Ignorance fuels Islamophobia

NEW YORK— The lunatic fringe in the United States is on the warpath— this time against Islam.

Since the September 11 terror attacks, the right-wing US conservatives have been virulent in their venomous diatribe against a religion about which they confess they know little or nothing.

Speaking of half-baked Marxists in Sri Lanka, the late Mervyn de Silva once remarked (with apologies to Alexander Pope): "A little Lenin is a dangerous thing".

The American right-wingers and red-neckers are no better.

According to a public opinion poll conducted in the United States, over 50 percent of Americans claimed they knew little about Islam.

But still, they were willing to pronounce earth-shattering judgments despite their abysmal ignorance of a religion which has an estimated 7.0 million adherents in America and some 1.2 billion worldwide (out of a global population of 6.0 billion people).

In an article he wrote 10 years ago for Foreign Affairs magazine, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University predicted a "clash of civilisations" — between Islam and Confucian civilisations on one side and the West on the other.

In the post-September 11 era, Huntington's prophecy has gained international currency in an "Islam vs the West" debate raging in the United States and Western Europe.

Last week Huntington himself said he has been misinterpreted. "Nuclear war didn't happen in large part because people were saying those things," he said. "Hotlines were set up, arms control agreements signed and informal rules were established for the conduct of Cold War."

Huntington said he argued in his conclusion that people have to find ways for these civilisations to co-exist with each other.

"There is a need for dialogue and for them to identify what they have in common," he said.

At the United Nations, Iran is the primary sponsor of a General Assembly resolution calling for a "Dialogue among Civilisations."

But despite the need for a such dialogue, the hate-mongers continue with their crusades.

Last week the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) demanded an apology from a conservative, right-wing US publication, 'National Review', for suggesting that the United States should consider dropping nuclear weapons on Mecca, Islamic holiest city located in Saudi Arabia.

Lowry also said the likeliest sites for a US nuclear first strike would be two predominantly Islamic nations: Iraq and Iran.

Last month, Pat Robertson, a Christian fundamentalist broadcaster, said that Islam "is not a peaceful religion that wants to co- exist."

Rather, he told his TV audience, Muslims "want to co-exist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy."

Reverend Franklin Graham, whose father, Billy Graham, also is an evangelical preacher and has enjoyed full access to the White House since the 1950s, said last year that Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion".

Graham the elder said similar things about Jews during a 1972 conversation with then President Richard Nixon, according to tapes released by the National Archives last month. He has since repudiated those comments.

Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a former President of Ireland, said last week that expressions of anti-Islamic, anti-Arab, and anti-Semitic sentiment have increased following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

She said that Islamic communities need to become more active in countering ignorance by offering positive information on Islam and Islamic beliefs.

Robinson called on the international community to combat the spread of "Islamaphobia" — an obsessive fear of Islam that is spreading mostly throughout the United States and Western Europe.

"When we speak of Islam", said Robinson, "we are speaking of the religion of over 20 percent of the human population spread across the globe and expressed through many cultures."

"It is important to recognise the greatness of Islam, its civilisations and its immense contributions to the richness of the human experience," she added.

Speaking of Muslims, Anne Coulter, writing in the 'National Review', suggested last year: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

But in a classic case of poetic justice, Washington gossip columnists say there has been a "jaw-dropping twist" involving her own love life: the right-wing Episcopalian Coulter, who resembles a fashion model, is now dating a Muslim businessman in New York.

Since she is a hard core Republican, she says going out with a Muslim is far better than going out with an opposition Democrat.