Another moderate muslim speaks

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jul 24, 2016 at 22:27

Dear Dr Pipes, a moderate Muslim, Mr Aziz Ansari, wrote an article in NYT in the wake of the Murders by an Islamic terrorist in Orlando. Rather than being self-critical about violence in the name of Islam, Mr Ansari tried to distance himself and Islam form the said acts of violence. I wrote a brief comment (http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/230243) on your site detailing what I thought Mr Ansari must have said but did not say.

Since that time Donald Trump has won the republican presidential primary has raised significant challenge to the violence in the name of Islam. So what do we expect? Perhaps we should have expected some self-examination by prominent Islamic scholars? Unfortunately, we are not so lucky. We heard something else. A another moderate Muslim has recently spoken. In a reaction to Donald Trump's winning the nomination, the famous Fareed Zakaria wrote a piece on CNN. Mr Zakaria chose to rely on subterfuge and lies by omission in his article. You see, rather than directly attacking Mr Trump and defending his cause against the positions taken by Mr Trump, Mr Zakaria told Americans not to be too angry and not to succumb to anger. He began his article by noting that Mr Trump delivered the longest-ever acceptance speech (may we know why it is relevant) and then he tells us that ours were the best of times for America. The cold war is over, we have recovered from the 2009 recession, US is producing more oil than Saudi Arabia, and the deaths due to genocide have significantly declined. Mr Zakaria told us there is no reason for us to be angry because these are the best of times (therefore we would not be angry and just ignore the terrorism!!)

In his article, Mr Zakaria used the lie by omission technique. First he clubbed Islamic terror with the genocidal crimes and then presented a very fancy chart that indicated that mass killings worldwide have significantly declined since 1945. Mr Zakaria forgot to mention that Islamic Terrorism is not our typical genocidal killing. It is a breed apart and so it cannot be clubbed with other cases of genocide that our world has seen. It is entirely based on a person's faith. It is not based on a person's race, color of skin, language, or national origin. Neither it is targeted toward a given religion. It is targeted toward many/all religions and, most shamefully, often times a victim can evade death by just correctly reciting certain verses. Statistics can be easily made to lie and misrepresent. Mr Zakaria used the technique effectively by clubbing Islamic terrorism with other cases of genocides.

Mr Zakaria used his subterfuge so effectively that he used the word Islamic only once in his entire essay. And he, of course, omitted discussing the topic of illegal and/or refugee immigration. He just said that ours were the best of times and so Americans should not be angry. As if Americans were famous worldwide for their anger!

I wonder if Mr Zakaria will allow the French people to be angry? France is not producing any oil. It may still be in recession. Will Mr Zakaria count the murders in Paris and Nice as examples of genocide or terror? Will he speak the truth and whole truth?

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