In response to Meredith Walker’s Sept. 26 letter to the editor, “Islam: a not so peaceful religion.”
The attacks on Islam and Muslims in general have driven home how stupid, dishonest and utterly outrageous the conservative view of Islam is.
Conservatives keep telling us that Islam is not a religion, but rather a violent ideology that runs contrary to America's Judeo-Christian roots. Over and over we hear this line, possibly caused by having never read the Quran, watched the news, listened to the sermons given by imams, or simply self-delusion.
But, suppose that they are right.
If Islam is a violent ideology, then there should not be charities funded by its followers and we would not have seen the birthplace of Islam, Saudi Arabia, bail out the World Food Program and saved billions of non-Muslim lives across the world when food prices skyrocketed during at the beginning of the financial crises in 2008.
This is not the case.
Our Republican representatives spend more time calling for communal blame of all Muslims and using terms like "Arab" and "Muslim" as slurs to diminish other politicians' credentials rather than actually focusing on issues that matter. Say, for example, the national debt.
Ignorant and uniformed university students call people who state facts (i.e. Islam is a religion of peace) "liars," "morons" and "stupid.”
They drag citizens in for questioning because of … well, they are brown. And maybe she even wears a scarf on her head.
They are terrified of Islam.
They beg us not to focus on greater threats to the American social fabric, like allowing hate speech to be plastered on public transport, the surge in attacks on innocent houses of worship (including harassing worshippers, shooting houses of worship and even burning them to the ground) and even massacring another group of innocent worshippers whom they mistook for Muslims. Because that would have justified it?
But conservatives need to realize they don't need to sell their speech of "Islam is a violent ideology and they would take any chance to harm any one of us, so please, mock their Prophets and modesty, invade their countries, isolate them socially, promote racist groups' advertisements calling them savages…" because we have facts on our side. (Or maybe they are ignoring the facts, as Santorum says: "We will never have the smart people on our side.")
Stop lying.
A violent ideology does not inspire billions of people across the globe to stand in solidarity against poverty and racism and rebuilding their own societies after being pillaged for the past century first by colonialism, then by collaborating dictators.
Your government shouldn't have to pander to the views of ignorant, uninformed citizens whose only knowledge of Islam might be by having the unfortunate circumstance of reading a poorly written and factually false letter in The State Press.
No, Islam is not a violent ideology and conservatives are aware of this, but perhaps they are more aware that placing the blame on another group takes the heat off of them to actually solve real issues facing America today.
Blissful ignorance is never a wise option for a leader, but even worse is when it’s intentional.
Faisal Abulhassan
ASU Alumnus
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Read our Editorial Board's letter here.
