“Chris Cuomo thinks the “angry” tone Professor Reza Aslan took this week with CNN hosts Don Lemon and Alisyn Camerota unwittingly demonstrated the exact hostility some people fear of the Islamic faith.
On Sept. 29, Aslan appeared on CNN Tonight and slammed Bill Maher for his comments on the Islamic faith, while also scolding Lemon and Camerota for what he felt was an “over-generalization” of 1.5 billion Muslim people as promoting violence.
“This is the problem,” he said Monday night. “These conversations that we’re having aren’t really being had in any kind of legitimate way. We’re not talking about women in the Muslim world, we’re using two or three examples to justify a generalization. That’s actually the definition of bigotry.”“* Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola (TYT University), Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show) and Wes Clark Jr break it down.
*Read more here from Andrew Kirell / Mediaite:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-chris-cuomo-reza-aslans-angry-tone-demonstrated-what-people-fear-from-islam/
Comments
merica voting for dumb@ss ppl that bomb a situation and research it later while trying to give the public a lesson. Merica not a half merica but a whole merica.
TYT, any comments about this rebuttal of Reza Aslan’s “facts”? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/05/reza-aslan-is-wrong-about-islam-and-this-is-why/
Are you kidding? Seriously… you post a link to just another biased blog that uses terms like Aslan was “wrong, or technically-correct-but-actually-wrong.” and expect everyone to take it seriously are a educated response. Try again. “Blogs” by random people are kinda pointless… they are a dime a million in the online world. .
You certainly did not read the Friendly Atheist link. Allow me to work my not-so-unique Copy/pasta Magic so that you needn’t exert that one extra click.
“This is a guest post written by Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider (below). They are co-founders of Ex-Muslims of North America, a community-building organization for ex-Muslims across the non-theist spectrum, and can be reached at @MoTheAtheist and @SarahTheHaider.”
The authors of this particular entry founded and run what is essentially a support group for Apostates. They are not “random people”, rather, like Cenk, they have a lifetime of experience within Islam, prior to escaping.
Aslan contends that while some Muslim countries have problems with violence and women’s rights, in others like “Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men” and it is therefore incorrect to imply that such issues are a problem with Islam and “facile” to imply that women are “somehow mistreated in the Muslim world.”
Let us be clear here: No one in their right mind would claim that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are a “free and open society for women.” Happily, a few of them have enshrined laws that have done much to bring about some progress in equality between the sexes. But this progress is hindered or even eroded by the creeping strength of the notoriously anti-woman Sharia courts.
For example:
Indonesia has increasingly become more conservative. (Notoriously anti-women) Sharia courts that were “optional” have risen to equal status with regular courts in family matters. The conservative Aceh province even legislates criminal matters via Sharia courts, which has been said to violate fundamental human rights.
Malaysia has a dual-system of law which mandates sharia law for Muslims. These allow men to have multiple wives (polygyny) and discriminate against women in inheritance (as mandated by Islamic scripture). It also prohibits wives from disobeying the “lawful orders” of their husbands.
Bangladesh, which according to feminist Tahmima Anam made real advancements towards equality in its inception, also “created a barrier to women’s advancement.” This barrier? An article in the otherwise progressive constitution which states that “women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the state and of the public life” but in the realm of private affairs (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody), “it acknowledges Islam as the state religion and effectively enshrines the application of Islamic law in family affairs. The Constitution thus does nothing to enforce equality in private life.”
And finally we come to Turkey, a country oft-cited by apologists due to its relative stability, liberalism, and gender equality. What they consistently choose to ignore is that historically, Turkey was militantly secular. We mean this literally: The country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, created a secular state and pushed Islam out of the public sphere (outlawing polygamy, child marriages, and giving divorce rights to women) through (at times, military) force. He even banned the headscarf in various public sectors and is believed by some to have been an atheist.
Aslan’s claim that Muslim countries “have elected seven women as their heads of state” is an example of “technically true, actually false” — a tactic we have often noted among religious apologists.
It is true that there have been seven female heads of state in Muslim-majority countries, but a closer inspection would reveal this has little to do with female empowerment and often has much more to do with the political power of certain families in under-developed parts of the world.
It is well-known that Benazir Bhutto, a woman, was democratically elected in Pakistan. What is not as well-known is that her advancement had much to do with her family’s power in her party (Pakistan People’s Party) and little to do with female empowerment. Her father was once Prime Minister of Pakistan, and she was elected to the position fresh from her exile in the West with little political experience of her own. After her assassination, her nineteen year old son assumed leadership of her political party — as was expected by many familiar with the power their family continued to hold.
Similarly, Sheikh Hasina (the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh) is the daughter of the founding father of the country, Sheikh Mujibur-Rehman. Khaleda Zia, the predecessor of Sheikh Hasina, assumed power over her party after the assassination of her husband — the second Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
In addition, Megawati Sukarnopotri, former President of Indonesia, was the daughter of Sukarno, the founding father of Indonesia.
To anyone familiar with women’s rights around the world, neither Pakistan, Bangladesh, nor Indonesia can be considered states with a stellar track record. It is likely that in these cases, the power of political dynasties was the key factor in their success.
Furthermore, female heads of state were elected democratically in Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Kosovo. But, as before, a closer inspection reveals a complicated reality. All three states are secular, where religion was forcibly uprooted from the government — due to Atatürk (in the case of Turkey) or Communism (in the cases of Kyrgyzstan and Kosovo).
Finally, we get to Aslan’s claim that it is “actually, empirically, factually incorrect” that female genital mutilation (FGM) is a “Muslim-country problem.” Rather, he believes it is a “central African problem.” He continues to state that “nowhere else in the Muslim, Muslim-majority states is female genital mutilation an issue.”
This is an absolutely ridiculous claim.
The idea that FGM is concentrated solely in Africa is a huge misconception and bandied about by apologists with citations of an Africa-focused UNICEF report which showed high rates of FGM in African countries. Apologists have taken that to mean that it is *only* Africa that has an FGM problem — even though FGM rates have not been studied in most of the Middle East or South and East Asia. Is it an academically sound practice to take a lack of study as proof of the non-existence of the practice? Especially when there is record of FGM common in Asian countries like Indonesia (study) and Malaysia? It is also present in the Bohra Muslim community in India and Pakistan, as well as in the Kurdish community in Iraq — Are they to be discounted as “African problems” as well?
FGM is, while not Koranic in origin, supported by the Hadith: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur%27an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Female_Genital_Mutilation (I must make you follow this link yourself, lest I confuse you as to where the source of My truthful statement lies. It comes from Islamic Scholars.) oops. that is also supported by the Friendly Atheist article :So is there any credence to the claim that Islam supports FGM? In fact, there is. To name two, the major collections of the Hadith Sahih Muslim 3:684 and Abu Dawud 41:5251 support the practice. Of the four major schools of thought in Sunni Islam, two mandate FGM while two merely recommend it. Unsurprisingly, in the Muslim-majority countries dominated by the schools which mandate the practice, there is evidence of widespread female circumcision. Of particular note: None of the major schools condemn the practice.” It has links that you may follow.
There are true Muslim reformists who are willing to call a spade a spade while working for the true betterment of their peoples — but their voices are drowned out by the noise of apologists who are all-too-often aided by the Western left. Those who accept distortions in order to hold on to a comforting dream-world where Islamic fundamentalism is merely an aberration are harming reform by encouraging apologists.
In closing, Aslan is an apologist. Apologists are known to lie, misrepresent, and cherry-pick Fact and Scripture in an effort to make their beloved Sacred Cow seem benign.
I really like clips with Reza. Is this his only his second time being on tv?
These are the same pundits that are burying lynching of Negroes in the name of religion in the west for no other reason than being born Negro therefore let Bill and CNN know that given 50 years they will be like the US is currently where lynching is done not overtly but ingrained in the policies of government and institutions. BTW if you commit adultery, homosexuality in the christian faith what is the punishment? Death
As an ESL teacher I have met hundreds of really nice Muslim students and had no problem with them that I didn’t have with those of other religions. They would at times say some scary things about gays or justify women’s lack of rights, but so did plenty of conservative Christian students I had. In this conversation about why liberals refuse to criticize the violent, misogynistic, and homophobic parts of Islam, but have no problem showing total disdain for the “white man’s” religion, I too see this as a blind spot of BS on the part of liberals. I am not convinced that women in any Muslim country- outside sophisticated parts of big cities- have equal rights, not does the LGBT community. In the best of them though, Turkey and maybe Tunisia, progress has been made, but mainly in the big cities. And just because they have had female heads of state that came from ruling families anyway, doesn’t mean common women are treated equally at all. I see Aslan as a religious apologist, and as a true liberal, I have to criticize a large a majority of the 1.5 billion Muslims just as I criticize the narrow mindedness of a large majority of Christians in this country. I understand us liberals’ desire to take up for the underdogs in every case, but we also have to understand that many times the underdogs’ poop stinks too, and we can’t give an easy pass to their anti-liberal beliefs and behaviors just because it’s the trend to only criticize the ones we know well.
Dear Tom,
Really agree with you here on this note, watching his debat VS CNN was actually not relevant. He made some good points about that the averge American with a diploma don’t know a thing what happens in Muslim country’s, but to be fare they really don’t know a thing what happens outside of America.
As a person who traveled around the world to part’s were Islam is the main religion Reza Aslan is actually twisting his facts. Yes Turkey has had more women of heads of state than most Western Country’s, but that is not because that it is an Islamic country au contraire it’s because of its constitution that distance its self from religion. The current situation: with a political party AK ( secretly religious party ) and prime minister Erdogan at the table, women don’t have a right to make there own decisions and men decrease there value in Turkey’s society. Not only that if you look at Indonesia ( the women ‘sorry i don’t know here name’ of CNN made a very bad example and Cenk pointed out sharp that the discussion is about women and not gay’s ) the Islam is very young in that country and also very mellow about implementing Islam this is manly because of there non violent culture, but at the moment its rapidly changing. Yes Indonesia has one of the largest Muslim human rights organizations. … Female professionals in the field of women’s and human rights, but extremis Islamic fantastic men are rapidly taking action to decrease there rights and brainwashing there children to follow the road of Saudi Arabia sharia.
The point I want to make is that, yes Reza Aslan debated really well and pointed out that Bill Maher technically speaking was wrong saying that ‘All Muslim countries where the same”. But if you look at the big picture and really see trough his fact’s Reza was wrong, not because of his intellect or mind set. Because he was defending religion and to be fare defending religion ( any kind of ) is a lost battle before it even started. Any kind of country who will be led by religion will decrease women / hate homosexueels and that is ‘factually correct’
ETATURK and i approve this message !