The Damage Done By Giving Islamophobia Any Attention At All
All Things Consider — By Daniel Strauss on September 13, 2010 at 12:35 pmSadly, we must turn our attention to yet another instance of Islamophobic bigotry. Marty Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic, recently wrote a column that concluded with this appalling paragraph:
But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.
Not letting this stand for long, members of the Brandeis community organized a collective condemnation of Peretz’s words, and Nicholas Kristof called him out in the NYT on Sunday. This last piece prompted Peretz to issue an apology, but even there he clings to his claim that “Muslim life is cheap,” defending it as a “statement of fact, not value.”
It goes without saying that the views that Peretz has expressed are repugnant and intolerable. His apology, also seems rather disingenuous considering his history of saying similar things, cataloged at the Peretz Dossier. There shouldn’t have to be any debate around this issue: Peretz has expressed in no subtle terms hateful and violent opinions, and it’s ridiculous that these sentiments have any currency in the public discourse.
And I suppose that’s the thing that really bothers me: media attention is lavished on anti-Muslim bigotry as though it deserves it, whereas it’s really a distraction from other, more important issues. As Kristof points out, rather than leveling groundless accusations at Muslims generally, we would do better to focus on “the mistreatment of women in many Islamic countries, or the oppression of religious minorities like Christians and Ahmadis in Pakistan.” And speaking of Pakistan, shouldn’t we also be paying attention to the awful floods that have been ravaging the country and their geopolitical implications, as Juan Cole points out?
The kind of far-right Islamophobia expressed by the likes of Peretz is essentially reactionary, and the more attention we give it, the more we feed the flames. Besides, when we lavish attention on the most extreme examples of this bigotry, as Ned Reskinoff points out, we create a safe space for the expression of less extreme but no less acceptable anti-Muslim sentiment, à la Palin or Gingrich. Certainly all of these ugly statements need to be called out as unacceptable, but the best way to undermine their credibility is to leave it at that and turn our attention to more important matters.
–Aaron Bekemeyer
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2 Comments
To me, the apology sounds sincere and you can read it below. If he had apologized for all that he said, I would agree with you, Aaron, but the fact that he regretted certain statements but stood behind others appears to express some honest self-contemplation on his behalf with regards to the Muslim world.
Martin Peretz –
Nicholas Kristof and I do not see the world—and America’s role in it—in the same way. I have sometimes expressed my disagreements with his opinions vociferously (vociferousness is my business). But in yesterday’s The New York Times, he quotes two sentences that I recently wrote—one of them genuinely embarrasses me, and I deeply regret it.
The embarrassing sentence is: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.” I wrote that, but I do not believe that. I do not think that any group or class of persons in the United States should be denied the protections of the First Amendment, not now, not ever. When I insist upon a sober recognition of the threats to our security, domestic threats included, I do not mean to suggest that the Constitution and its order of rights should in any way be abrogated. I would abhor such a prospect. I do not wish upon Muslim Americans the sorts of calumnies that were endured by Italian Americans in connection with Sacco and Vanzetti and Jewish Americans in connection with communism. My recent comments on the twisted Koran-hating reverend in Gainesville will give evidence of that. So I apologize for my sentence, not least because it misrepresents me.
The other sentence is: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, especially for Muslims.” This is a statement of fact, not value. In his column, Kristof made this seem like a statement of bigotry. But on his blog, he notes that he concurs with it. “Peretz makes some points that are valid, and I agree with him that Muslims haven’t said nearly enough about those Muslims who kill other Muslims—in Kurdish areas, in Iraq, in Western Sahara, in Sudan, and so on.”
Every week brings more and more gruesome evidence of this, in the the Middle East and Central Asia and elsewhere. The idea that in remarking upon the cheapening of Muslim lives I was calling for the cheapening of Muslim lives, as some have suggested, is preposterous. There is no hatred in my heart; there is deep anxiety about the dangers of Islamism, and anger at the refusal of certain politicians and commentators to adequately grasp those dangers, but there is no hatred, none. In these unusually inflamed days, I am glad to say so clearly.
Calvin, you’re certainly right that Peretz’s apology is to some extent honest and admirable. I like the way Kristof puts its: “[L]et me say that I welcome and respect the apology. It’s easy when we say dumb things to dig ourselves deeper, and very hard to apologize. So that was classy.” (That quote is from this blog post: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/a-martin-peretz-apology/).
The problem I have with it, though, is that Peretz still defends the notion that Muslim life is cheap and even suggests Kristof agrees with him. I think the rhetorical strategy at work here is to concede one point to make the other seem more legitimate. In fact both of Peretz’s points are morally repugnant, and it’s this maneuvering on his part that strikes me as dishonest.