Tangents  

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 09 Mar 2002 
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 01 Mar 2010 

 


Robertson defends comments about Islam
(24 February 2002, CNN)
WASHINGTON (CNN) --Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson Sunday defended his comments last week that Islam is not a peaceful religion, but said he was not trying to stoke the fires of prejudice. (To the left is the CNN article,* with Pat Robertson's remarks in red and those of Hussein Ibish in green. Below are my own comments in blue.)
"Mohammed said the second most important duty of a follower of Islam is to wage jihad against the infidels," Robertson told CNN's Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer. "It is very clear in the Quran and in his writing and in his words what he intended." As founded, Islam holds that Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians, and therefore that these others are "people of the Book"—not infidels. Moreover, the Quran mandates jihad in defense of the faith, not for conquest or revenge. Robertson's misinterpretation, which mirrors Omar's, is a gross distortion.
Robertson said he was only trying to sound an "alarm because this country is under attack."
     "I think people ought to be aware of what we're dealing with," he said. "You haven't heard me say Islam is evil … I merely said that the founder of Islam preached violence."		 While it is true that Islam approves of violence in defense of the faith, the Quran does not advocate gratuitous violence against all non-Muslims.
     Perhaps Robertson has not said "Islam is evil" in so many words, but in the context of past statements it is difficult to interpret his tirades otherwise. He routinely disparages non-Christian persuasions as "heathen" and "satanic," clearly indicating that he views them as evil.
But a spokesman for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Hussein Ibish, called Robertson's comments a "silly, vicious game" in which he is taking isolated passages from the Quran out of context to paint an inaccurate picture of Islam and Muslims.
     "You can go into any of these great religious texts and pull out quotes randomly here and there to prove all kinds of things. You can prove the religion is peaceful, you can prove it's violent," Ibish told CNN. "I could come here ... with quotes from the Talmud and quotes from the Bible and try to paint Judaism and Christianity, or any other religion, in this negative light, too," he said.		 The threat to which Robertson alludes is real enough, but it is much broader than he would have us suppose. Religious extremism, with its potential for intolerance, injustice, violence, and oppression, is in no way an Islamic curiosity, but extends even to Robertson's own perversion of Christianity. His empty gestures of brotherhood are overshadowed by his oft-exhibited prejudice and intolerance toward non-Christians, which can only beget more of the same among those who see him as their leader.
Last week on his television show, "The 700 Club," Robertson took issue with President Bush's description of Islam as a peaceful religion. He said the Koran calls on Muslims to kill non-believers.
     Sunday, he quoted the Quran: "Fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. Seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them. Fight them. Allah will punish them."		 The "pagans" to which the Quran refers are not "people of the Book"—Jews and Christians—but rather polytheists and animists, hold-overs from pre-Islamic traditions of the Middle-East and Africa. Interestingly, holders of such beliefs are also condemned by many Christians as "witches" and "agents of Satan"—whom Robertson himself routinely castigates whenever he isn't busy vilifying Muslims, Jews, and atheists.
"That is the message that's coming out of the mosques. It is the message that is coming from many of these mullahs all over the Muslim world," Robertson said. "You're not hearing Christian ministers telling people to go kill Muslims. What we hear (some) Christian ministers telling people is to fear Muslims (or Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, humanists, liberals, scientists, or whoever else might be their villains-of-the-week). And we know that what people fear they tend to hate, and further that some people are inclined toward violence against those whom they fear and hate. While Robertson might not say "go and kill" in those exact words, that is the essentially the message he sends to some of his more impressionable followers.
"I love Muslims. I don't want to hurt anybody. I think we're a religion of love," he said. "We don't preach hate, but this is the message of Mohammed." His protestations of "love" notwithstanding, Robertson has counseled intolerance of every belief system other than his own. He has urged government to impose Christian fundamentalist policies which would violate or undermine the religious rights of every other persuasion (including mainstream Christianity). Does he really imagine that bearing false witness against people and depriving them of their rights does not hurt them?
But Ibish said Robertson's comments were a "slightly warmed over, slightly rehashed version" of the anti-Semitism directed against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by "right-wing extremists like the Reverend Robertson."
     "What he's saying overall is, 'Look, in our midst, next to you, there are Muslim neighbors ... They may seem to be normal, reasonable people, but actually they are not. They are different from us. They have a different value system. They hate our culture. They hate our country. They worship an alien and hostile God. They're trying to take over, destabilize and undermine our Western Christian way of life.'"		 Robertson and his ilk preach the very same sort of hateful splinter-group nonsense to Christians, as Mullah Omar preaches to Muslims. They both preach love for their brothers and intolerance (hatred) for everyone else.
     The only substantial difference is that Omar managed to get several thousand innocent people murdered one morning, whereas Robertson & Company has so far restricted its ambitions to such modest enterprises as the dumbing-down of American education, the harassment of non-Christians, and perhaps indirectly inciting the bombing of clinics.

Works Cited


How can anyone presume to know a universal God, if his feeble comprehension of the universe extends no further than his own wretched little tribe?

To be charitable, perhaps we should take the Reverend Mr. Robertson at his word.  Despite all indications to the contrary, perhaps he is not (intentionally) trying to stoke the fires of prejudice.  Maybe he earnestly believes everything he says.  But if that is the case, then it is evident that the poor fellow is dangerously misinformed and dreadfully confused about many matters bearing upon his own mission.  Moreover, because of his visibility and influence, in his muddled and misdirected state he has the potential to precipitate great harm, whether intentionally or otherwise.

To religious people of good will:  We ask you to pray for Mr. Robertson's speedy deliverance from his horrendous affliction.  (While we seriously doubt that prayer will help, we suppose it couldn't hurt, provided you don't do it while driving or operating machinery.)

To others of good will:  Let us all fervently hope that Mr. Robertson might someday be persuaded, before opening his mouth regarding other people's beliefs and motivations, to take a moment to get his facts straight.  (Likewise, we doubt that hope will prove any more effective than prayer, but at least it offers us a common focus.)

To all people of intelligence:  Let us resolve to keep a watchful eye upon the man, and upon others like him.


Some would have us dismiss Robertson, Falwell, Buchanan, Omar, Farrakhan, and others of their kind as harmless crackpots.  But that would be to bury our heads in the sand.  These people control substantial resources, not to mention the programmed minds of many submissive disciples.  Though it is unlikely that they could destroy civilization altogether, their ability to cause material damage, disrupt society, erode culture, and inflict personal harm (as Mullah Omar's faction recently demonstrated), is beyond question.

These charlatans do not deserve an audience, yet they have an ideal one, fatuous, uncritical, eager to serve in return for being told what it wants to hear.  The manipulators pose a potential threat as long as they can provoke a few gullible dupes to act without regard for their fellow man.  They cannot be ignored out of existence:  They already have the eager and credulous audience they need, and the scorn of skeptics is of little concern to them.  But while we cannot deprive them of the public spotlight, we can cook them with it.  We must keep its glare unrelentingly focused upon these exploiters, to illuminate their intentions, expose their distortions, and reveal them for what they truly are.  As recent events have shown, it is now a matter of survival—our survival—that their schemes become an object of ongoing public scrutiny and criticism.

=SAJ=