Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide -- unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. ... This is why I think it's important to pursue a vigorous military strategy now. Because if we don't, the military strategy we'll have to follow in five or ten years will be light-years beyond "vigorous."
-Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds
November 19, 2002Europe cannot find peace until the Jewish question has been solved. ... if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshivization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
-Adolph Hitler
Speech to the Reichstag, January 30, 1939
Hammasa Kohistani is not your average Muslim woman. The beautiful 19 year old immigrant from Afghanistan was recently crowned Queen England and took advantage of her 15 minutes of fame to make a statement in defense of her people:
She said: "The attitude towards Muslims has got worse over the year. Also the Muslims' attitude to British people has got worse.
"Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more.
"People may feel I am just a sugar coating on the situation. I am a symbol to show it's not really that bad.
But at the same time, she said, "there is this hostility" which comes "mainly from the Government".
The Prime Minister told MPs last month that moderate Muslims were not doing enough to tackle extremists in their own community.
Miss Kohistani said: "Tony Blair addressed Muslims in particular, telling them that they need to sort out the problem within. That was a huge stereotype of the Islamic community. Even the more moderate Muslims have been stereotyped negatively and feel they have to take actions to prove themselves.
Naturally, the
wingnutosphere took great offense to this uppity wog woman daring to question the status quo:Politically Correct Just Rewards
Muslim Miss England Excuses Islamic Terror
Last September, England made a touchingly politically correct gesture by crowning Muslim Uzbekistan native Hammasa Kohistani as Miss England. Now it has received its just reward: Miss Kohistani is utilizing her position to denounce the West and even to blame it for Islamic terrorism.
...
Meanwhile, girls who are better looking, English, and don't endorse an evil ideology that calls for our destruction don't get to be Miss England. But like any prize tainted by moonbattery (e.g., Pulitzers, Nobels), it doesn't mean much anyway.
"politically correct gesture", eh?
Now where have I heard that same exact talking point? Hmm...
Surely crowning her was purely an exercise in political correctness and multiculturalism..
I mean, looks-wise Prince Charles would have a better chance in the Miss World pageant than her..
Ah, Stormfront. How interesting that many of the same talking points once used by the fringe far-right to demonize the "mud people" are being incorporated by the mainstream right to demonize Muslims.
Let's see what Hindrocket has to say:
Hmm. Could there be some parallel here to the Fox News journalists, who, upon their (perhaps provisional) release, delivered a paean to the glories of Islam in Gaza, under the watchful eyes of armed Palestinian Authority gunmen--wearing the same uniforms as those who kidnapped them--before scurrying to safety in Israel? Perhaps Miss Kohistan has become a terrorist sympathizer, like the much older and wiser Fox team, mostly because she doesn't want her head, or her parents' heads, to be separated from their respective necks.
Yes, how ironic that in her native country she would be considered a whore and be beheaded yet she has the nerve,
the nerve, to... lightly criticise England for its xenophobia which is preventing secular Muslims like herself from integrating properly and secularizing themselves.
The same point is made much more eloquently by a Stormfronter named "CONANCELTIC":
According to her religion? she is a whore who should be
beaten and should marry a male whore and not be
part of the umma wi the rest of the genocidal muzzers?
The rest of the Stormfront thread I linked to earlier could easily be mistaken for an average FreeRepublic or LGF thread.
But relating to Miss Kohistani's main point, that Western alienation of Muslims is leading to terrorism, she really was on to something. Recent articles in the Boston Globe and the Washington Post have suggested that Muslim-Americans, normally considered very assimilated when compared to European Muslims, are becoming increasingly radicalized by post 9/11 anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and foreign policies perceived as anti-Muslim. Indeed, it is hard for one to deny that the past five years have been an easy time for Muslims within America. Consider the following:
Most shocking is an
article in the SF Chronicle which suggests that Muslims are being stereotyped as a "race".
As the war on terror heads into its sixth year, a new racial stereotype is emerging in America. Brown-skinned men with beards and women with head scarves are seen as "Muslims" -- regardless of their actual faith or nationality.
Law enforcement measures, politicians, religious leaders and the media have contributed to stereotyping Muslims as a race -- echoing the painful history of another faith.
"Muslims are the new Jews," said Paul Silverstein, an anthropology professor at Reed College in Oregon who studies the intersection of race, immigration and Islam. "They're the object of a series of stereotypes, caricatures and fears which are not based in a reality and are independent of a person's experience with Muslims."
This is the type of thing which harpens back to the days of Nazi Germany (I know "Godwin's law blah blah" shut up). The form of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust and was by far the most potent was
racial anti-semitism. The idea that Jews were part of an "other". That Jewish loyalty was focused on their own group rather than their nation of residence. This all sounds vaguely familiar doesn't it?
My question is this: why doesn't the SF Chronicle article have the guts to put at least part of the blame for this widespread bigotry where it belongs? On the increasingly radical American right. I could spend the rest of this diary going through a litany of quotes from various rightist pundits that demonize Arabs and Muslims. Quotes from Christian Evangelicals practically calling the War on Terror a "holy war". Quotes that advocate war crimes against Muslims. One quote in particular from a certain best selling author and prominant conservative figurehead not only labels Muslims with a disgusting slur, but calls for violence against them. Barely any media outlets call these hatemongers out on their apalling disdain for over 1 billion human beings. The right's reframing of basic human decency as "political correctness" (once again taking their cue from Stormfront) has made it even harder for people to speak out against their eliminationist bile.
It's time that we recognize that the dehumanization of an entire people in mainstream discourse cannot be ignored. We must convince the mainstream media to stop promoting anti-Muslim propagandists as legitimate journalists and pundits. We must push the war crimes enthusiasts and authoritarian advocates back into the fringes where they belong. No longer can we tolerate calls for government enforced discrimination as harmless and "politically incorrect". We must point out the bigots wherever they may be and call them bigots without shame.
More than anything, we need to emphasise the fact that the xenophobia and jingoism of the American right will not make us any safer. To the contrary, it will fullfill bin Laden's goal of provoking an all out war between the West and the Muslim world. It is then, that the terrorists' will truly have won.