Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro's recent remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar — for which she was rebuked by her own network — are illustrative. Pirro, while criticizing Omar for the congresswoman's "anti-Israel sentiment doctrine," as Pirro worded it, took particular note of the fact that Omar wears a hijab. Then, after citing a passage from the Quran out of context, Pirro hauntingly asked her viewers, "Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?"
Pirro's message is clear: we are being infiltrated. Brenton Tarrant, the gunman in Christchurch, shares the same feeling. As Tarrant stated in a manifesto, he "decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people."
President Donald Trump campaigned on this message, one he has reiterated over the course of his time in office (applying it also to the border with Mexico). After the 2016 attacks in Brussels, the then-candidate told NBC’s Today show that "Belgium is no longer Belgium.'' As he elaborated: "They [Muslims] don't want laws that we have, they want sharia law, and you say to yourself, at what point, how much of this do you take?"
In other words, because of immigration from Muslim countries, Trump concluded Belgium has been polluted. Pirro's remarks run parallel: Rep. Omar's hijab, and everything that it symbolizes (for people like Pirro), constitutes a threat to the American way of life.
I have only chosen two people's remarks. However, and despite her reprimand, Pirro works for Fox News, which is the most watched cable-news network in the country; Islamophobia is not hard to find in their commentary. And Trump is the president of the United States. Together, they have the power to create an atmosphere that reaches worldwide and speaks to many people's worst instincts, especially those mentally and/or ideologically on the edge.
But this general attitude is prevalent in Western culture — probably more so in Europe than in the United States — and has been so for centuries. (Its geographical location notwithstanding, New Zealand is largely Western in orientation.) And it merely increases in severity as one moves rightward on the political spectrum; at the liberal center there still exists at least a wariness and suspicion of Arabs and Islam.
The threat is a perceived one, based on fear, not facts. As the thinking goes, "they" are going to come "here" and either kill us immediately, or kill us slowly by eroding our institutions and way of life. This is Pirro's message. This is Trump's message. And this is the message that animated the violence in Christchurch.
When we believe these fictions, we support leaders and others with large audiences who broadcast this fearmongering, either out of sincerity or for the rewards: votes, profit, prestige.
In brief, sharia is a set of guidelines and regulations that deals with almost all aspects of Muslim life: food, familial relations, lifestyle, contracts, and so on. Its essence is to encourage Muslims to live a virtuous life, in accord with Islamic principles. (The savagery one hears about on the news, such as the stoning of adulterers in Afghanistan for example, gets labeled "sharia," but has more to do with tribal behavior or groups trying to appear more "Islamic" than the others; one can employ religious language to suit a variety of agendas.) It is also important to bear in mind that there does not exist a monolithic and absolute "sharia law." Sharia is interpretive in nature — as religions tend to be.
Most of what one needs to know about Arab and Islamic culture was uttered just before the Christchurch attack commenced. A man at the Al Noor mosque, one of the two mosques assaulted, called out to the approaching gunman just before the shooting started, "Hello, brother."
The warmth of this greeting is consistent with my experiences with Arabs and Muslims, both in the United States and in the Middle East, where — given the track-record of my country there — it would be understandable were I looked at with an inhospitable eye. But that hasn't been the case. Hospitality is the norm, and the reception while walking down the street is usually of the type "Hello, brother." It is a remarkable commentary that many in the Arab Middle East demonstrate this kind of cordiality while contemplating the actual threat of US power projection to their way of life.
In brief, sharia is a set of guidelines and regulations that deals with almost all aspects of Muslim life: food, familial relations, lifestyle, contracts, and so on. Its essence is to encourage Muslims to live a virtuous life, in accord with Islamic principles. (The savagery one hears about on the news, such as the stoning of adulterers in Afghanistan for example, gets labeled "sharia," but has more to do with tribal behavior or groups trying to appear more "Islamic" than the others; one can employ religious language to suit a variety of agendas.) It is also important to bear in mind that there does not exist a monolithic and absolute "sharia law." Sharia is interpretive in nature — as religions tend to be.
Most of what one needs to know about Arab and Islamic culture was uttered just before the Christchurch attack commenced. A man at the Al Noor mosque, one of the two mosques assaulted, called out to the approaching gunman just before the shooting started, "Hello, brother."
The warmth of this greeting is consistent with my experiences with Arabs and Muslims, both in the United States and in the Middle East, where — given the track-record of my country there — it would be understandable were I looked at with an inhospitable eye. But that hasn't been the case. Hospitality is the norm, and the reception while walking down the street is usually of the type "Hello, brother." It is a remarkable commentary that many in the Arab Middle East demonstrate this kind of cordiality while contemplating the actual threat of US power projection to their way of life.
