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Anti-islamic feeling on the riseThe WaPo reports: [A] poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.At the risk of turning into DailyKos - well, duh! I think most people were and are smart enough to separate islam from Al Queda, just as most people are smart enough not to see Fred Phelps as being representative of Christianity. People understood that islam was not responsible for 9/11, and they very properly conflated it with terrorists, not muslims. But in the last couple of months, a very large number of muslims have taken to the streets to demonstrate how closed-minded, intolerant and frankly gullible they are, in light of some frankly not-that-offensive cartoons in a minor newspaper in a small European country; is it really that much of a shock that this has negatively affected people's opinion? Now, one of the first calls I made on September 11th was to an acquaintance from Lebanon, because my immediate thought was "oh crap, this is going to get pinned on muslims and islam." For the most part, it turned out that I was wrong: most people exercised good sense, and realized that the vast majority, practically the entirety, of muslims joined with everyone else in saying "this was a monstrous act by a few nut jobs." And likewise, I think people are smart enough to see the insurgency for what it is, a bunch of power-hungry proto-fascists who aren't so much attempting to create an islamic republic as they are trying to put themselves at the head of it. But "cartoongate" is an entirely different matter: it is an apparently sizable and popular series of protests against a core American liberty, free speech. We are seeing a large number of muslims basically protesting against the very freedom they are exercising by protesting. Frankly, I would be lying if I said my impression of them as a group hadn't suffered, if for no reason better than the seeming incapacity of these folks to see what dupes their leaders are playing them for. As Judge Kozinski once put it, the parties are advised to chill. I posted a similar "duh!!" comment over at my spot. My question on the cartoons has always been: If they're not allowed to produce caricatures or likeness's of the Prophet, what was their basis for recognizing the cartoons as of the Prophet. Congrats on the TO quote. If it were me, that'd be a reason to issue and mass mail a special edition of my resume. Timestamp: 3/9/2006 5:11:00 PM | Cite as: #1 |
    
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