Christians in India suffer the effects of the acts of individual Americans, reports the leader of a mission agency, who said Muslim mobs in India destroyed a church and a school in response to the burning of the Koran in Michigan.
Although things appear to have settled down now, the incident reveals a deeper problem. “Mob violence by Muslims against Christians is quite unusual in India,” says Stravers [Dave Stravers of Mission India], “and it shows the depth of reaction against these very unchristian actions,” which could mean provocation won’t take much.
I wonder about this. The idea that Muslims in places like India react violently to gestures, and don’t understand that the actions of a lone American have nothing to do with the Christians in their village, fits a stereotype. They lack, we like to think, our sophistication and our ability to restrain ourselves. We have to treat them like emotionally-imbalanced children, and walk softly and talk in whispers, and it’s our fault if we send them into a rage. It’s a flattering stereotype, to us, and fits a broader western stereotype of religious people in general.
But as I say, I wonder. As an e-mail friend, Joe Long, wrote after another friend sent round the story:
I find it very, very difficult to believe that anyone who wasn’t already going to commit violence, suddenly decided to, based on some sensationalist preacher on another continent. Can you say “pretext”?
If anything, the condescending expresssions of “concern” by Western media figures are much more responsible, telling the rioters that they really are intimidating the West — and thus should keep it up. When the media-savvy Islamic leader sees, for instance, the unprecendented spectacle of an American general lecturing protestors at home on behalf of the tender feelings of Muslims . . . he most certainly is not mollified; he sees an advantage to press.
This reading isn’t much more flattering, but it’s less patronizing, and at least it treats the members of the mobs as moral agents, and tells us that placating them will not help.
September 22nd, 2010 | 12:20 pm
A colleague of mine and I were discussing this issue at work not long ago. His take, “If you’ve got a rattlesnake in your yard, you don’t poke at it with a fork.” My take, “Maybe not, but you also don’t barricade yourself in your house out of fear of it and blame your kid when he gets bitten walking out in the yard. You pick up a shovel and kill the damned thing.” That’s what we should be doing to any of those savages that try to use violence to intimidate or silence us. And that’s what the Indian government should be doing to the particular savages you mention in your post.
September 22nd, 2010 | 12:44 pm
I don’t get this. Aren’t Muslims independent responsible moral agents? Apparently not.
Why are there never any calls for Muslims to act like responsible moral agents? We all act as if they are incapable of morality.
September 22nd, 2010 | 1:51 pm
Mark: Westerners rarely make the kind of call you describe partly because many automatically give in whenever the West is challenged, but also because they really do assume that these people aren’t really moral agents. It’s a rank prejudice, which they would leap to condemn in others. The prejudice may be unconscious, but it grows because it is so flattering.
Speaking of stereotypes, here’s an amusing website Mapping Stereotypes.
September 22nd, 2010 | 3:50 pm
“Stereotype” “False”. One can’t help but be struck by the difference. A crucifix gets submerged in a jar of urine. Catholics react – but not by taking to the streets in throngs to set cars on fire and beat up gay photographers.
With what you’ve listed above, I think the principle distinction lies in the fanatical element in Islam (whether in “true” Islam or otherwise) which is absent in authentic Catholicism. Jesus spoke against those who must make of their piety and devotion a grand public display. Muslims seem eager to proclaim “See what a good Muslim am I!” by torching a car or commiting an assisination in response to a Quran burning or a blasphemous cartoon.
September 22nd, 2010 | 3:51 pm
There is supposed to be a does-not-equal sign between “Stereotype” and “False” in my previous post.
September 22nd, 2010 | 4:07 pm
There is also the possibility that, without being less intelligent or mature, Muslims think more covenantally and less individualistically than Americans.
That is, in their minds, it is not fallacious, stupid, or immature to think that it is “us” against “them” even though it is obviously not “me” against “the Christian guy next door.” And in all honesty, they’re not completely wrong, and we’re not completely right. If they have the balance out of whack so far they can’t consider what is justice for the individual, we have it at least some way out of whack the other way — we think men are islands.
September 22nd, 2010 | 8:22 pm
I certainly do not propose the following course of action, but consider: if a different preacher / activist burnt a Qu’ran every week, would the violent behaviour of these people continue? Or is it simply the rarity of these provocations that make an extreme reaction seem defensible?
I do not believe that burning a Qu’ran is, in many scenarios if at all, a charitable thing to do, and I do not think that we should wantonly insult people; but it would not be a bad thing if Muslim believers learned through necessity to be as tolerant of criticism as other religious believers are. I do think that, for many western Muslims, this transition has probably already been made.
September 23rd, 2010 | 4:46 pm
Of course not. They are — as one of their own imans told us — more like feral cats. We should round them up, take them to the pound, and let people willing to pay the license take them home.
At least since they are
1. unable to control their own actions and
2. dangerous
we should remember that constitutes legal insanity and act accordingly.
September 23rd, 2010 | 7:45 pm
Mary,
I assume that you are refering to Sheikh Al-Hilali’s notorious comments, in the context of a series of pack rapes carried out by a gang of Muslim men, likening unveiled Australian teenage girls to “uncovered meat” that the cats will eat? You should know that there was a very strong reaction against his comments from within the Australian Muslim community – many spokesmen strongly repudiated him, and he lost his job. It is not fair to suggest that his is the normative attitude amongst Australian Muslims. That said, I agree that it is a worrying minority opinion.
In everything, charity.
September 24th, 2010 | 7:24 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by First Things, Fay, Paul Wiersma, lumière bleue piqûre, lumière bleue piqûre and others. lumière bleue piqûre said: RT @rofters: Placating the Muslim Mobs http://bit.ly/9dy1aa [...]
October 6th, 2010 | 12:32 pm
There are at least 1 billion Moslems in the world.
There are about 150 million Moslems in India.
Now please go and read the original post and see the comments what you are implying. Moslems this and Moslems that. If the 150,000,000 “Moslems in India” behaved the way you are implying, there would have been no India. And then this ridiculous question, “Are ‘they’ moral agents?’ or ‘Shall we hold them responsible?’ Of course: Hold those who commit crimes responsible, but for God’s sake, leave your monitor and keyboard and get to know these people. You claim God became Man to save the humanity, yet you sit in your ivory towers, so detached and sure of yourself, and talk abstractly about something concrete you have no clue about.
Frankly, if Christianity is going this way, what can we expect from others?
October 6th, 2010 | 12:36 pm
PS. An uncharitable comment: It is ‘imam’, not ‘iman’. imam is the prayer leader, iman is the word for ‘Faith’. please, at least, get first your spelling right before allowing yourself to comment on other peoples’ beliefs.
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