Shocking intolerance

I've just been reading the comments following a column posted in a local web-based news magazine. There is a Muslim man who writes a weekly column about various topics, generally about the day-to-day living of a Muslim in Britain. It's well written and thought-provoking. His existence, or the contents of his columns, is not what is driving me to write today. It's the comments that follow them.

I've never paid too much attention to comments until I noticed that there were upwards of 200 comments to one 500-word column. It seemed like an excessive amount, especially when I noticed that the column itself wasn't saying too much. It was advocating a stance of engagement with negativity and differing opinions, over a dismissal of them, in order to help quell misinformation and misunderstanding (specifically about Muslims). It seemed a fair and even enough stance to make--no finger pointing, but rather a call for more understanding and discussion. It turns out that the short column was the columnist's extended explanation of a week's prior column, which was met with such a torrent that all comments were taken off the posting and no further ones were allowed. He was writing this week (the one I'm talking about) to apologise for the erasure of so many comments, something over which he had no control, and to take the opportunity to say that he believes that such erasures do nothing to advance deeper understandings or common grounding between people with different ideas, opinions, or notions of the good.

That all seemed healthy and politically positive enough. But the comments (remember I said there were so many) were all manners of venom. Take the following several examples from various posts:

"is...misunderstanding...anything to do with the atrocities committed in the name of Islam, supported by the teachings of Muhammed? Or is it because of the special status you demand as Muslims, special treatment that other people in this country do not receive."

"You claim to want better understanding of your religion and people, and want better integration, yet your people isolate themselves in "communities" like ghettos."

"What we need are Muslims protesting against terrorism, not against cartoons and teddy bears"

First of all, it's a joke to try to insinuate or just blatantly claim that Muslims get anything like 'special treatment' in any western society in which they live. They generally (based on actual statistics of several western European countries) live at the worst socio-economic levels, have the least access to formal education, and must contend with serious prejudice rooted in and fired by associations with terrorism, backwardness and perceptions of being anti-Western.

Second of all, claiming that people 'isolate themselves in communities like ghettos' shows a SERIOUS lack of appreciation for the element of choice absent in the experience of ghettos (and, some might add, Muslims' experience of choosing where and how to live in Britain). Ghettos aren't places where anyone chooses to live, but where people were and are MADE to live based on the majority's discrimination against them. It's practically laughable that a contributor could accuse Muslims of choosing to put themselves into something which is not chosen.

The third comment which claims Muslims aren't being active enough against terrorism not only insinuates their complicity with it, but also suggests a levity to their political and religious concerns, making it seem as though they only get excited over 'child's play' issues (cartoons and teddy bears). This does a great disservice to Muslims, yes, but it does a greater one to the people of Britain as a whole, characterising them as a shining example of the intolerance they seek to ascribe to Muslims.

I'm generally shocked that people have the nerve to post such things, freedom of speech or not. That 'freedom of speech' covers all manners of sin, it seems to me, although I don't mean to suggest we throw it away. Merely that people seem to use is as a crutch to support what can be, essentially, hate speech; ugly, misinformed, ignorant thoughts meant to make other people feel unwelcome. In the same tone as several of these comments were ones which seemed to accuse all Muslims in Britain of not integrating and feeling a part of the society. In light of these daggers, it's no wonder they might struggle to feel a part and yet so many of them do. We should all take a bit more time to feel inspired by that.