Look in Your Mirror
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The New York Times, September 18, 2012
On Monday, David D. Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times,
quoted one of the Egyptian demonstrators outside the American Embassy,
Khaled Ali, as justifying last week’s violent protests by declaring: “We
never insult any prophet — not Moses, not Jesus — so why can’t we
demand that Muhammad be respected?” Mr. Ali, a 39-year-old textile
worker, was holding up a handwritten sign in English that read: “Shut Up
America.” “Obama is the president, so he should have to apologize!”
I read several such comments from the rioters in the press last week,
and I have a big problem with them. I don’t like to see anyone’s faith
insulted, but we need to make two things very clear — more clear than
President Obama’s team has made them. One is that an insult — even one
as stupid and ugly as the anti-Islam video on YouTube that started all
of this — does not entitle people to go out and attack embassies and
kill innocent diplomats. That is not how a proper self-governing people
behave. There is no excuse for it. It is shameful. And, second, before
demanding an apology from our president, Mr. Ali and the young
Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Sudanese
who have been taking to the streets might want to look in the mirror —
or just turn on their own televisions. They might want to look at the
chauvinistic bile that is pumped out by some of their own media — on
satellite television stations and Web sites or sold in sidewalk
bookstores outside of mosques — insulting Shiites, Jews, Christians,
Sufis and anyone else who is not a Sunni, or fundamentalist, Muslim.
There are people in their countries for whom hating “the other” has
become a source of identity and a collective excuse for failing to
realize their own potential.
The Middle East Media Research Institute,
or Memri, was founded in 1998 in Washington by Yigal Carmon, a former
Israeli government adviser on counterterrorism, “to bridge the language
gap between the Middle East and the West by monitoring, translating and
studying Arab, Iranian, Urdu and Pashtu media, schoolbooks, and
religious sermons.” What I respect about Memri is that it translates not
only the ugly stuff but the courageous liberal, reformist Arab
commentators as well. I asked Memri for a sampler of the hate-filled
videos that appear regularly on Arab/Muslim mass media. Here are some:
ON CHRISTIANS Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian
Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: Christianity is “a reeking
corpse, on which you have to constantly pour eau de cologne and perfume,
and wash it in order to keep it clean.” http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1528.htm — July 20, 2007.
Sheik Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi: It is permissible to spill the blood of the
Iraqi Christians — and a duty to wage jihad against them. http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5200.htm — April 14, 2011.
Abd al-Aziz Fawzan al-Fawzan, a Saudi professor of Islamic law, calls
for “positive hatred” of Christians. Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia), http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/992.htm — Dec. 16, 2005.
ON SHIITES The Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub:
“Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Mohamed Morsi told me that
the Shiites are more dangerous to Islam than the Jews.” www.memritv.org/clip/en/3466.htm — June 13, 2012.
The Egyptian Cleric Mazen al-Sirsawi: “If Allah had not created the Shiites as human beings, they would have been donkeys.” http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3101.htm — Aug. 7, 2011.
The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan video series: “The Shiite is a Nasl [Race/Offspring] of Jews.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6208.htm — March 21, 2012.
ON JEWS Article on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Web site praises jihad against America and the Jews: “The Descendants of Apes and Pigs.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6656.htm — Sept. 7, 2012.
The Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai: “When the Jews are
wiped out, the world would be purified and the sun of peace would rise
on the entire world.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6557.htm — Aug. 1, 2012.
Dr. Ismail Ali Muhammad, a senior Al-Azhar scholar: The Jews, “a source of evil and harm in all human societies.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6086.htm — Feb. 14, 2012.
ON SUFIS A shrine venerating a Sufi Muslim saint in
Libya has been partly destroyed, the latest in a series of attacks
blamed on ultraconservative Salafi Islamists. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19380083 — Aug. 26, 2012.
As a Jew who has lived and worked in the Muslim world, I know that these
expressions of intolerance are only one side of the story and that
there are deeply tolerant views and strains of Islam espoused and
practiced there as well. Theirs are complex societies.
That’s the point. America is a complex society, too. But let’s cut the nonsense that this is just our problem and the only issue is how we clean up our
act. That Cairo protester is right: We should respect the faiths and
prophets of others. But that runs both ways. Our president and major
newspapers consistently condemn hate speech against other religions. How
about yours? Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/opinion/friedman-look-in-your-mirror.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120919&moc.semityn.www
