Not Terribly Wise

Mindlessly browsing through the far-too-many tv channels we can now receive I happened to find myself watching what I think was the opening of a programme featuring the 'commentator' (I think they call themselves) on Fox News who got into a bit of a kerfuffle on some chat show recently, provoking Whoopi Goldberg (loved her in Star Trek!) to get bleeped for uttering some sort of profanity or other. Anyway the fellow - one of those guys who's a bit of a man of the people and right about everything, especially everything connected with some folk he terms liberals who are not up to very much, but quite a threat despite that - was justifying what he had said regarding Muslims and the 'mosque at ground zero', you know, the place that is neither a mosque nor at ground zero.

Now to be honest I don't know much about all this and am not terribly concerned about the issue. But I was reminded of the first time I was made aware of the plan to build the centre that's causing all the fuss. It was when one of the main guys involved in the planning of the building came to Singapore (and, I think, he went on to Malaysia), basically to sing the praises of America to Muslims here for the tolerance and understanding being shown by what he clearly regarded as a nation embodying the best of what loosely be termed democratic values. I was a bit surprised myself on reading this in the paper - that the building of the proposed centre had been deemed acceptable - and heartened by what was going on - this being before the unpleasant stuff hit the fan. The surprise came from the fact that I'd become so used to distortions regarding almost anything relating to Islam in American culture and politics that such reasonable, civilised behaviour seemed to buck an unstoppable descent into ignorance and foolishness.

Sadly this has not proved to be the case. I wonder if the citizens of that once great nation realise the degree to which they've shot themselves in the foot over this one? There're a lot of Muslims out there watching all this who are not terribly impressed with what's being said about them and whose attitudes are inevitably going to be coloured by such nonsense. In addition there are lots of civilised, intelligent people of all faiths, and some of none, who are also going to read this as yet another example of a lurch towards the kind of petty, insidious fascism that would be funny if it weren't so frightening.

But, back to the beginning. The Fox News fellow, in the middle of a lot of other stuff, told the world that he was disturbed by 'moderate Muslims' not being opposed to, or not condemning those who pursue jihad, or words to that effect. Now this was a bit odd. I mean you'd really have to have locked yourself away in a very small cell in a very isolated spot not to be aware of the deadeningly consistent condemnations of violent terrorism from every corner of the Islamic world and every mainstream Islamic organisation, and particularly of the specific horror of what occurred in New York as the century began. The guy is a journalist, of sorts, and seemed to be well-up in this sort of thing, or so he claimed, so how could he not know this? I know it and, like I said, I can't honestly say I consciously pay that much attention to such matters.

The sort of scary thing is the idea that he does know this and is deliberately, consciously misleading his audience. I hope I'm wrong and he's just plain foolish. But, either way, it doesn't make one too hopeful for the future of the beacon of the free world.