Today, Dean Obeidallah, wrote an article on CNN.com. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/13/obeidallah.loughner.muslims/index.html?hpt=T2) In it, he asks what the reaction to the shooting in Tucson would have been like had the shooter, Jared Loughner, been a Muslim. It is a valid question to ask, given how people in this country have reacted to incidents involving Muslims (like the Fort Hood shootings) and those which were suspected to have Muslim perpetrators but turned out not to (like the Oklahoma City bombings). It is also a well written argument, and clearly not out of left field. That is not to say that it should be accepted as gospel. There is plenty of room for logical and well thought out difference of opinion. If the comments posted after the piece are any indication, however, it is space that remains empty. The responses typify what too often passes for dialogue in this country.
First we have the insults. Way too often, our response to something we disagree with is to insult the author. “I'm going over to slate dot com to read something intelligent by Christopher Hitchens. The writer of this article is an embarrassment to all molecules.” “What an idiotic work of ill logic this article is.” “You are an idiot...the sad part is..CNN paid u for this pathetic commentary.” Insults like these belong on the playground at your local elementary school, or maybe on sports talk radio. They do not belong anywhere near an intelligent discussion of pressing issues. Insults make it harder to have real discussions, real differences of opinion, and real solutions to real problems.
Second, one step up from insults, we have the baseless accusations. Racism, socialism, Marxism, Communism, liberalism, paganism, and barbarism are all isms that might appear in such an accusation. In response to Obeidallah, there was a: “What a racist article.” This did not surprise me at all, I mean it is obvious how a Muslim talking about his fears of the reaction to another Muslim ‘terrorist’ attack is racism. It would need to be obvious, because accusations like these never come with much in the way of explanation.
Next to racism, the next most popular baseless accusation is the self centeredness accusation. If you stick up for yourself or your group, you might be labeled as ‘self centered.’ “Just like Sarah Palin the Muslims in this country thinks the world revolves around them. They are self centered and arrogant. Guess what we are sick of seeing, hearing, and everything being wrapped up about you. The first thought in my mind was how terrible. My suggestion is get over yourself.” Rather than address the author’s fears, this person decides to dismiss and ridicule them. Rather than address the argument, this person attacks the author of the article.
Third, we have what we will charitably refer to as poor and insensitive attempts at humor. “Muslims would make it worse than this.” “If he were a Muslim, there'd be a lot more people dead from the explosion and he'd be burning in hell wondering where his virgins were.” “Sheesh..if he were a Muslim, he would have blown himself up. Everyone knows that.” “No dude, religion IS a mental illness.” If this were a stand up comedy show, these would just be bad attempts at humor. In a discussion about the country’s reaction to the killing of six people, it seems to be a little more than just bad taste.
Fourth we have assertions that are completely unsupported, and, wonder of wonders, are almost always untrue. This is a big grab bag kind of category, and I list a number of examples. The thing to remember about all of them, is that they do nothing to further dialogue. They aren’t meant to further dialogue. This is more about people wanting to hear themselves speak.
“Muslims have a history of doing crap like this, and have pledged to continue in the name of Islam. Unlike this guy, they belong to a well-organized group of people who's end goal is to commit acts of violence.” Yes, one of the world’s major religions is just an organized attempt to commit violence. That sounds logical.
“Here is what the article does not say. More than 90% of the wars in this world are either Muslim against Muslim or Muslim against others.” First of all, this can’t be true. I can think of quite a few conflicts over the last hundred years that have nothing to do with Muslims. Some examples would include: civil war in Liberia, civil war in Sierra Leone, a whole host of conflicts over the last 100 or more years in Southern Africa, genocide in Rwanda, every conflict in South East Asia since Vietnam, violence involving the Basques in Spain, IRA activity, the CONTRAS, Columbia, North and South Korea, Tibet, … and I could keep going. Second, even if every conflict involves Muslims, so what. That fact, by itself, would be meaningless. What do the attempted genocide in Bosnia and the Iran Iraq war have in common other than the fact that Muslims were involved? This comment is hard to label as anything other than stupidity.
“That's because when a non-Muslim commits such a crime, THE MOTIVE WAS NOT RELIGIOUS.” What about the bombing of abortion clinics?
“I already covered that point. Its like if a KKK member would have done the shooting and gotten criticism for it. The KKK has already EARNED a name for itself. Just like Islam.” So know Muslims are like Clan members? Really?
Finally we have the least offensive category. Honestly mistaken people, who listen to arguments others make. These folks are often just guilty of generalizing a little too much. I found one example of this. The person was generally positive about the article, but prefaced her remarks with: “I’'m a feminist so I'm no fan of Islam ....“ The idea is that Islam is, by definition, oppressive of women. The reality, of course, is nowhere near so simple. To go into a discussion with such a vast over-simplification of Islam leading the way is not a good way to have a fruitful discussion about Islam and/or with Muslims.
Our political dialogue needs to be better than this. We must do better than this. More importantly, all of us can do better than this. It is time that we started doing it.
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