Muslim Nations Condemn Sweden's Burning Of Holy Quran

This is state sanctioned Islamophobia, hate, discrimination and incitement of violence.

France's Hypocrisy Is Nauseating

~ The Audacity Of A Muslim Writing About Jesus ~

Adam Peck, of Think Progress, filed the following piece:

... host Lauren Green launched into an Islamophobic attack on Aslan’s credentials and expressed incredulity that he, a self-professed Muslim, would be able to write about Christianity in a fair and honest way.

Throughout the nearly 10 minute interview, Green inaccurately sought to portray Aslan as a religiously-motivated agitator with a hidden agenda out to discredit the very religion that he himself once practiced:

Undeterred, Green continued by reading aloud from an equally Islamophobic FoxNews.com column by John Dickerson in which he dismissed Aslan’s academic pedigree, referring to him simply as “an educated Muslim” with an “opinion” about Jesus.

Green would pivot back to Aslan’s religion at least seven more times during the interview, simply refusing to accept that a Muslim could also be an impartial scholar of Western religion.

As Aslan pointed out towards the end of his interview, many scholarly works have been written about Islam by Christian academics. Those authors, he noted, are rarely if ever asked to defend their credentials or explain why they chose to cover a religion apart from their own, certainly not on Fox News, which regularly provides a platform to hate-mongers like Pamela Geller andFrank Gaffney and passes them off as experts on Islam.

Dan Murphy, of the Christian Science Monitor had this to say:

American public discourse about Islam is filled with essentialist paranoia, fear, and the commentary of people who not only don't know much about the topic but are often dismissive of people who do.

Fox has been filled with Christian and Jewish commentators explaining Islam to their audience over the years. Daniel Pipes has been one of them. As has Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and who describes Islam as fundamentally violent and has written books attacking the faith. As have Pamela Gellerand Robert Spencer, who both describe Islam as inherently violent. In the past, it's even had conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck give long expositions of the essence of Islamic law as he sees it.

None of those people are Muslims, yet as far as I'm aware their comments have never been questioned on the network as suspect since they came from non-Muslims. 

Green, a Christian, doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong about expressing her own opinions about Islam.

She wrote in 2011: "My area is religion, not politics. So my queries about Islamic terrorism tend to break the question down theologically and ask the question:"

Green has a right to her opinions, of course. But they are ill-informed.

On her first point, while it's true that elements of the Quran have been emphasized at the expense of others by various Muslim schools and sects, that's also happened with Christianity. Elements of the Bible about slavery, the role of women, giving of alms, sexuality, and even snake handling and the speaking in tongues have been seized upon by various Christians down the centuries.

To say that Islam was spread by the sword is a gross oversimplification. While Mohamed and his followers conquered Mecca by force in 630, the earliest years of the faith were focused on peaceful proselytization. While Islamist conquests spread Islam throughout the Arab world after his death, Islam spread largely through trade and cultural contacts in strongholds of the faith like India, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

Her third point is particularly incoherent. While it's true that Islam, founded in the 7th century AD, "was introduced into a world rife with tribalism" the same is true for the advent of Christianity six hundred years earlier.

I'm interested in this topic because as someone who lived in Muslim majority countries from 1993 to 2008, I find the level of hostility to Islam back here in the US to be deeply frustrating. I have known Muslims with a wide range of political views. I have met some who I'd describe as terrorists, others whose political views, informed by their faith, I find profoundly regressive and disrespectful of fundamental individual rights – and many more who were thoughtful, open-minded and respectful of other creeds.

Yet frequently the US mass media places Muslims all in one box and it's not only inaccurate, but also harmful to a real understanding of the world and its problems.

Green presses on, quoting a Fox op-ed by Christian pastor John S. Dickerson, who wrote: "Media reports have introduced Aslan as a 'religion scholar' but have failed to mention that he is a devout Muslim."

Really? On July 16, the excellent WNYC host Brian Lehrer had Aslan on and mentioned his faith before asking the first question: "Just some background on you first. You come from Iran originally, you've been through Christianity and Sufi Islam among your personal beliefs. Are you a practicing anything today?" Aslan responded: "Yeah, I'm definitely a Muslim and Sufism is the tradition within Islam that I most closely adhere to."

I'm sure other interviews and reviews have failed to mention his faith. But, well, so what? This is a classic case of attacking the man, and not the argument.

Green appears confused – or perhaps angry about – the separation of scholarship and belief (she herself is a devout Christian who was brought up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church).

"You're promoting yourself as a scholar and I've interviewed scholars who have written books on the resurrection, on the real Jesus ... who are looking at the same information that you're saying is somehow different from theirs is really not being honest here," she charges.

Aslan answers back: "I think it's unfair to just simply assume because of my particular faith background that there is some agenda on this book – that would be like saying a Christian who writes about Muhammad is by definition not able to do so because he has some bias against it."

Green responds: "I believe you've been on several programs and have never disclosed that you're a Muslim and I think that there's an interest in full disclosure." 

To that he said: "Ma'am, the second page of my book, the second page of my books says I'm a Muslim ... it's simply incorrect that media isn't saying I'm a Muslim."

How Can We Ban Hate Speech Against Jews While Defending Mockery Of Muslims?

Jews have too much influence over U.S. foreign policy. Gay men are too promiscuous. Muslims commit too much terrorism. Blacks commit too much crime.

Each of those claims is poorly stated. Each, in its clumsy way, addresses a real problem or concern. And each violates laws against hate speech. In much of what we call the free world, for writing that paragraph, I could be jailed.

Libertarians, cultural conservatives, and racists have complained about these laws for years. But now the problem has turned global. Islamic governments, angered by an anti-Muslim video that provoked protests and riots in their countries, are demanding to know why insulting the Prophet Mohammed is free speech but vilifying Jews and denying the Holocaust isn’t. And we don’t have a good answer.

If we’re going to preach freedom of expression around the world, we have to practice it. We have to scrap our hate-speech laws.

Muslim leaders want us to extend these laws. At the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, they lobbied for tighter censorship. Egypt’s president said freedom of expression shouldn’t include speech that is “used to incite hatred” or “directed towards one specific religion.” Pakistan’s president urged the “international community” to “criminalize” acts that “endanger world security by misusing freedom of expression.” Yemen’s president called for “international legislation” to suppress speech that “blasphemes the beliefs of nations and defames their figures.” The Arab League’s secretary-general proposed a binding “international legal framework” to “criminalize psychological and spiritual harm” caused by expressions that “insult the beliefs, culture and civilization of others."

This debate between East and West, between respect and pluralism, isn’t a crisis. It’s a stage of global progress. The Arab spring has freed hundreds of millions of Muslims from the political retardation of dictatorship. They’re taking responsibility for governing themselves and their relations with other countries. They’re debating one another and challenging us. And they should, because we’re hypocrites.

From Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Nigeria to the United Kingdom, Muslimsscoff at our rhetoric about free speech. They point to European laws against questioning the Holocaust. Monday on CNN, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad needled British interviewer Piers Morgan: 

“Why in Europe has it been forbidden for anyone to conduct any research about this event? Why are researchers in prison? … Do you believe in the freedom of thought and ideas, or no?” On Tuesday, Pakistan’s U.N. ambassador, speaking for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, told the U.N. Human Rights Council:

We are all aware of the fact that laws exist in Europe and other countries which impose curbs, for instance, on anti-Semitic speech, Holocaust denial, or racial slurs. We need to acknowledge, once and for all, that Islamophobia in particular and discrimination on the basis of religion and belief are contemporary forms of racism and must be dealt with as such. Not to do so would be a clear example of double standards. Islamophobia has to be treated in law and practice equal to the treatment given to anti-Semitism.

He’s right. Laws throughout Europe forbid any expression that “minimizes,” “trivializes,” “belittles,” “plays down,” “contests,” or “puts in doubt” Nazi crimes. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic extend this prohibition to communist atrocities. These laws carry jail sentences of up to five years. Germany adds two years for anyone who “disparages the memory of a deceased person.”

Hate speech laws go further. Germany punishes anyone found guilty of “insulting” or “defaming segments of the population.” The Netherlands bans anything that “verbally or in writing or image, deliberately offends a group of people because of their race, their religion or beliefs, their hetero- or homosexual orientation or their physical, psychological or mental handicap.” It’s illegal to “insult” such a group in France, to “defame” them in Portugal, to “degrade” them in Denmark, or to “expresses contempt” for them in Sweden. In Switzerland, it’s illegal to “demean” them even with a “gesture.” Canada punishes anyone who “willfully promotes hatred.” The United Kingdom outlaws “insulting words or behavior” that arouse “racial hatred.” Romania forbids the possession of xenophobic “symbols.”

What have these laws produced? Look at the convictions upheld or accepted by the European Court of Human Rights. Four Swedes who distributed leaflets that called homosexuality “deviant” and “morally destructive” and blamed it for AIDS. An Englishman who displayed in his window a 9/11 poster proclaiming, “Islam out of Britain.” A Turk whopublished two letters from readers angry at the government’s treatment of Kurds. A Frenchman who wrote an article disputing the plausibility of poison gas technology at a Nazi concentration camp.

Look at the defendants rescued by the court. A Dane “convicted of aiding and abetting the dissemination of racist remarks” for making a documentary in which three people “made abusive and derogatory remarks about immigrants and ethnic groups.” A man “convicted of openly inciting the population to hatred” in Turkey by “criticizing secular and democratic principles and openly calling for the introduction of Sharia law.” Another Turkish resident “convicted of disseminating propaganda” after he “criticized the United States’ intervention in Iraq and the solitary confinement of the leader of a terrorist organization.” Two Frenchmen who wrote a newspaper article that “portrayed Marshal Pétain in a favorable light, drawing a veil over his policy of collaboration with the Nazi regime.”

Beyond the court’s docket, you’ll find more prosecutions of dissent. A Swedish pastor convicted of violating hate-speech laws by preaching against homosexuality. A Serbconvicted of discrimination for saying, “We are against every gathering where homosexuals are demonstrating in the streets of Belgrade and want to show something, which is a disease, like it is normal.” An Australian columnist convicted of violating the Racial Discrimination Act by suggesting that “there are fair-skinned people in Australia with essentially European ancestry … who, motivated by career opportunities available to Aboriginal people or by political activism, have chosen to falsely identify as Aboriginal.”

My favorite case involves a Frenchman who sought free-speech protection under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights:

Denis Leroy is a cartoonist. One of his drawings representing the attack on the World Trade Centre was published in a Basque weekly newspaper … with a caption which read: “We have all dreamt of it ... Hamas did it”. Having been sentenced to payment of a fine for “condoning terrorism”, Mr Leroy argued that his freedom of expression had been infringed.

The Court considered that, through his work, the applicant had glorified the violent destruction of American imperialism, expressed moral support for the perpetrators of the attacks of 11 September, commented approvingly on the violence perpetrated against thousands of civilians and diminished the dignity of the victims. Despite the newspaper’s limited circulation, the Court observed that the drawing’s publication had provoked a certain public reaction, capable of stirring up violence and of having a demonstrable impact on public order in the Basque Country. The Court held that there had been no violation of Article 10.

How can you justify prosecuting cases like these while defending cartoonists and video makers who ridicule Mohammed? You can’t. Either you censor both, or you censor neither. Given the choice, I’ll stand with Obama. “Efforts to restrict speech,” he warned the U. N., “can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.”

That principle, borne out by the wretched record of hate-speech prosecutions, is worth defending. But first, we have to live up to it.

Via: "Slate"