Sunday morning bigotry
Yesterday morning’s edition of “This Week” featured a panel debate about Islam that can fairly be described as horrific. The very framing of the discussion, titled “Should America Be Afraid of Islam,” carries a negative slant toward Muslims, and the guest list was laden with extremists who do not reflect mainstream opinion. It featured not only Franklin Graham, who has called Islam an “evil” and “wicked” religion, but also a Muslim radical who claimed that the “flag of Islam” would one day fly over the White House.
Here’s author Reza Aslan rebuking Graham for indicting Muslims in general for extremist violence:
The transcript:
GRAHAM: … I disagree, Christiane, with — with the Sharia law, because they do stone women. They do imprison — I — I’ve worked in the Sudan, where they’ve burned over a thousand churches — a thousand.
ASLAN: Who is they? I mean Azar Nafisi said something very important. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. It is unquestionably the most diverse, the most eclectic religion in the history of the world. This concept of just using this word “they” to describe one-and-a-half billion people is actually the definition of bigotry.
This goes back to something we discussed a little while back, which is the reality that collective guilt is behind much of the rising anti-Muslim sentiment in this America. The actions of Muslim group A is cited as a basis for hostility toward Muslims in general. Why else would the burning of churches in Sudan be used in a discussion about Islam in America? This form of argument is not only fundamentally illogical, it is considered beyond the pale of civil discourse when applied to any other group.