Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Hate Crimes Against Muslims: Man Bites Dog

Commentary by walford

Man Who Allegedly Attacked Taxi Driver Arraigned On Hate Crime Charges

This is a man-bites-dog story; it is big news because it's so rare.

Yes, a small percentage of practicing Muslims commit acts of terrorism. An even smaller percentage of practitioners of any other religion, spiritual system or non-religion deliberately targets civilians for the purposes of intimidating them to pressure their leaders to change policies to accommodate what is in practice an expansionist political ideology.

Let us consider some Venn Diagrams to create:
  • Proportion of terrorist acts by non-Muslims vs. Muslims.
  • Proportion of how many times a Muslim is attacked for his faith vs. a Muslim attacking someone for HIS faith being characterized as a "hate crime" by the media and prosecuted as such by Western governments.
  • Proportion of Muslims deliberately attacked by other Muslims vs. those perpetrated by non-Muslims.
  • Proportion of responsibility given to Westerners who accidentally kill Muslim non-combatants because terrorists are hiding behind them vs. responsibility cast upon their co-religionists who hide behind them.
  • Proportion of Western media attention paid to Muslims killed by non-Muslims vs Muslims.
  • Proportion of Western media attention paid to such practices as honor killings, female genital mutilations, stonings, lashings, forced child marriages by Muslims in their own countries and in the West vs. how much they actually happen.
  • Proportion of Western media attention paid to such practices as hangings, stonings, lashings against homosexuals by Muslims in their own countries and in the West vs. how much they actually happen.
  • Proportion of how many times Muslims and their Western apologists qualify condemnation of terrorism with blame upon the West vs. the number of times they condemn it outright.
  • Proportion of times mainstream Muslims condemn terrorists who cite Allah as justifying their acts as blasphemy vs. number of times they keep silent.
  • Proportion of accommodation Islam gets in the West vs. the amount any other religion gets in any predominantly Muslim country.
  • Proportion of accommodation Muslims expect in Western countries vs. the amount of adjustment they are willing to make [e.g., not murdering their daughters who insist upon determining whom they marry] to the host culture.

3 comments:

  1. Since I am anonymous here, I can say something that I would otherwise not be able to. (You know who I am and that I am doing this to avoid my "real" writing :-), but you won't tell on me.)

    I am in no way shape or form a fan of Islam, even when it is practiced "peacefully." It holds that women are, by God's will, less than women. And it is pretty un-flexible about that. Even the liberal Islamic faith is pretty anti-women.

    We SHOULD be having a conversation about sanctions on countries that are Islamic and about limiting what Islamic organizations can do in this country. We are morally obligated to do so. We cannot allow Islamic countries to continue enslaving half of their population without us even saying "we wish you wouldn't."

    We do not challenge the hideous social injustices of Islamic countries because we do not want to violate freedom of religion. We forget that human rights are not up for negotiation or for religious determination. To be clear, no religion should be allowed to take away the human rights of anyone. We did not allow religion as an excuse for continuing segregation or apartheid. Yet we allow it as an excuse in Islamic nations.

    We need to have a very, very serious conversation in our country about religious liberty, what a group should be allowed to do in the name of that religious liberty and about how much religion should be allowed to control our *own* government.

    We need to be talking about the very good points that you raise in your post. But making them in the mosque-debate cheapens them. Your list is right: you demonstrate that we are upset about something much bigger than an old retail building. We are frightened by theocracy. We are worried about a religion which even when practiced peacefully, creates a society of severe injustice.

    But instead of having a conversation which starts with "we do not acknowledge the right of a religion to deprive humans of their basic rights" we engaged in crazy talk. We should all be worried about this alleged hate-crime, and about those who are threatening to burn the Koran, because no real discussion can happen if those who need to say something “risky” like the first line of this paragraph are being drowned out by or lumped in with a bunch of hysterical idiots who are making us all look like racists and xenophobes. We are better than that.

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  2. It is telling indeed that some of us feel constrained in our self-expression when dealing with this subject.

    Thank you for a thoughtful post.

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  3. Well, in all fairness, I also could not say anything bad about Baptists or Scientologists in a public forum. My work requires that I not make public statement denouncing any religion.

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