Friday, July 22, 2005
Giving the Hatemongers No Place to Hide
Tom Friedman's latest column is a brilliant and unusually constructive essay on the need to expose hatemongering in the world today. Too many people ask "why do they hate us?" choose their top 3-5 favorite answers (ones which usually reduce terrorism to some kind of converse reaction to the West, rather than a product of the actual goals, ideals, and methods of the terrorists themelves) and then call it a day.
A recent Pew Report on attitudes toward terrorism in the Muslim world trumpeted a 8-10% drop in support for terrorism in various states. Hey, any decline in that figure is great, but presidential popularity can fluctuate about as much during an election year without this really deciding the outcome.
Far more significant was the finding that a vast majority of Muslims hold negative views toward Jews. Unfavorable views toward Jews ranged from 60% of respondents in Turkey to 100% in Jordan. Although the results were not nearly as one-sided, unfavorable views toward Christians were in the majority in Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey.
There is fundamentally no escaping the theological character of this war, and the ways by which it is fueled by sectarian hatreds. Fortunately, as Friedman notes, hatemongers tend to cringe when their words are publicized and exposed. Years ago, a Saudi newspaper publisher was forced by public opinion to denounce a story in his paper that repeated the infamous blood libel. Strong consistent pressure against hate speech - which can, even-handedly also attack extremists in the Christian, Jewish, and Hindu faiths - can have positive results. It won't stop the militant bigots, but it can constrain those who operate in the open. After the Pew Report, the argument that these attitudes are a mere reaction to unfavorable Western policies seems pretty thin. "We just hate your government's policy" no longer seems an alibi for such widespread attitudes.
A recent Pew Report on attitudes toward terrorism in the Muslim world trumpeted a 8-10% drop in support for terrorism in various states. Hey, any decline in that figure is great, but presidential popularity can fluctuate about as much during an election year without this really deciding the outcome.
Far more significant was the finding that a vast majority of Muslims hold negative views toward Jews. Unfavorable views toward Jews ranged from 60% of respondents in Turkey to 100% in Jordan. Although the results were not nearly as one-sided, unfavorable views toward Christians were in the majority in Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey.
There is fundamentally no escaping the theological character of this war, and the ways by which it is fueled by sectarian hatreds. Fortunately, as Friedman notes, hatemongers tend to cringe when their words are publicized and exposed. Years ago, a Saudi newspaper publisher was forced by public opinion to denounce a story in his paper that repeated the infamous blood libel. Strong consistent pressure against hate speech - which can, even-handedly also attack extremists in the Christian, Jewish, and Hindu faiths - can have positive results. It won't stop the militant bigots, but it can constrain those who operate in the open. After the Pew Report, the argument that these attitudes are a mere reaction to unfavorable Western policies seems pretty thin. "We just hate your government's policy" no longer seems an alibi for such widespread attitudes.
