It doesn’t look like the controversy over news that the New York Police Department monitored the activities of Muslim students will be dying down anytime soon. Here at New Voices, we tracked the responses of various student presses to this disturbing report, and there have been many takes on the exact kind of prejudice this whole debacle represents. Since then, the New York Post has been criticized for its hateful comic commentary, and the vitriol continues.
There are things many seem to agree on: this is unjust to Muslims (students or otherwise, take your pick); there are parallels between this and other moments of extreme paranoia in American history; and what happens next will shape the future of our liberties for years to come.
But there’s something else worth nothing. Sure, this form of investigative focus, without cause, is unwarranted and dangerous for our liberties as a people. Sure, it’s prejudiced. But it also reflects a lack of familiarity with the history of the Western world, and more importantly, with our religious heritages. To pretend, even for a moment, that Muslim theology and teachings are better equipped to carry the language of violence or subversion than that of other faiths does as much a disservice to the history of Christianity and Judaism as it does to Islam.
Christianity, at its inception, ran counter to the values of the empire. Eventually (and ironically), it later became a faith often associated by some with empire, government, and the rule of law. But there are moments in the religion’s earliest years, when Christ himself was seen as a political radical, a dangerous voice, a man whose teachings could be used as cries of rebellion against Roman rule, even though Jesus himself attempted to quell this notion.
And with the epistles of St. Paul, who spent much of his time in prison, we have the narrative of a man whose words and values were so hated by the political status quo that he was locked up for them. Paul himself reminds the churches in his charge to retain respect to government authorities, as if he anticipated that his own legal troubles, documented in the “Acts of the Apostles,” might spark unwanted rebellion. Paul writes, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2a, New Testament).
The point? No belief system, religious or otherwise, has been without its supporters, often extremists, who have attempted to manipulate the texts or teachings of others to create violence instead of healing. This isn’t unique to Islam anymore than it is unique to Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Sikhism, or any system filled with diverse members. To pigeonhole all Muslims into narrow categories because of fringe lunatics is an act of hate against Islam… but it is also blind to Western history, blind to the ways in which other faiths have been used to suggest the spread of discord instead of unity.
These categories do nothing for Muslims. And they do nothing for non-Muslims either. If the New York Post, and other organizations or peoples, only seek to over-simplify and dumb down a complex issue… well then, I’d suggest it’s time to put down the pen. We’re not buying it.
