Hating Islam for Fun and Profit

  Harvard University announced yesterday that Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud has donated $20 million to fund a program in Islamic studies. Prince Alwaleed made the following statement about his gift.

"I am pleased to support Islamic studies at Harvard and I hope that this program will enable generations of students and scholars to gain a thorough understanding of Islam and its role both in the past and in today’s world," Prince Alwaleed said. "Bridging the understanding between East and West is important for peace and tolerance."

Such programs are needed to counter the prevailing image of Islam in both the US and the German media.  These are halcyon days for "experts" that make a living spreading hate against Muslims and about Islam.  Just last week the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer received much praise for his "sensitive and thoughtful" support of torture where he complained that the detainees at Guantanamo were given the Koran when they should really be tortured. Also last week the online conservative magazine Human Events published a serious article by the Middle East "expert" Robert Spencer that compares the Koran to Mein Kampf.  But probably the most dangerous exponent of anti-Muslim hate is the "Islamic scholar" Daniel Pipes, who has his own respected think tank where he routinely publishes "policy research" that, among other things, advocates incarcerating America Muslims in detention camps. Pipes routinely publishes his expert opinions on Islam on David Horowitz’s online hate magazine Front Page.  A recent "symposium" at that publication included the contribution of Pipes’ German counterpart: Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz, a scholar of Islamic Studies and author of Von Allah zum Terror? Der Djihad und die Deformierung des Westens. 

In his book Raddatz accuses Pope John Paul II of "gross abuse" of the papacy in seeking dialogue with Islam.  Any attempt to establish dialogue is appeasement to Islam.  In numerous op/ed pieces and TV interviews Raddatz never tires of equating Isalm to terror; his outbursts frequently remind one of the anti-Asian yellow peril hysteria ( a German invention, according to Wikipedia).  Here Raddatz warns about all of the Muslim babies: 

Derzeit dürfte es keine Religion geben, die von radikalen Strömungen stärker gefährdet ist als der Islam. Dies hat auch mit der hohen Reproduktionsrate zu tun. Im Schnitt liegt sie etwa dreimal so hoch wie im Westen.

Earlier this year Raddatz generated a great deal of publicity for himself when he claimed that he was the target of a "death threat" on an Islamic Web site.  In response to a television appearance by Raddatz the Islamic Internet portal Muslim-Markt published the following statement:

„Und wenn Herr Raddatz ein Hassprediger und Lügner ist, dann möge der allmächtige Schöpfer ihn für seine Verbrechen bestrafen und diejenigen, die trotz mehrfacher Hinweise auf die verbreiteten Unwahrheiten von Raddatz immer noch darauf bestehen, auch." 

I would translate this loosely as follows: May the almighty creator punish Herr Raddatz and those that believe his lies and hate. Based on that sentence Raddatz was given round-the-clock police protection; his value in the media as an "expert commentator" has soared. But Raddatz’s anti-Islam hate is only surpassed by his cowardice:  Islam.de points out that Raddatz has refused all invitations to meet with representatives of the Muslim media in Europe.

Pipes and Raddatz can be grateful that their "expertise" will be very much in demand by the Bush administration for the foreseeable future.  President Bush is no longer able to sell the Iraq War as necessary because of WMDs or as a response to 9/11.  Americans no longer buy the argument that the sacrifice in blood and treasure is necessary for "spreading democracy".  So the administration now turns to the expert research of Pipes, Raddatz, etc. and discovers that Islamic militants want to establish a caliphate:

So now, Mr. Cheney and others warn, Al Qaeda’s ultimate goal is the re-establishment of the caliphate, with calamitous consequences for the United States. As Mr. Cheney put it in Lake Elmo, referring to Osama bin Laden and his followers: "They talk about wanting to re-establish what you could refer to as the seventh-century caliphate" to be "governed by Sharia law, the most rigid interpretation of the Koran."

Or as Mr. Rumsfeld put it on Monday: "Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East, and which would threaten legitimate governments in Europe, Africa and Asia."

So Americans should be afraid that mullahs in turbans will soon occupy the White House and force the women of New York City to wear headscarves – unless we throw our support behind the disasterous Iraq war policy of the Bush administration.  No doubt Pipes and Raddatz will be called upon to spread more fear and hatred of Islam in Europe and the US.  And it shouldn’t come as a surprise if this leads to more unintended consequences, such as we’ve seen in Sydney over the past couple of days. 

islam Racism