Posts Tagged ‘Muslims’
April 4, 2011
Anti-Muslim prejudice is hurting America at home and abroad: at home because it divides Americans from each other and hurts our Muslim citizens, and abroad because it signals to many of the world’s billion Muslims that America is their enemy. Sometimes it leads directly to anti-American savagery, like last week’s murders in Afghanistan over the burning of the Quran by a deranged Christian pastor.
The prejudice can take root and spread because too many non-Muslim Americans know too little about their Muslim countrymen, or, indeed, about Islam. Katie Couric recently proposed, apparently in all seriousness, that to combat bigotry against Muslims, “Maybe we need a Muslim version of The Cosby Show.”
Faisal Abdul Rauf, imam of the make-shift mosque now holding prayers 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero in New York, is doing his part to contribute to inter-faith understanding. Last year he authored What’s Right with Islam is What’s Right With America, called by the Christian Science Monitor “An invigorating glimpse into the heart and mind of a wise Muslim seeking the higher ground.” Now he’s published a column in the Washington Post called Five myths about Muslims in America. The five myths are:
- American Muslims are foreigners.
- American Muslims are ethnically, culturally and politically monolithic.
- American Muslims oppress women.
- American Muslims often become “homegrown” terrorists
- American Muslims want to bring sharia law to the United States
The column is easy reading. If you care one way or the other about Muslims in America, I urge you to read this short article.
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Tags:Afghanistan murders, anti-Muslim prejudice, burning of the Quran, Christian Science Monitor, ethics, Faisal Abdul Rauf, Five myths about Muslims in America, Ground Zero mosque, Katie Couric, Muslim Americans, Muslims, prejudice, The Cosby Show, Washington Post, What's Right with Islam
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
January 20, 2011
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley apologized—sort of—for his Martin Luther King, Jr day speech, in which he appeared to embrace fellow evangelicals as “my brothers and my sisters,” but to exclude everybody else.
The Associated Press reports that Bentley met for an hour with members of Alabama’s Jewish community and afterward told reporters he meant no insult with his words.
“What I would like to do is apologize. Should anyone who heard those words and felt disenfranchised, I want to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ If you’re not a person who can say you are sorry, you’re not a very good leader,” Bentley said.
Bentley’s apology seems to have been agreeably received by local Jewish and Muslim leaders, but it would have been better had he regretted what he said rather than that some people “felt disenfranchised” upon hearing it.
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Tags:Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, apology, Associated Press, ethics, evangelicals, Jews, Muslims
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
January 18, 2011
Alabama’s Governor Robert Bentley gave a rousing Martin Luther King, Jr day speech at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the late civil rights leader once was pastor. He told Alabamians that it was important ”that we love and care for each other.” He went on to proclaim, ”I think that Dr. Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men that has ever lived.”
Bentley said that even though he was a Republican he was governor of all the people. Except…maybe…
“There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.”
”Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”
Bentley later explained, ”We’re not trying to insult anybody.” Not trying, but succeeding.
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Tags:Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, anti-Semitism, atheists, Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, ethics, Hindus, Holy Spirit, Islamophobia, Jews, Jr day speech, Martin Luther King, Muslims
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Religion, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
August 23, 2010
Racial and religious prejudice and defamation will always be with us, although they are growing less acceptable socially. Call someone a nigger or dago or spic or kike and you’re out of the game. Write about how Jews control the banks and the media, or how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has destroyed our schools and nice people will come down hard on you. But these same nice people have no such compunctions about spreading hateful misinformation about Muslims.
I got such an email just this morning, from a very nice person. It’s subject line was “Life is a Journey, Not a guided tour,” and it forwarded something called “Jihad watch, Islam Explained in Layman’s terms.”
I’m uncomfortable repeating the vile race-hatred but people need to see what’s circulating virally on the internet and through our society. So here are some of the “explanations,” quotes truncated but—I promise—all in context:
- “Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components…
- “Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges…
- “As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority…
- “At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and (more…)
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Tags:Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dearborn, ethics, Homeland Security . Fort Hood, Indonesia, Islamization, Jews, Jihad watch, Life is a Journey, Muslims, Obama, Racial and religious prejudice, Turkey
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
August 18, 2010
Some days ethics backs you into a corner. You have to choose between doing what your inner voice is saying is right—or not. That day is here for President Obama.
He made a stirring statement about religious freedom last Friday at a Ramadan dinner. The next day he equivocated: “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
Score a miss for Presidential leadership. His conflicting statements poured fuel on the burning controversy.
· Americans generally believe Muslims have a right to worship, just not there.
· One and one-half billion Muslims thought America was a land of religious freedom, not at war with Islam, but aren’t certain.
· Manhattanites mostly think people ought to be able to do whatever they want.
· Families of 9/11 victims are divided
You can’t please everybody, Mr. President. Time to do the right thing. But what is the right thing? Should a Muslim community center-cum-prayer area be built on the site of a decrepit ex-Burlington Coat Factory, hard by an Off-Track Betting parlor, a bar, a porn shop, and some run-down office buildings 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero?
The opponents say it’s a matter of respecting sensitivities of people who lost loved ones on 9/11. (more…)
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Tags:9/11 families, Burlington Coat Factory, ethics, Ground Zero, Islam, mosque, Muslim community center, Muslims, President Obama, Presidential leadership, Ramadan, religious freedom
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
August 9, 2010
I came home from my tenth grade history class and announced, “Today we learned about the fall of Christian Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans, and what a tragedy it was.” My father corrected me; “Not for the Jews, it wasn’t.” He went on to explain that the Ottoman Sultan, Beyazit I, in 1492 invited all the Jews of Spain, just expelled by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, to come live in peace in the Ottoman Empire, then the world’s most powerful. Thousands did, and lived peacefully and prosperously there for centuries, to this day.
Jews and Muslims have gotten on well for most of the time since the days of Mohammed, who honored Jews as “people of the book.” It’s easy today, looking at the enmity between Israel and some of her neighbors, to forget that Jewish culture thrived as never before or since in the “golden age of Jewish culture” in Muslim-ruled Spain, or that the Muslim Beyazit rescued the Jews of Spain and Portugal. Even the Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Middle East is over land, not religion.
So it’s nice to see so many Jews standing up for the rights of American Muslims to build Cordoba House, a community center with prayer area, 2-1/2 blocks from New York’s Ground Zero. NBC News reported, “Jewish Leaders Gather to Support Ground Zero Mosque.”
And Washington’s Jewish Week criticized the position of the Anti-Defamation League (more…)
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Tags:1492, Anti-Defamation League, Cordoba House, expulsion of Jews from Spain, fall of Constantinople, golden age of Jewish culture, Israel, Jerrold Nadler, Jewish Community Center of Manhattan, Jewish Leaders, Jews, Michael Bloomberg, Mohammed, mosque at Ground Zero, Muslims, Ottoman Empire, Ottomans, people of the book, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Scott Stringer, Shalom Center, Sultan Beyazit I, Washington Jewish Week
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
July 22, 2010
I feel for Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who has devoted his life to building bridges between Islam and the West, and is now leading the effort to build a mosque in New York 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero. When I was nine years old I learned to defend myself against bullies who beat me up because I had killed Christ. I didn’t know what the accusation meant, but I knew I was being picked on because I was Jewish, and I’d better learn to fight off these guys.
Most of the opposition to the mosque is because Imam Rauf killed 3000 Americans on 9/11. Or if he didn’t personally do it, his people (“they”) did it. Just as everybody is connected within six degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon, all Muslims are connected within six degrees to some terrorist. Or to someone who gave money to a charity that gave money to terrorists. Or who has a cousin who once said that Hamas had a point.
In the 1950s Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee tarred innocents with guilt by association. Today’s haters don’t even need association to make their accusations, they just need something within six degrees of separation.
Thursday’s New York Times has a good analysis by Robert Wright of the accusations against Imam Rauf, (more…)
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Tags:9/11, anti-Semitism, Bill of Rights, Bin Laden, ethics, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Geopolitics, Ground Zero, guilt by association, Hamas, House Un-American Activities Committee, Kevin Bacon, mosque, Muslims, New York Times, Robert Wright, Senator Joe McCarthy, six degrees of separation
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
May 27, 2010
First the good news: The New York Times reports that a Manhattan community board voted 29-1, with ten abstentions, to approve a proposed Muslin community center two blocks from Ground Zero. The board’s vote is advisory, but the Times notes that the vote is a measure of community sentiment. Score one for New Yorkers and one for tolerance.
And the bad news: A Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut voters showed only 33 percent were less likely to vote for Richard Blumenthal after he lied about serving as a Marine in Vietnam. Sixty-one percent said it doesn’t make a difference. And some indecipherable four percent said they were more likely to vote for him because of his lie. Sadly, 54 percent bought Blumenthal’s claim that he merely misspoke about his military service, while only 38 percent said he lied. Thumbs down for Connecticut.
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Tags:Blumenthal, Connecticut, Connecticut voters, Connecticuters., Ground Zero, lies, Manhattan community board, Marines, military service, misspoke, Muslim community center, Muslims, New York City, New Yorkers, Quinnipiac poll, The New York Times., tolerance, Vietnam
Posted in Ethics-general, military, Politics, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
May 12, 2010
Some Americans are up in arms over the prospect of a big new synagogue in the old Burlington Coat Factory site near Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on 9/11. There’s even a Facebook page called “1,000,000+ people who disapprove of building a synagogue at Ground Zero!” It has 20,389 members, up from about 7,000 two days ago. The word is spreading virally on the internet, and people are thronging to the site to sign up.
The site’s self-description reads,
Jews want to put a SYNAGOGUE WITHIN 600 FEET “GROUND ZERO”! This page’s opinion is this synagogue is a symbol of conquering America; they could have put it somewhere else away from Ground Zero – hallowed ground – but they chose this spot for a reason.
Join us, and show America – and the Jewish world – that is an insult, and cannot stand!
This groups is NOT about attacking Judaism or Jews; it’s about the appropriateness of putting such a building in that location. Also, Obama has nothing to do with it; if you want to blame someone, blame Mayor Bloomberg – he approved of it.
The man leading the effort to build the synagogue is Rabbi Frank Rubenstein, who explained to The New York Times, “We want the world to know we condemn 9/11. In my congregation are many people who died on 9/11.” The Times described the rabbi as following a path of Judaism focused more on spiritual wisdom (more…)
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Tags:"1, 000, 000+ people who disapprove of building a mosque at Ground Zero!", 9/11, American Muslims, anti-Semitism, Burlington Coat Factory, Christian Science Monitor, Facebook, Ground Zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, mosque, Muslims, New York Times, What’s Right with Islam, World Trade Center
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Tolerance | 6 Comments »
Anti-Muslim prejudice is hurting America at home and abroad: at home because it divides Americans from each other and hurts our Muslim citizens, and abroad because it signals to many of the world’s billion Muslims that America is their enemy. Sometimes it leads directly to anti-American savagery, like last week’s murders in Afghanistan over the burning of the Quran by a deranged Christian pastor.
Ethics Bob 