I just recently found out that Eric Allen Bell was banned from Daily Kos (I know…I’ve been residing under a rock for some time, trying to get away from technology and live in communion with nature…I failed and won’t try again).
I never closely followed Eric and know him solely for a documentary he made on a mosque. My initial reaction was that he was a pretty good guy, a human rights advocate and a staunch liberal. But I read his recent rants against Islam and Loonwatch and now it seems he has committed some intellectual dishonesties and extremes.
The late Edward Said once noted that V.S. Naipaul, committed an “intellectual disaster,” upon writing “Among the Believers.”
Eric it seems has committed an intellectual disaster upon reading Robert Spencer, a man who claims that President Obama is a jihadist.
The first extreme that Eric commits is that he attributes concepts, which are alien to Islam but practiced by Muslims, in order to tarnish the image of Islam.
So for instance, Eric equates female genital mutilation with Islamic radicalism. If Eric has cliterodectomy in mind then that is haram in Islam all other forms of female circumcision is disliked:
“For Muslims, cliterodectomy and infibulation should be considered harâm (prohibited) practices and opposition to it should be part of our ongoing mandate to fight against superstition and oppression. As to the mildest form of female circumcision, the risks to the girl's future ability to enjoy sexual relations with her husband must place it at best in the category of makrûh (disliked) practices. Since it has neither hygienic nor religious value, there is no justification for Muslims to engage in this painful and potentially harmful practice and it would be best to avoid it completely.”
http://www.minaret.org/...
Eric then goes on to list violence committed by Muslims as "Islamic terrorist attacks." What makes them Islamic? In order for them to truly be Islamic they must derive from Islamic theology. So for instance, the suicide bombings he lists can’t be “Islamic terrorist attacks,” because, suicide is a grave sin in Islam. The killing of civilians can’t be Islamic because, Islam forbids the killing of unarmed non-combatants. This is what the foremost scholar of Islam in the Western world, Bernard Lewis (who in my opinion however, is not really very objective and sometimes mixes propaganda with scholarship) [Please see Edward Said’s critique of him in the Nation], has to say about warfare and Islam:
“Muslim fighters are commanded not to kill women, children, or the aged unless they attack first; not to torture or otherwise ill-treat prisoners; to give fair warning of the opening of hostilities or their resumption after a truce; and to honor agreements... At no time did the classical jurists offer any approval or legitimacy to what we nowadays call terrorism. Nor indeed is there any evidence of the use of terrorism as it is practiced nowadays."
But Eric’s intellectual dishonesty continues onward. On a proceeding diary, namely this one: http://www.dailykos.com/... Eric accuses Loonwatch, which to my understanding is an Islamophobia watchdog of working closely with CAIR. He does not provide the evidence, but just asserts this position and makes it a fact simply because CAIR thanked Loonwatch at one point in time.
His other grievance with Loonwatch is that it does not condemn the radical sheikh’s, imams and clerics of using Islam to justify aggression and oppression. Well that’s not Loonwatch’s objective or mission statement. Loonwatch was setup with a particular objective in mind:
“Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the web’s plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists.”
http://www.loonwatch.com/...
Just as JihadWatch’s objective is not to praise Muslims who do good things. All websites have their own particular biases and own particular agendas to promote and perpetuate. What I find laughable is that Eric wants to compel Loonwatch to change its objectives and agendas. What authority does Eric have to do so? Did Eric ask why JihadWatch does not portray Muslims who do righteous things in the limelight?
Lastly, forgive me if this seems like kicking a man when he is down. I know Eric can’t respond to this on the Daily Kos anymore, but Eric if you’re reading this please feel free to respond on your blog and maybe I will follow-up with an update.