A few years ago Markos Moulitas wrote a book, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right. This is in a long tradition of demonization of American Christian conservatives by the Left. All’s fair in love and war, but I think this tendency to make an analogy between American religious conservatives and Islamic religious conservatives is one reason that the hypocrisy of white “enlightened” liberals is rather galling to many. The reality is that Muslim Americans have moderately conservative views, which if they were white Protestant Christians would get them labelled as slack-jawed inbred cretins. But, since they are generally “people of color” their beliefs get a pass, and on the contrary, many on the Left fear being termed “Islamophobic,” all the while defending the robust validity of critiques of Christian conservatives. This isn’t about principle, this is about power. Below are some data from the Religious Landscape Survey:
Strawman rubbish unworthy of this blog; I think you will find that liberals are concerned at the (ab)use of religion to interfere in the private lives of individuals – I see no evidence that Muslim fundamentalists get a pass that Cbristian fundamentalists do not. They are all cretins if they seek to use the power of law to regulate the sex lives of consenting adults. And that is not moderate conservatism.
But liberals’ concern about Christian fundamentalism is driven by the fact that it has great influence in modern US politics – Islamic fundamentalism does not.
The graph show American Muslims being slightly more “secular” than Evangelicals, but only slightly so. It’s interesting to note that this is probably the most secular segment of the Muslim world. THIS is as good as gets.
What the heck is “Maline”? Non-Evangelical Protestant?
What the heck is “Maline”? Non-Evangelical Protestant?
yes. this is a pretty standard term in the scholarship and in american history.
It’s interesting to note that this is probably the most secular segment of the Muslim world. THIS is as good as gets.
perhaps the ex-communist states. i’d have to look at the data though….
Malines is the French name of a city in Belgium, used to refer to a kind of lace or a Belgian breed of the domestic fowl. I call fowl!
(I think it’s supposed to be “Mainline”.)
lol. thanks. i didn’t get the joke 🙂
My experience in the Middle East, both in military intelligence in Iraq and living for a time in Cairo, was that for all the bluster about the centrality of religion in the Muslim world, it’s really the only frame they’ve ever been given, except for the Western materialism one (nobody loves a flashy Gucci logo–invariably a knockoff–like a twentysomething Arab). The best thing the invasion of Iraq did was get those people cell phones and satellite dishes, because that, for them, meant a real change in their way of life and sense of personal autonomy. (My job was to talk to Iraqis, and I heard this all the time.)
Actually, talking to the really radical ones, I found that their religious fervor was generally a veneer over the top of more mundane social concerns, the scarcity of girls of a marriageable age in Syria being one driver of radicalism from over that border, for instance. Other than that, they were generally angry at America for Israel, or behaving like a bully, or neutering their national pride with excessive aid/fighting their battles for them. When the only side that has ever offered you an out from the misery of living under a dictatorship is religion, that’s the side you choose. The difference today is that thanks to technology it is much more difficult to keep them from discovering other routes.
Of course, thanks to technology it’s also a lot easier to build a bomb in your house, so there’s that. I don’t see a lot of evidence of that going on in America. You’d think at least one muslim car bomb would have gone off if we were actually under siege, as Rep. King seems to believe.
About American Muslims, yes, they are very conservative, and it is kind of funny that us liberals are siding with them. But we have a long history of sticking up for those who don’t vote our way, yet still find themselves downtrodden. Some of us really believe this stuff about sticking up for the little guy. Most liberals would be happy to spend taxpayer dollars on getting electricity to a small town in a deeply red state, for instance, because it’s the right thing to do. Whether that extends to our politicians is another matter, but it certainly extends to many of them.
It’s not because they are “people of color” that the left rushes to defend American Muslims. It is because they are the current recipient of a slanderous campaign against them, for the crime of their religious beliefs. (Not that white Muslims who dress like the rest of us face the same scrutiny….) But we’d side with them if they were white, just as the ACLU has consistently defended the KKK in 1st Amendment cases.
. But we have a long history of sticking up for those who don’t vote our way,
they do vote for your way. at least since 2000.
It is because they are the current recipient of a slanderous campaign against them, for the crime of their religious beliefs
some of that happens with plenty of religions. a lot of the stuff directed at christian conservatives or mormons is slanderous too. but it is the conservative right which selectively sticks up for their “own kind” in that case.
the bigger point is that liberals make huge catchall accusations of “islamophobia.” i’m not frank gaffney, but yeah, i am scared of islam, it is a scary religion. i don’t think it’s constitutively so, i think all religion is made up, and it is what man makes of it. but liberals routinely deny the statistical reality that muslims hold reactionary and regressive beliefs which they’d excoriate in conservative xtians.
this does not mean that people should tolerate stupid generalizations. but i find that the left in its attacks on “islamophobia” is fighting stupid with stupid. defending the rights of religious freedom of a minority does not mean that you need to pretend like they’re not very objectionable in many ways, which does elicit a rational phobic response in others. look at how muslim majority countries are run. i’m happy with the left defending principles of liberty, i am not happy with their implicit whitewashing of what islam is as a realized matter.
I agree completely that we liberals often get too high and mighty about our moral superiority (and the superiority of our data as well), which is annoying even to the rest of us.
The way “Islamic countries are run” varies widely, but it resembles western countries prior to the French and American revolutions. You act as if we still aren’t a historical anomaly.
“What Islam is as a realized matter” is also a lot broader than “they support terrorists and beat women and and and.” I have lived in Islamic countries, and I can say for certain that the average Muslim is simply a more generous, warm person than the average American. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of them must surely be the way the Koran is written so as not to allow people to read Randian economic principles into it, even if they really wanted to. This is an observation based on years of interaction with them, and having been raised in a Pat Robertson-watching homeschool environment. I know both groups pretty well. (I also used to teach Muslim culture and counter-terrorism at the US Army Intelligence School, so I’ve some background on those issues as well.)
I share your distaste for religion in general, and for the notion that some benevolent space creature loves us.
On to the slanders: EVERY in-group benefits from believing it is besieged. The question of oppression can only be answered on a case-by-case basis. So, have you seen the video from last week? (Well, it used to be online, but it’s been removed. A clip played on the Daily Show.) It showed Muslims entering a building to hold a fundraiser for women’s shelters (I believe), and protesters yelling racial epithets, chanting “go home,” and featuring an Orange County Councilwoman stating, “I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.” That is nothing if not an atmosphere of intimidation, and solely for the crime of their religious beliefs. There’s something about that in the constitution, I believe.
So are you honestly telling me that being a law-abiding, ordinary Muslim isn’t MUCH more unpleasant in this country today than it was ten years ago? It should be obvious that such is the case. If that does not offend you, why?
A “rational” phobic response? Are you nuts? Seriously: go visit a Middle Eastern country. Or actually talk to a Muslim. It’s clear you have no real personal experience in the matter. Just because religion is at its base a lie doesn’t mean that all religions are equally awful. I found much to admire in the Muslim focus on charity, caring for the sick, and many other laudable things. I also found much to despise., as I have in all religions, and other “isms” for that matter.
But fear? Only a persistent attempt to radicalize the muslim population in this country would spark the sort of chaotic violence that infests the imagination of Rep. King and those who support him (if he believes his bs at all). And of course, Rep. King is doing his damndest to radicalize them.
I also agree that if Muslims were white Christians with the same political attitudes, they wouldn’t be liberals’ darlings. But then again, they wouldn’t be enduring racist stereotyping from the local to the federal level. That’s something liberals are opposed to, no matter who the victim is.
Did you not know this?
As for how they vote, hey, it’s not our fault that the GOP can’t manage to shake its racist image, thus driving nearly everyone in this country with a tan or better into the arms of the only other game in town. Maybe it has something to do with the recent anti-immigration zeal? Other ethnic groups looking over their shoulders and thinking, “am I next?” D’ya think?
The fact is, Muslims will vote with the Dems, against their cultural interest, until a viable other party comes along that doesn’t use them as a rhetorical punching bag. (Incidentally, nothing is more in your “cultural interest” than being treated decently as a group. That will outweigh abortion every time.) Just like Blacks and Hispanics, who are more culturally conservative than Dems in general, but can see which side addresses their issues directly, and which one responds to every NAACP press release with a denial and a counter charge of racism.
I think you seriously underestimate the extent to which American Muslims feel targeted by our government, and by just one side in our political discourse. (Yes, of course some Dems are just as bad.) Again, introduce yourself to a Muslim. Ask them what they see. You clearly haven’t.
“but liberals routinely deny the statistical reality that muslims hold reactionary and regressive beliefs which they’d excoriate in conservative xtians.”
I don’t believe you. Show me proof.
Sean,
I would suggest googling “Razib Khan” (he uses the name David Hume on this blog). There’s a recetn NY Times article on the Secular Right blog. You’ll see that “David Hume” has first hand experience with Islam, to include spending time in a madrasa.
Do you not think that the Religious Landscape Study that the graphs above came from counts as evidence for Razib’s assertion that Muslims hold “reactionary and regressive beliefs?”
If you are interested in another, longer, post somewhat along these lines, check out Razib’s comparison of attitudes in Egypt and Turkey over at one of his several other blogs.
It seems to me that there’s an interesting in group-out group dynamic among American liberals in how they practice their multiculturalism. “Multiculturalism” really means respect for the cultures of outsiders, but from my experiences with many liberals, including my own family members, that respect is not reserved for what could be termed “white American subcultures”, which if they are of the rural conservative type are often treated with open contempt.
Now, certainly, there are rationales behind this. You can see one of them in Sean’s comments where he identifies Muslims as “downtrodden”, essentially the oppressed out group.
Now, Sean makes an interesting point when he says:
That conforms to what I have heard and interestingly enough, it also conforms to what I’ve heard about people in the (relatively conservative) American south. I wonder if this has any relation to the effect of oxytocin on in group-out group attitudes that made its rounds through the press recently.
Regardless, I’ve seen the same double standard among liberals in defending Muslims, despite a similar level of conservatism to the conservative Christians that they like to attack with vigor. I don’t think that it’s necessarily a denial of their conservatism so much as a willingness to gloss over it or ignore it. White liberals are willing to wage a culture war so long as their targets are sufficiently like them, but multiculturalist attitudes kick in when a group is sufficiently exotic.
This is probably a reaction to perceived bigotry coming from conservatives, and liberals (like conservatives on other topics) are willing to position themselves in a manner to take up a position because it is opposed by conservatives. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
. Or actually talk to a Muslim. It’s clear you have no real personal experience in the matter.
my real name is “razib khan.” i spent time in a madrasa. my family is muslim. i come from a line sufi saints and imams. and, i was born in bangladesh. i think this conversation is over. i talk to muslims every week. my family.
you fell into the standard liberal trap of imputing ignorance to others because you couldn’t fathom islamophobia as anything but low motives and stupidity. i have a “muslim name” and “look muslim,” so perhaps i know a bit more about the issue personally than you do? the reality is that 80% of egyptians and pakistanis think someone like me should be killed according to a pew survey. this does not mean that they can’t be generous to strangers, kind to their family members, and charitable individuals. they just have barbaric reactionary personal beliefs and social norms.
Muslims are conservative on social issues, but they are definitely not conservative on either economic issues or foreign policy issues. They are likely to support big government programs, and are against the war on terrorism (for obvious reasons). Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have agreed with today’s Muslims on much.
As has been pointed out, they also vote Democrat, and the only Muslim congressman is a Democrat.
but they are definitely not conservative on either economic issues or foreign policy issues
for the record, i’m skeptical of “conservative” or “liberal” on foreign policy issues (i have moderate isoaltionist views myself, so probably have concurrent views with muslim americans on that stuff).
I don’t have any polling to support this, I admit, but I doubt Muslim were “moderate isolationists” when Clinton was bombing Serbia. 🙂
or bosnia. that’s why i say concurrent. you can arrive at the same conclusion via different paths. there is no way that muslims will be able to shift the USA to a pro-islamic foreign policy, so the best they can hope for is non-intervention.
Are “Muslims” (about as meaningful a word as “Christians”) the darlings of “lefties”? Which “lefties”? You mean like this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt4WVmwhyRw
I think a lot of lefties are offended by the hypocrisy of the “Christians” who, IF they had been left to their own devices, would still be killing folks just like too many of their Islamic fellow-travelers do now. It took centuries to tame the Christians, but their roots are the same. If you want to see Jihad in action, go back to the Old Testament and check out God’s instructions concerning cities like Ai and Jericho. That psychopath Jehovah wanted everything and everybody slaughtered: men, women, children, animals, you name it.
I think a lot of lefties are offended by the hypocrisy of the “Christians” who, IF they had been left to their own devices, would still be killing folks just like too many of their Islamic fellow-travelers do now.
most here would probably not disagree. the key is that there isn’t enough acknowledgement of the problem that the islamic world is pre-enlightenment in its mores, and that cultural elites haven’t been able to impose pluralism on the populace. maher et al. are nice, but they’re marginal. most liberals are at least nominal religious believers, and adhere to a de facto universalist monism, and they project that religious belief to everyone. this works plausibly with many hindus, at least those who aren’t nationalists, but with far fewer muslims (those it works with are generally what we term “sufis”).
Others have mentioned it but I will reiterate. I don’t think fundamentalists of any kind get a pass from “liberals” (Granted I mostly hang around with atheists and agnostics who loathe organized religion so I admit my sample is skewed). Regressive barbarism is regressive barbarism. I think the specific reaction many liberals have to conservative Christians has mostly to do with the out sized influence they have on American political discourse and their penchant for legislating morality (in spite of their persistent and thorough hypocrisy on that matter).
The Left and organized Muslims both share an enemy, hence the cooperation. The enemy of my enemy is my friend type stuff. In Iran the Left and the Mullahs made common cause against the Shah who was too authoritarian for the former and too secular for the latter. Of course the Left got basically purged once the Mullahs were in power but you know, as Stalin called them: “useful idiots”.
When it comes to Muslims’ personal behavior, I have made mixed experiences, some very friendly fellows, some fellows trying to rob me. In general though it’s rather irrelevant, Islam is an ideology and thus it can have a hold on perfectly nice, friendly people who could still be dangerous on the basis of their beliefs.
In danger of evoking Godwin’s Law here, I believe it was a U.S. consul to Nazi Germany, Mr. Hathaway, who said about the Germans he lived amongst: “I live in a little village south of Munich, and the people there are hard-working and friendly and not interested in politics in general, and they and I like and respect each other. But if someone in uniform came to them and said ‘March!’, they would march and if he said ‘Go and cut off Hathaway’s head! He’s a bad man!’, they would reply, ‘We didn’t know that!’ But they would cut my head off all the same.”
Why did he say that? Because the Germans were under the spell of a vicious ideology and because at that point and maybe still there is something to the German culture that encourages obedience to authorities.
It’s not that hard to arrive at very similar conclusions about a whole lot of Muslims. Germans left that ideology behind and have softened those tendencies in their culture considerably, but it took a bloody war and a lot of German self-criticism to even get there. I have a hard time believing there’s going to be a much easier shortcut for Muslims.
I’ll also risk invoking Godwin’s Law, but in a different context than Mike H.
In 1931 General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, the Commander-in-Chief of the late Weimar German army made the following comment: “I wish that Hitler fellow would go away so I could go back to insulting the Jews.” A recognition, albeit no doubt at least partly facetious, that sometimes a free expression of one’s own views can cause innocent people to suffer,
What’s this got to do with Muslims in the US? Well they suffer more for being Muslims than Evangelical Protestants or Mormons suffer for their beliefs. Terrorist outrages since at least 9/11 have led to physical assualts on Muslims (or people thought to be Muslims- lots of Sikhs and even a Greek Orthodox priest mistaken for a Muslim and bashed with a tire iron after the Fort Hood massacre) in the US. This doesn’t happen to Southern Baptists or Mormons just because of their religion. No one went after any religious conservatives with a tire iron in revenge for the murder of Dr. Tiller.
Likewise Muslims face organized resistance when they seek permission to build mosques(not just the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”) that are never faced by those seeking to build Evangelical or Mormon places of worship. Although employment discrimination is hard to prove does anyone doubt that, all things being equal, its probably easier for a Southern Baptist or a Mormon to find employment in New York City or Boston than it would be for a Muslim to find employment in rural Idaho.
So perhaps “white liberals” refrain from being too critical of Muslims, even though they may find their theology distasteful, because they fear making life difficult for individual Muslims in a way that expressing distaste for conservative Christians/Mormons does not impact those groups.
Many thanks to Sean … for the comedy relief.
Telling the member of a Muslim family to get to know a single Muslim.
Sean, you’ve earned the David Brent award for the week.
cross posting from brownpundits.com (and I apologise if this violates some intertube convention, I really dont know most of them)
I disagree with Razib about the Millet business and I do so based on this notion:
Any exaggerated “Islamism” of Muslim immigrants to the US (Europe is a somewhat different case) is only skin deep. By that, I mean that they talk the talk, but apart from isolated crazies, are absolutely not ready to walk the walk. As long as the best traditions of American liberalism permit them to be both orthodox Muslim and actively American, they are both (and happily blind to the contradictions, but they are not the only people to be so). If push comes to shove (as it may, unfortunately), they will fall on their knees and beg to allowed to be good Americans. It will be such an unpleasant display of sheer spinelessness that I will seriously consider the possibility of standing up for the medieval barbarisms of orthodox Islam. They, in short, will debase themselves like nobody’s business if that is the price of having to keep up the good life.
I cannot prove this assertion, but I find it very very plausible.
“The reality is that Muslim Americans have moderately conservative views, which if they were white Protestant Christians would get them labelled as slack-jawed inbred cretins.”
No, the reality is that there is an “American Taliban”, and it’s composed of exactly the sort of people you’d expect a genuine Taliban to be made up of – Muslims.
The same is true for all the other pathologies the left ceaselessly searches for on the right – they can all be found in their purest forms among groups on the leftist fringe. Projection is the defining trait of the American left.
Razib: sorry, I didn’t know it was you! I read GNXP pretty regularly a couple of years ago. Yes, I assumed that the position was one of ignorance, and I was uncharitable in doing so. I should know better: I was a conservative activist and wannabe intellectual for almost 20 years, and it irritates the hell out of me when people assume I don’t know about the invisible hand or that Greenland used to be green.
I don’t buy those PEW surveys for a lot of reasons, but I’ll grant you that the majority of Muslims have a very unmodern take on the world. So do other people from hopelessly poor places. What should give the “islamophobes” pause is what we’re seeing now in Egypt, a country where for decades practically the only political opposition was funneled through Islam: a revolution that has, thus far, gone out of its way to declare its secularism. That doesn’t sound like the actions of a population that is 80% “radical” to me.
I restate my original point: Liberals don’t care how you vote so much as they care that you are oppressed. Yes, there are some snide attitudes on the left about certain sorts of people, but the political cause of defending American Muslims from oppression due to race, color and creed has nothing to do with those attitudes. (Besides, I see conservatives defending the interests of limousine liberals all the time!)
Just catching up with the thread.
Nemo said a lot I pretty much agree with.
I think there’s a definitely a difference between how Mormons are treated today and Muslims today but it wasn’t that many years ago that Mormons were regularly assaulted for being Mormons. Especially in the Evangelical South. I’ve got quite a few stories from when I lived in the South back in the 80’s. By regular I don’t mean it was a common occurrence. Just that I suspect it was on par with what I read of Muslims facing today. Mormons became more assimilated and respected in America really only in the 80’s and 90’s. I’m sure that were some prominent terrorist act turn out to be committed by a Mormon that a lot of persecution would rise up again.
Actually this still happens a surprising number of times even today. It’s debatable whether it should be compared with the mosque a few blocks away from ground zero. I think that gets exaggerated by Mormons too much. However people have, perhaps unfairly, made the connection with attempts to stop a Mormon temple being built in Belmont, Mass with events in New York. (Sen. Orrin Hatch, for example, explicitly made the connection) As I said I think this is exaggerated but one doesn’t have to go very far in the past to see lots of opposition to Mormon buildings being built in various places that probably does match.
I think white liberal distrust Mormons in a way different from certain subgroups of Evangelicals. I think Mormons parallel Muslims somewhat by being distrusted by factions on both the right and the left.
I don’t know on that. It’s an interesting question. (Also note that rural Idaho is divided between the large Mormon population in the southeast and the large Evangelical population more in the north) I’ve heard of persecution of Muslims in Idaho but I’ve not heard of it in the higher Mormon density areas. (Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen of course) Typically I find Mormons are taught to try and have closer ties. Plus lots of Mormons have been overseas due to their missions. On the other hand I’ve also heard some pretty blatantly misinformed and bigoted comments about Islam from Mormons: especially the tea party types. So I’d not be surprised to find such things in southeastern Idaho.
Sean made some interesting comments as well:
I think though that as in most countries there is a divide between the elites and the regular folk. While elites can throw bones to the populace who disagree with them at times of stress that simply doesn’t work. (Witness the tea party which is I think a populist uprising against that very move within the Republican party)
The real question is how secularist the actual populace is. From what I can see a significant number aren’t even if the elite right now are. I think given that reality that democracy will put pressure on politicians to reflect such matters. I frankly would be shocked if, a year from now, we don’t see blasphemy being prosecuted strongly in Egypt much as it is in Pakistan. (And honestly others have noted that as a practical matter is was even under the previous regime)