Muslims are dangerous. That's the bipartisan message of the day. That Muslims around the world can be provoked into violent range by the burning of the Quran is a belief unquestioned by both liberals and conservatives.
President Obama said the conflagration would be a "recruitment bonanza." Sarah Pain said on her Facebook page that "It will feed the fire of caustic rhetoric." Robert Gibbs said, "there is no doubt that this has the potential to set back our ability to keep our soldiers safe, our abilities to keep our country safe."
Let's unpack this. What all these voices are saying is that Terry Jones -- this loony minister in Florida with something like 50 followers -- is capable of unleashing an unpredictable but inevitable cascade of violence. There is unanimity around those dire consequences.
This also means there is unanimity around a stereotype. The characterization of Muslims as unable to distinguish between a few headline-hungry, angry, spiritually vacant Floridians, and the rest of the country is, apparently, a universal portrait.
Essentially, President Obama and Sarah Palin are saying that the world is full of dangerous Muslims; on one hand, recruiters who see Jones as a heaven-sent marketing hook, and on the other, terrorist candidates, who have so much burning hatred of America that this could push them from seething bystanders to the next IED-carrier, or underwear bomber.
The American political establishment is in lockstep. They have made it clear that there are enough members of the Muslim community who either hate America -- or who are so primitive that they cannot determine whether or not Terry Jones is an outlier or a representative of American culture -- that they pose a real and present danger our troops.
If this were not the case, then we would hear President Obama saying that he condemns the threatened burning of the Quran, but he is confident that Muslims around the world will recognize that it is a despicable act of one man, and in no way represents America and the American way of life.
But no one is saying anything remotely like that. The implicit agreement is that Muslim antipathy is a lit fuse, and we need to do everything we can do avoid ignition.
In 2002, the American journalist Danny Pearl was kidnapped by terrorists in Pakistan and beheaded. The video was circulated on the Internet. At the time, there was no pressure on the terrorists, no outcry in the Muslim community or among Muslim leaders to release Danny Pearl unharmed. There were no dire warnings that if Pearl was killed, it would be provoke violence against Pakistanis and other Muslims, that it would be a recruiting bonanza for Jewish terrorist groups seeking to perpetrate violence.
The Muslim community relied upon our ability to distinguish. That's just one example; there is no shortage of others. There is clearly no fear within the Muslim community that outrageous acts on their part -- violent or symbolic -- will provoke a sweeping American response against Muslims. That's because -- rhetoric aside -- Muslim leaders recognize that despite limited and inexcusable acts of violence of vandalism in this country, for the most part our culture has brakes.
President Obama and Sarah Palin worry that the Muslim community has no brakes. If they thought only a handful of isolated reactions to the Quran burning might occur, they wouldn't be responding as the Doublemouth Twins.
Back in the 90s, Samuel Huntington wrote a controversial book called Clash of Civilizations, in which, among other dialectics, he described the world as being threatened by a war between Islam and Western values. The events of 9/11 re-focused attention on Huntington, and he was both lauded for his prescience and attacked for his stereotyped and one-dimensional view of the world.
For me, the most troubling part of the Terry Jones debacle is the fact that a two-bit minister's "stunt" -- as Obama called it -- can escalate into a massive global media firestorm, in which there is undisputed agreement that one stupid thing can provoke many really bad things.
Despite the millions that we've spent on improving America's image through the pathetic efforts of the Office of Public Diplomacy, despite Obama's speech in Cairo, and despite many, many other initiatives, America is held in such low esteem that everyone recognizes the potential that one jerk in Florida can create.
Whether Terry Jones goes through with his ugly idea or not, that's the ugly truth that no one has the courage to be talking about.
Follow Adam Hanft on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hanft
I apologize in advance if your opinion was satirical.
And while it's true that some Muslims around the world can be provoked into violent rage by the burning of the Quran, it is also true that some Americans can be provoked into violent rage by the election of a black man to the Presidency of the United States. That does not make all Muslims terrorists any more than it makes all Americans racist bigots.
Anyways, your article is devoid reality. Of course, there are moderate Muslims who know the difference between one man's acts and the acts of an entire culture. However, their voice is really quiet compared to those of the uneducated or fanatical Muslims. I think this whole thing in Florida has been blown way out of proportion which you have the media and promonent officials in Washington to thank for that.
There is no Park 51 project turning dirt yet...and people are protesting it as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/world/asia/11afghan.html
http://www.juancole.com/
Many are captives to the 'leadership' of those organizations/ sects! Painting with a broad brush is not helpful--We must not crucify the many for the sins of a few! Education is the cure!
TAKE A LOOK AND REMEMBER
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1993321/posts
I found it stunning that our president, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, would declare to the world that one man burning a book thousands of miles away from the front could result in harm to our men and women in uniform. If I were a member of the military, I'd be aghast at this. I cannot understand why no one sees that making such statements could legitimize retaliation where it seemed absurd beforehand, and that the self-serving grandstanding of Obama and Palin could cause more harm than the burning itself.
For my part, I am sick of religion and religions, all of them. I'm sick of people getting together, ostensibly in the name of this or that deity and belief system and reinterpreting their holy books to justify rampant materialsm or cultural intolerance or genocide or whatever serves their needs. What's called religion today is often something very different, but instead of addressing the perversion of faith and recognizing it as something that is closer to politics than religion, the santimonious left puff condemnation on the confusion, and the right gets it wrong again and again.
plus it is ridiculous to do this what does it accomplish?
There is no equivalence between Jones' planned act and the violent acts of extremists. Jones - regardless of what his views may be - is not the villain here. It is those who threaten violence in response, even indiscriminate violence against all Americans, who should be the target of outrage.
very true
he is still not wise to promote his act
first of all, sarah palin is a non-entity. nothing she says is of any value, so lets just leave her out of this. 5 minutes ago she was defending dr. laura. palin's views don't count.
regarding what obama said- he said this event will be a recruiting tool for the terrorists. yes it will. the terrorists will try to use this as a reason to tell people that america has waged war on muslims. these are people in a war torn country we're talking about here, they don't have access to t.v. or newspapers. they don't know what america is really like. it makes the situation easier for the taliban and the likes to manipulate.
as for the other billion plus muslims, we're all here and we're watching this unfold. 1.65 billion of us are not doing anything, even though a couple thousand may have rioted in afghanistan, that's not even a fraction of a percent of us. we're just trying to enjoy our christmas (eid) and let this all blow over. trust me, if we were dangerous, you would know it. one out of every 7 people in the world would be rioting right now. we're just let down and disappointed and trying to go on with our lives.
And there's the rub: every single Muslim American I know is decidedly three-dimensional (and, did I mention, American?). As I write this, I am scarcely a half-mile from the Islamic Center in my small Appalachian city. Its members are for the most part the professionals we encounter on a daily basis: doctors, pharmacists, university faculty--and their identities within our community are less a product of their faith than our interaction with them. May we continue to be so fortunate.
One point eight billion Muslims do not a monolith make.
(Tangentially, I must ask: "Sarah Pain said..." Typo or Freudian slip?)
We won't be in any more danger than we already are. Lets face it, 9-11 was unprovoked, as was the first WTC attack.
Our enemies are at war with us whether we like it or not and nothing we do or not do will change that.
Giving up our freedoms will do nothing more than stifle critical discussions about the root cause of this war of ideology, also known as Jihad.
It would also embolden our self declared enemies to attack us more because it will be viewed as weakness.
Tell me where is my history is incorrect.