Update: One of my friends thinks that Islam-bashing may be too harsh an adjective for the speech. There is a possibility that the speaker may not have intended the speech to be assessed in that manner. I acknowledge that. Apart from the questions I have below, I mostly agree with the rest of his speech on media-hyping and their biased reporting.
This is a youtube video of some Islam-bashing speech. Here are some questions I have for the speaker. It is a 11-minute speech. Please listen to it completely before reading the rest of the post.
Q1.
a) 65% of hate crimes are antisematic.
b) He does not see Muslims condemning jihad.
c) If it (jihad and other bad things) were being done in the name of his beliefs, then he would be out on streets marching to Washington.
Then, why does is he not on the streets protesting antisematic crimes??? Why is he not on the streets for gitmo (where torture is carried out in the name of America’s security)?
Q2.
Muslims are not victims because only 8% of crimes are anti-islam. By the same logic, America is not a victim because only a small percentage of people who have died of terrorism are Americans (link). Does he believe so?
Q3.
He says he opposes the ground-zero mosque because the imam behind it has not opposed Hamas and cannot not condemn America. Will he support the mosque if it were being constructed by someone who opposes jihad and says he loves America?
One needs to look no further than Quran to find out the root cause of all the problems.
I do not know who this character is or what FRCA stands for. But he certainly did not indulge in Islam Bashing, he was only replying to the charge that he is Ismalophobic. Saying, “Islam needs to introspect”, is not Islam bashing. There is a growing opinion that Islam as a religion does not sync well with the requirements of a liberal democracy and free society. This should be accepted as a mainstream opinion instead of classifying it under deviant titles like “Islam bashing”.
@manohar:
If I replace “Islam” with “Hinduism” and read the speech in the context of anti-Sikh riots or post-Godhra riots, won’t you call it Hindu-bashing? I know that scale of Islamic extremism is lot bigger than that; it might not be a completely fair analogy. To an extent, the analogy does make sense.
I may be willing to concede that bashing is too harsh a word to use for his speech, but I am being honest in posting his entire speech. I did not “paraphrase” his speech like media does 🙂
The point of the post was to highlight his hypocrisy is judging Islam when he himself he guilty of breaking the rules that he sets for Muslims.
Alright Shankin, disclaimer first up, didnt see the whole video, saw no point in doing so. Saw upto 7:18 and then got bored. So keep that in mind.
Next, I dont agree with him at all about his views of Islam, and I am sure not many people do. We might not agree with some of the Islamic practices, but I dont agree with some of the Christian practices and a lot of Hindu practices. I dont think this person knows anything about Islam, so no point honoring his views on this.
But there are some interesting points. Media does play up these issues. The pastor in Florida is hardly popular even in his community, and it was elevated to the extent of Obama asking him not to do it. Obviously if this issue was so hyped, anti-american activists will use it as as example of Americas hatred of Islam ( which this speech does nothing to help , and in the same context should not be given weightage, since its a lot of bull shit from one person. ) Its true that America is not labelled “anti-sematic” when some label it as “anti-Islam”. Really, no rationality for that either.
Hate speech gathers support more easily than a speech on tolerance. Anger, as he says is a useful emotion, not for humans to show their reaction, but for people who want to reap benefits of it to gain power. Just shows that the grass is brown on both sides in this case.
@mahesh
i agree with you. I did not even question him on those aspects. It is true that media hypes up some issues more than others.
What I did not like is that he said muslims are not victims based on statisitics (and every one applauded). He is asking muslims to go on a march against terrorism. Number of muslims all over the world have denouced terrorism ( http://www.google.com/search?q=denounce+terrorism ). If he chooses to ignore it, it is not muslims’ fault. I am against these aspects of his speech.