Racism in TIME magazine.

This will be a short diary.  I was just reading the final essay in the latest issue of TIME magazine.  I somewhat liked the point of the essay, despite it's fear-mongering.  The point was that listening to people, especially muslims, is a better way of gathering intelligence than "legally problematic surveillance techniques".  But there were parts I found pretty racist.

The first was just kind-of weird.  

Imagine: a Muslim man sitting across from a British intelligence official at a cafe, off hours.  They have little in common.  Some would say they are natural opponents.

 What??  A Muslim man, who is a "Citizen from Britain's diverse Islamic community" and a British intelligence official are natural opponents?  Who says this, Ron?  Racists, perhaps?

But the next line was really disturbing.  Suskind had just finished talking about how England had gotten the needed intelligence by talking to a Muslim citizen.  Then he writes:

The U.S. intelligence community is in a poor position to replicate that.  Concerned citizens in the Muslim world who are close enough to radicals to see or hear something pertinent seem less inclined than ever to sit down with an American....  It's their inaction- on a vast scale- that'll kill us.

Taken in context, this suggests that a Muslim citizen of the US is somehow not an American.  Does American mean "white" or Christian nowadays?  

Damn Muslim citizens.  It's their inaction on a vast scale that'll kill us true Americans.  

•  Typical ignorance

  No matter what mask you try to put on, it is comments like these, that reveal your true thinking and philosophy.  When you are in your comfort zone, you tend to speak your heart.  Case in point, George Allen, who felt really at home in that little group in rural Virginia and so felt it was okay to tell them what he really thinks and how he really feels within his heart.

  by Sanjay on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:18:05 PM PDT

•  I think the point of the second one is that

  Muslims living in the "Muslim world" (i.e., the Middle East) are not eager to talk to US intel.

  by Pat Robertson on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:26:36 PM PDT

•  absolutly racist

  The kind of language that doesn't say the speaker is a man who hates other races but who perpetrates, without realizing it perhaps, the we vrs them racism which I feel is the bedrock of all racism.

  by tobendaro on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:27:05 PM PDT

•  A link would enable us to read the article

  and decide for ourselves. "Concerned citizens in the Muslim world" does not strike me as meaning American followers of Islam but rather the local people in that part of the planet.

  by Athenian on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:29:48 PM PDT

  •  And a byline please

    Opinion pieces and articles don't write themselves.  If there's a byline, then you should say who wrote the damn article.  I don't know why people do this, but it happens all the time on Dkos.  Hold authors responsible.  Don't say "Time magazine says ..." unless it's an unsigned editorial.

    by ortcutt on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:38:25 PM PDT

  •  Link

    here

    by possum on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 02:50:55 PM PDT

    •  Thanks. Good article.

      Suskind is a good writer and he makes sense. What he is basically saying is that the Brits do better human intelligence than we do and the main reason for that is that we are reviled throughout the Muslim world. Maybe we should work on that.

      by Athenian on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 05:28:14 PM PDT

•  I think you miss the point, on the second one

  I mean, yeah, that thing about a Muslim and a British intelligence officer being natural enemies is ignorant and not what I would expect from Time.

  But that second point. He's not talking about a Muslim American. He's talking about a "citizen in the Muslim world," meaning a person living in the Middle East, who, according to him, is not going to be real inclined to talk to American authorities, since we have seriously fucked up their countries,  nations and lands. I mean, seriously. Fucked up. And there's no evidence that Americans will use whatever intelligence they get appropriately.

  I think Suskind is just speculating, maybe dumbly, but he isn't talking about Muslim Americans.

  by leftilicious on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:30:15 PM PDT

  •  asdf

    No, I don't think so.  He is saying that what happened in England could not happen here and then goes on to give an example.  He was talking about a British citizen who is muslim.  Therefore we can infer that he meant an American citizen who is muslim in the American case.

    by BDA in VA on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:46:27 PM PDT

  •  And about the first point

    "Natural opponents" is a poor choice of words, but it describes the reality of a certain guilt by association in the context of detective work by an intelligence agent. One analogy could be a Russian immigrant during the Cold War.

    by dwcal on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 02:02:47 PM PDT

•  Racism is on the upswing...

  ..and not only muslims as you well know.

  I was thinking today that hispanics are really modern day slaves in the eyes of our current leadership.  Of course you can come here, as long as you work your ass off for a roof over your head and a few tortillas a day.

  by suspiciousmind on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:35:08 PM PDT

•  Hey TIME, Muslims invented the cafe

  You want to know why we hear about Viennese coffee from a country that is unable to grow coffee and has no maritime ports to bring it in?  

  It's because Islamic culture was more advanced that Western societies for centuries, and coffee entered Vienna through both trade and military conflict in that region.  Al Gore did not invent the cafe, the Islamic world did.  English coffee houses did not appear for about 500 years after Muslims were growing and drinking coffe freely and widely through advanced trade networks and largely open borders through the Islamic Mediterranean and throughout Islamic civilization.

  Coffee is a significant part of the cultures of most Muslim societies to this day.  So are prayer beads in numbered clusters on chains; the rosaries used in most Catholic churches in Vienna and elsewhere in the Catholic world came directly from the Islamic custom of reciting prayers on strands of beads.

  So historically, it's the investigator whose culture is more removed historically from the cafe, not the Muslim interviewee.

  There is no fundamental reason why a Muslim could not be a British intelligence official or vice versa; I am sure now quite many are and would be among the most effective, probably, in part by avoiding making the incredibly lazy cross-cultural mistakes that the Time writer has quite openly made

  If the Time writer is too lazy to find out where the American Muslims are, she or he may be able to use a  newly dspecialized tool to help find out where they are.  This is a link to a somewhat obscure but mostly unclassified database of organizations and ideas in the American Muslim community.

  American Muslims are also part of the Muslim world, just like American Mennonites are part of the Mennonite world and American Jews are part of the Jewish world.  The Time writer is part of the world of lazy journalists, whose numbers, prominence and public humiliations appear to be increasing daily.

  by tbrucegodfrey on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:45:40 PM PDT

  •  FWIW IIRC the Viennese infatuation with

    the dark brown brew began after the final siege of Vienna in 1683, when the besieging Turks, having been set upon by Jan Sobieski's guys from behind, beat feet southeast, leaving most of their provisions behind--including sacks & sacks of coffee beans that were found by the citydwellers foraging for loot.  Not that it makes a helluva lot of difference in the present instance, but just FTR.

    by Uncle Cosmo on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 02:33:44 PM PDT

•  I thought 'Muslim' referred to

  a religion, not a race.

  by twalling on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 02:09:17 PM PDT

  •  Right. That's why I won't

    vote in the poll.  Heck, I have friends from Bosnia who are muslims but you can't tell by lookin'.  

    I can see the temptation to misuse the word racism here, but I won't do it.

    by DSPS owl on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 04:02:57 PM PDT

•  'natural opponents' ...

  in a country (U.S.) in which Iranian and Palestinian residents are routinely harassed by the FBI / IRS you name it. Imprisoned because of "crimes" such as accidentally using the wrong income on a credit card application, simply because they refuse to spy on fellow Iranians. Their income tax files opened out of some vague "suspicion," then never closed, so that they remain suspects with no rights.

  Not even to mention those detention centers sprinkled about in places unknown.

  So the last sentence does make a major swerve from blaming the true perpetrators of hatred (U.S. agencies) to blaming their victims. The "inaction" of Muslims... how about the ignorant, coercive treatment of dark-skinned Muslims?  

  by rad mennonite on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 02:14:53 PM PDT

•  I had the impression,

  the article meant that American Muslims are now responsible for national security.
    Is there anyone in this current administration who is responsible for anything? Now we're in danger because American Muslims demonstrate "inaction?"
   What are these commentators doing? Throwing mud in front of industrial strength fans, praying some of it will stick to whomever it hits? Ludicrous.

  by lyvwyr101 on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 02:34:52 PM PDT