Ever heard of Peter King?
He's a replican rep from NY. He has become famous for forcing Muslim Americans to look at extremists within their faith and be realistic about what is actually happening in the world. While the moderate Muslims living in America might not have anything to do with their more radical brothers across the middle east and even in Europe, they are still technically members of the same religion. His case is not that Muslims all over the world have to take responsibility for what their brothers are doing, but rather come to terms with what is happening and to stop denying it.
I was reading this article in the Washington Post written by a Muslim woman in support of King's beliefs. She quotes the Quran saying:
Oh ye who believe!
Stand out firmly
For justice, as witnesses
To God, even if it may be against
Yourselves, or your parents
Or your kin
Proving that even the Quran challenges the Islamic community to be self-critical.
As Jews i think it's an important case to learn about. If there were injustices happening all over the world due to extremists in the Jewish community, we would not sit by and let it happen; getting defensive any time we were blamed for the atrocious events. They have to take responsibility for what is happening to a certain extent and i think that the Muslim world will only bennefit from this proactive stance.
I very much agree with you. This is a similair debate to the ground zero mosque one in that the other side is falsely painting King(and opponents of the mosque) as blaming all Muslims for the actions of the few. People like to keep their heads in the sand and pretend that theres no problems with radicalization in this country (theres been several in the last year). This over-indulgence in PC must end before its too late!
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with both of you, I still think that's a difficult argument to make. The problem is that it's OK when religious grouping is done by members within the religion. Once you have outside sources commenting on an entire religion though, it's tricky to treat all members of the religion as the same. If a Jewish radical in Israel killed some Palestinians, would it be right for Jews living in Wyoming, who have never been to Israel, to be forced to take the blame? I don't think it's fair to hold people responsible for the actions of others, even if they are in the same religion. I agree that they should view themselves as responsible, but I don't think it's fair for us to hold them accountable for the actions of people they've never met or had any kind of interaction with.
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