive, intellectual answer that could only disappoint him.   I didn’t actually say that I thought his question simplistic, even child-like, but I must certainly have implied it.

Perhaps I was right, but so what?   In these gloomy Seattle days, I find myself adopting my father’s outlook despite myself.  God or the gods or fate is not willing.  I didn’t propitiate them.  I made the mistake of taking summer for granted.

So I find myself longing for kindness — for a kinder idea of God, a kinder childhood and a kinder daughter for my father, and right now, the kindness of summer:  the gift of warmth and sunshine and the simple enjoyment of what is.  Free. like a child, of all sense of consequence.

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File under: existence, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, belief, climate change, daughter, divine retribution, father, kindness, summer | 3 Comments
  1. Charlotte Gerlings says:
    July 1, 2010 at 3:07 am

    Hi Lesley, Sorry about your gloomy weather, sounds like what we’ve endured for the past three years on the trot. However, we’re now having a heat wave here in the south-east, which for once has coincided neatly with Wimbledon – wish you were here! Of course it won’t last, you know the old definition of an English summer: three fine days and a thunderstorm.
    But what I’m really logging on for today is to send you this item from this morning’s BBC Radio 4. Since you were on about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s harshness, I thought the attitudes of these women would be interesting to compare and contrast. It also has some bearing on your To the Slaughter thread:

    By Zubeida Malik
    Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 1 July

    A group of Muslim women from around the country will be laying a wreath at the National Memorial Arboretum to pay respects to those who have died fighting for their country, and to show support for the armed services.
    Their outward act of commemoration follows a series of Islamic extremist demonstrations at homecoming parades, which caused disruption and angered many locals and families of the troops.
    Angry scenes broke out during the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton when Muslim extremists waved banners and jeered at passing soldiers.
    Five protestors were later found guilty of using threatening or insulting words and of behaviour likely to cause distress.

    Demonstrations in Luton and Barking, and the threat of protests in Wootton Bassett, have made headlines across the world.
    But Tahmina Saleem, who lives in Luton, says she was revolted by the extremists’ actions: “You had a sensitive situation where families were welcoming home their loved ones from abroad then suddenly these images appeared of placards with very vile things written on them and I was really horrified.”
    She says the small group of extremists are trying to divide society. “They are trying to polarise people into them and us, Muslim and non-Muslim, and I’m just horrified by it,” she adds.

    Tahmina and a group of friends began talking about how they could show their support for troops. She believes there is a silent majority of Muslims who don’t speak out enough.
    ”I think that most people unfortunately do get their impressions of Islam and Muslims from the media… I think that people are happy to say that they completely disassociate themselves from extremists but its finding a voice in society to be able to do that.”
    Muslims have long served in the armed forces fighting in World War I and World War II, and on 1 July 2006, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi became the first British Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

    L/Cpl Hashmi died along with his comrade Corporal Peter Thorpe in an attack on their base. A statement at the time was issued by his commanding officer, Lt Col Steve Vickery, which described Jabron Hashmi as “enthusiastic, confident and immensely popular”.
    Group Captain Zahur Ulhaq and chairman of the Armed Forces Muslim Association (Afma) says that the presence of Muslims in the army, fighting in Muslim countries is seen as taboo and that ”generally the public doesn’t realise that there are Muslims serving and fighting and willing and prepared to die for their country.

    “We’re no different to anyone else in the armed forces whether you’re a Christian, a Jew, Hindu or a Sikh, we’re all one, we’re all one body, we’re all one family,” he says.
    He has also found this false assumption when speaking to Afghan clerics who were ”surprised, and I would use the word shocked” to find that there were Muslims within the UK armed forces fighting in Afghanistan.
    Group Captain Ulhaq works within the Muslim community to try and expel the myth and to help the community understand what the armed forces do.
    ”I think the laying of the wreath is for us a symbol of our remembrance and our solidarity for the families and the individuals both men and women who’ve sacrificed for our country over time.”

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 1, 2010 at 9:33 am

      Thanks for posting this, Charlotte. Yes, it’s amazing how people forget that the word ‘extremist’ describes someone at the extreme. And there is indeed a huge silent majority of Muslims, some believing and observant, some not, who are deeply committed to western-style democracy. What particularly interests me about Tariq Ramadan’s work — especially books like ‘Western Muslims and the Future of Islam’ — is how he directly addresses the issue of how to be both a believing Muslim and a European democrat. In fact substitute the word ‘Jew’ for ‘Muslim’ in this book and you have a pretty fair idea of discussions around my family table when I was a child in England — i.e. what it meant to be part of a small Jewish minority (worth pointing out here that only some 4% of Europeans are Muslim, despite Islamophobic anti-immigrant talk of a flood) in a hugely majority Christian country. Or simply, what it means to be a minority, and how to preserve one’s integrity and identity while participating fully in the majority culture.

  2. Pietra says:
    July 6, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    My “summers” are in the smiles of people I see and hear through the day, those I know as well as strangers.

    Your dad most certainly knew you and he asked your opinion because that’s what he wanted from a daughter he most certainly respected. As do all who know you.

    XO P

Just How Kosher Does a Muslim Intellectual Have To Be?

Posted May 3rd, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

A bonfire of vanities is breaking out in the American political punditry about one single Muslim.   Not a terrorist, but a European intellectual — scholar and activist Tariq Ramadan, the Oxford professor who argues that Islam has a positive, ethical contribution to make to Western culture, and who was named one of the top innovators of the 21st century on the impeccably non-radical Time.com.

Fresh fuel for the fire comes from The Flight of the Intellectuals, a new book accusing American and European intellectuals of pandering to Islam, specifically to Ramadan, while ignoring signs of his extremism.

It will appear to be a splendidly principled debate, with everyone taking impassioned positions in defense of liberte, egalite, and if not fraternite, certainly sororite.   Women in Islam, that is.   As usual, male Western intellectuals get most worked up about “the question of women” in Islamic societies, thus presenting themselves as comfortably situated white knights in shining armor, armchair warriors protecting the innocent from barbarism.

It will also be a peculiarly sophomoric debate, essentially asking “who’s our Muslim intellectual?”  Is it Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose book Infidel rejected Islam outright and led to her flight for safety to the US, where she’s now at the American Enterprise Institute?  Or is it Tariq Ramadan, who has consistently argued for a “third way” blending traditional Islamic values with western democratic ones?

In books like What I Believe, Ramadan advocates greater democratic political involvement by western Muslims.  This may seem reasonable enough, but reason, for his critics, is just a mask.   His hidden agenda is an extremist one, they say;  see how he refuses to outright condemn punishing women for adultery (he only says he opposes it)  or antisemitism (oops, strike that one, he did).

In fact the language used about Ramadan has a distinctly antisemitic tint.   He’s shifty, they say;  he’s two-faced;  he hides his true loyalties — all the sort of things said about Jews in 1930s Germany.   They point to Ramadan’s “connections” (his grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, so obviously the grandson is carrying out the grandfather’s program).   So what if Ramadan is a charming and sophisticated European intellectual?  That very charm and sophistication make him suspicious.   (There’s a strong tint here of “who does he think he is?  he’s just a Muslim putting on airs”).  He has to be a fifth columnist in the ranks of naive post-Enlightenment scholars who have no idea of the treacherous and devious depths of Islamic thinking.

The ultimate insult for such critics seems to be that Ramadan is a religious man.   A pious Muslim, as they see it, cannot possibly be a liberal intellectual;  his whole argument that Islam and social democracy are not necessarily opposed can thus, ipso facto, only be false.

What they’re really saying is that the only kind of Muslim intellectual who’s acceptable is one who’s absolutely kosher.  One who, like Hirsi Ali, has renounced all ties with the demon Islam.  One who has repented, seen the error of his/her ways, and accepted the superiority of the secular.

Perhaps that’s why the bonfire:  the language, attitudes, and assumptions behind this debate all seem to me to bear the distinctly pious fervor of  Inquisition.

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File under: Islam, US politics | Tagged: Tags: accidental theologist, antisemitism, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Muslim intellectuals, Tariq Ramadan, women in Islam | 2 Comments
  1. Kitty Hoffman says:
    May 3, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    Here’s who would get my vote: Irshad Manji, young brilliant progressive intellectual Muslim…also happens to be lesbian, which led to a few death threats, or perhaps it was the combination of Muslim and feminist…
    Her very traditional Ugandan Moslem mother is one of her staunchest supporters.
    Canadian (of course, Canadians are good at combining the seemingly un-combine-able), now lives and works in the US.
    If you don’t yet know the name, you will soon; check out her writing.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 4, 2010 at 8:48 am

      Thanks Kitty. Yes, Manji’s book “The Trouble With Islam Today,” conversationally written and subtitled “a Muslim’s call for reform in her faith,” is wonderfully spirited. Ditto her website, http://www.muslim-refusenik.com. I see her as part of a western Muslim movement to liberalize Islam — one that includes, on a different level, people like Tariq Ramadan. Meanwhile very interesting work is being done by several feminist Muslim scholars, including the amazing Fatima Mernissi (“The Veil and the Male Elite”) in Morocco. Am reading Mernissi again right now, and will post on her soon.

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