“Is the West Racist Toward Muslims and Arabs?” The US should hold Arabs and Muslims to a universal standard
August 31, 2006, 3:54 pm |
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by Michael Rubin
Bitterlemons-International*
August 31, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1001
* Cross-posted with permission
Is the West racist toward Arabs and Muslims? In the United States, the answer is both no and yes. The United States is about the best place any Muslim, Christian or Jew can live. They can speak freely and worship freely. Despite the rhetoric of some groups that claim to represent American Muslims, there is very little discrimination. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s hate crimes report, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 1,374 religious hate crimes. Of these, 954 were anti-Jewish, 95 anti-Christian and 156 anti-Muslim. All of these are still too many but, in a country of almost 300 million people, such figures underscore the safety of American society and the tolerance of the American public.
Whether Muslims are born in the United States or immigrate to it, there is little impediment to their full participation in society. Indeed, Muslims in the United States are more affluent than the average American. They enter the best schools, build successful businesses or practices and experience little if any glass ceiling.
Why, then, can the United States be considered racist toward Arabs and Muslims? Simply put, because Washington policymakers and the foreign policy elite do not hold Arab and Muslim governments to the same standards to which they hold countries like Denmark and Sweden. Why should US or European policymakers react any differently to the Iranian government’s abuses against striking Vahed bus drivers than we would to striking Gdansk shipyard workers? Are Iranian laborers any less deserving of justice than European workers? Are Tunisians any less deserving of free speech than Frenchmen?
This hypocrisy is most often apparent in western policy toward the Arab world. To summarize what eminent historian Bernard Lewis said regarding the question of democracy in the Arab world, there are two points of view, one of which holds that “Arabs are incapable of democratic government…. Arabs are different from us and we must be more, shall we say, reasonable both in what we expect from them and in what they may expect from us. Whatever we do, these countries will be ruled by corrupt tyrants. The aim of foreign policy, therefore, should be to make sure that they are friendly tyrants.” This, he said, is the traditional “pro-Arab” view. In an Orwellian reversal of logic, those who demand that Arabs and other Muslims be held to the same standards of human rights are often labeled anti-Arab.
Many pundits argue that the US government cannot impose democracy upon the Middle East. True. Democracy is not possible without civil society, political accountability and the buy-in of local citizens. This does not mean that democracy cannot take root. According to The Guardian, a paper seldom accused of sympathy to US foreign policy, more than one-in-six Iraqis fled their country during the rule of Saddam Hussein. When they settled in the West, they experienced no cultural impediments to democracy. This suggests that the problem in much of the Middle East is not democracy, but rather rule-of-law. That many professional diplomats and elite commentators belittle even the concept of democracy taking root in the Arab world and majority Muslim nations is a sign of the condescension and contempt with which so many treat Arabs. These officials would let terrorists win by excusing their atrocities or, worse yet, forcing compromises upon those suffering from but resisting terrorist violence.
Some put a scholarly patina on their condescension. They try to differentiate between democracy and Islamic democracy, or human rights and Islamic human rights. They equivocate about the importance of religious freedom. But qualification of such concepts as democracy, justice, or human rights with an adjective never expands rights; it only restricts them.
Within policymaking circles, fear of stigma becomes an excuse to hold Arabs, Iranians and Muslims to a lower standard. Too often, policymakers and academics argue that to fund civil society, assist organized labor or speak out on behalf of dissidents could undercut reform. Most recently, many have condemned the allocation of $75 million to support democracy and civil society in Iran. True, the Iranian government may still brand civil society activists traitors. And many oppositionists are charlatans, eager to defraud Uncle Sam of a buck. But that is what quality control is for. The US should not judge what is in the best interests of dissidents or activists bold enough to ignore such stigma. Arabs, Iranians, and other Muslim civil society activists are perfectly capable of deciding what is in their best interest; the State Department should not presuppose to do it for them.
The United States may still be a multicultural haven of equality. It is too bad, then, that US policymakers still embrace a doctrine of condescension and inequality when it comes to demanding the same human rights standards for Arabs and Muslims and behavior from their governments that they do for European, Latin American and many Asian nations.
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
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Categories, Tags: United States, Arab/Muslim World, Islam, War Against Islamo-fascism, Political Correctness
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September 2nd, 2006 at 12:58 am
Partner, I don’t know who thinks that the Muslims are being discriminated against, hate crimes or anything else, but I would think that it’s a smoke screen by either Muslim radicals, liberals, or both.
In the US the Islamic religion has been treated like it was given to the world by God himself, especially since 11 September 2001. The rest of the religions celebrated by the rest of the citizenry of this country are treated as if they are leporous, that they would corrupt the country, the world.
It is a real shame, shame of the liberal politicians and others who are complict in the way our government has treated Muslim governments and the way they treat not only their own citizens but the way our own people are treated when visiting those countries. There is no outrage, or otherwise, expressed by the US government when other religions are supressed in these countries. No outrage is expressed at the confiscation of Bibles from tourists visiting these countries. I’d say we have a pretty good record of religious tolerance 156 out of 1374 religious hate crimes.
And where in the hell in this country and all of the religions celebrated here are women are killed because they are raped. Or because a woman’s husband, son or brother has committed some crime the woman is punished, heinously and in some cases murdered. I do not call this a religion that needs to be tolerated. I call this type of “religion” a cult, plain and simple. They are just lucky that more “hate-crimes” are not committed against them.
September 2nd, 2006 at 11:49 am
It is disturbing that just as Bush has started using the term “Islamic fascism,” the Dept. of Homeland Security is giving red-carpet treatment (and insider security info) to Islamist terror enablers. See:
http://netwmd.com/blog/2006/08/18/859
September 4th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
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Muslim: A believer in or adherent of Islam.
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So one can be bigoted to Muslims, not racist.
Now” bigoted” means “Not tolerant of the beliefs or opinions of others” However, if we question the legitimacy of Islam as a religion and regard it more as a religious political organization, consider it dangerous to all other religions , then this is not bigotry by definition. To be concerned about murderous “beliefs or opinions”, to be concerned about a threat to survival does not make a person a bigot.
We originally had the idea of tolerance and freedom for all religions when we thought all religions were peaceful. Each religion wanted protection from the aggression of the others. So they formed this mutual pact “We won’t bother each other”. Then along came Nazism, and it was put down. Not too many were concerned that it had in fact a religious mystical ideology.
When a religion comes along that brings with it universal death misery, terror and tyranny, the basic model model of freedoms and tolerance must be re-evaluated. If a religion like Islam lose enough demerit points as it has , it should lose some of it’s driving rights, such as being involved in any way in politics. As in believe in a peaceful and loving God and stay the Heck out of politics. Or make laws applicable to all religions equally so so that the loophole is covered.
The point is that Islam is not just “any old religion” It predominates the Middle East, so how can anyone expect the same attitude in the Middle East as elsewhere?
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“This hypocrisy is most often apparent in western policy toward the Arab world.
…
Arabs are different from us and we must be more, shall we say, reasonable both in what we expect from them and in what they may expect from us
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that US policymakers still embrace a doctrine of condescension and inequality when it comes to demanding the same human rights standards for Arabs and Muslims”
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It’s not all hypocrisy, we liberated Iraq and the liberated immediately started killing us to establish their own tyranny. The Muslim religion in the Middle East is almost inseparable for the main from authoritarian control , not democracy. It shouldn’t be surprising for many American policymakers to throw us their hands and give Democracy a perfunctory effort.
To add on top of that most of the West is very selfish and introverted, not caring about the oppression in ANY other country. Not caring and not knowing. The public little cares about Western culpability in sweat shops and slavery in South America and Asia. Nor, for instance do they care much about or even care to understand the suffering of the Chinese people in China under the CCP.
All humans are one family. No country should be allowed to repress it’s citizens. Every Human has the responsibility for the suffering of all others on this planet. No ruler is exempt anywhere.
Not many believe in that.
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“In 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 1,374 religious hate crimes. Of these, 954 were anti-Jewish, 95 anti-Christian and 156 anti-Muslim”
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It indicates the haters sure got the wrong priorities. Not that hate crimes have any point or validity. In Canada the Muslims now substantially outnumber the Jews. I think it is the same in the USA. Hate of tyranny and threat certainly has some validity so it seems that there should be more “aggressive displacement” towards Muslims than Jews.
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In a hierarchy of irrationalities, it seems a greater irrationality to not target associated threat groups.
I wonder what accounts for these statistics?
Michael Moore endorsements of Rachel Cory?? Mel Gibson on his rampages?