One of the most fascinating/striking youtube videos I've ever watched was the bombshell debate about radical Islam on the Bill Maher's long-running comedy/political commentary show Real Time between himself, Neuroscientist/author/aggressive atheist/member of the Intellectual Dark Web Sam Harris and Hollywood actor Ben Affleck on radical Islam. And Harris and Maher did not hesitate to paint Islam as unredeemable, evil, savage, and totally devoid of reason or positive cultural contribution, and Affleck (being a product of the super politically correct entertainment industry) angrily fired back at how racist it was while another guest who was attempting to point out that while the critiques of what goes on the Muslim world was valid it painted an incomplete picture of what Islam is but he was torpedoed in chaos of the scene. And to me that's sort of a microcosm of how various thinkers in this country disagree on Islam.
On one hand you have a large segment of the leftists in this country that seem to be primarily concerned with fighting bigotry in all forms, sympathizing with oppressed people and being politically correct. They are happy to point out issues/hypocrisy/bigotry in Christianity but stay silent when horrific, oppressive things are done in the name of Islam. Part of that maybe because people see clearly how poisonous islamophobia can be and also the great stigma of being considered a racist because although Islam is not a race it is heavily associated with people of color (Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian people primarily) and criticism of Islam is often equated with bigotry which simply doesn't square with this wave of progressivism.
Then we have new age atheists like Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, etc. who are so aggressively and unapologetically anti-religion across the board that they completely disregard any built in sensitivities that intellectuals in their class generally have about attacking Islam. Despite their intelligence they could never seem to understand the link between Islamophobic rhetoric and the immiseration of Muslims living in the West or even the relationship between Islamophobia and racism.
But I think the single question that is driving this ongoing debate is is Islam a religion of peace? And I think the answer entirely depends on perspective: if you have a more sympathetic/tolerant approach you tend to focus on the goodness found in the original texts of the Quaran and the overwhelming majority of Muslims that are living peaceful lives globally, much like former president George W. Bush did in a speech following 9/11.
You also tend to make the argument that terrorism originating in the Muslim world has more to do with geopolitics than the teachings of Islam. And there is substantial evidence of that because as I stated in part one the grievances of Osama Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda more broadly that culminated in 9/11 had to do with our foreign policy. But I think to leave it there would be largely incomplete, as much of Al Qaeda's leadership and following is above all deeply religious and deeply fundamentalist. Many carry the belief that the long term goal of Al Qaeda should be to obliterate 'the unholy alliance of Christians and Jews' that is seeking to destroy Islam. And Osama Bin Laden got the blessing to carry out the attacks on 9/11 from a local Imam. So this is all messy, complex and very very gray.
But it feels like it's less gray to figures like Sam Harris who makes a living largely off of a narrow perspective of Islam and its adherents. He often describes the faith as "having all fringe and no center" and has even said that Islam "is the mother load of bad ideas." And most egregiously, "we are not at war with terrorism, we are at war with Islam." And while I think that criticizing Islam from an objective, scholarly, secularist perspective is not necessarily bigoted the relentless fixation with presenting Islam as the biggest threat to western civilization is dangerous and problematic. And for the sake of context into who Harris is he was one of the scientists who was promoting extraordinarily racist ideas about race and IQ and this line of thinking claims that socio-economic disparities in the U.S (namely between blacks and whites) have basis in evolutionary biology and that blacks are inherently less intelligent than other races. Fortunately this has been subsequently smacked down as the pseudoscience that it is and he and the other scientists propagating this garbage have been revealed to be the racists they are. So I have no doubt his musings are based in Islamophobia and racism under the guise as a rational critique.
So although much of the criticism of Islam in the West is grounded in truth and concern for human rights globally, we have to always, always be mindful of the language we use particularly as Muslims themselves have been the subject of so much prejudice, bigotry and hate crimes particularly in the United States. And often those seeking to do harm in the name of white supremacy take the rhetoric of media figures to justify their actions. We also, need to understand the nuances of the pertinent issues of theology, history and foreign policy when discussing Islam and do so with empathy, love and open mindedness.
"Is Islam A Religion of Peace?" npr, 10 Oct. 2010, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130516428.
Greenwald, Glenn. "Sam Harris, the New Atheists, and anti-Muslim animus." The Guardian , Apr. 2013, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/sam-harris-muslim-animus.
Nanninga, Peter. "The Role of Religion in al-Qaeda’s Violence." Radicalisation Research, Nov. 2017, www.radicalisationresearch.org/research/nanninga-religion-al-qaedas-violence/.
Shau, Kevin. "Sam Harris is Right and Wrong about Islam." Kevin Shau, Sept. 2019, kevinshau.medium.com/sam-harris-is-right-and-wrong-about-islam-7c876752f875.
"The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’." The Guardian , 2 Mar. 2018, www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/02/the-unwelcome-revival-of-race-science.
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