On December 3 New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman published an essay titled “Calling All Pakistanis,” in a column widely syndicated throughout the U.S. In this essay, Friedman stays close to his usual Islamophobic form as he raises the question why Pakistani Muslims are not protesting against Pakistanis who are allegedly involved in the Mumbai India terrorist bombs. He calls for a “mass demonstration of ‘ordinary people’ against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake.” He asks, rather plaintively, why the Pakistanis are not protesting with the same “heart felt feelings” as they did nearly 3 years ago when an insulting Muslim cartoon was published by a Danish newspaper.
A reasonable question perhaps, but the raising of it displays Friedman’s own hypocrisy when it comes to supporting protests against atrocities where Muslims are concerned. As far as the Danish cartoon protests, his column on 2/22/06 argued that these protests were “excessive” and, as usual, he blamed Arab governments for promoting ignorance and militancy and inhibiting economic and educational improvement for young Arab men, observing that Muslims in India were notably pacifist and also notable was that government’s incorporation of its Islamic population in the wealth associated with neo-liberal capitalist development (the gold standard of a minority’s “success” for Friedman, a neo-liberal intellectual guru.)
A look at Friedman’s extended record on the matter of denouncing “atrocities” would likewise reveal that he has displayed nowhere near the level of demand for nations to denounce individual acts of terrorism when their targets are the Islamic victims of a state-sponsored agenda of terrorism against Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza and in Somalia. Where is the call for “heartfelt feelings” expressed against Israel and its western allies, including the United States, for their perpetration of atrocities of life-disrupting separation walls in the West Bank, economic sanctions against (starvation of) the people of Gaza, and heavy military assaults on Somalia on a pretense of combating Somalia-based terrorists, but actually designed to maintain foreign influence and suppress Islamist political power in that country? Clearly, Mr. Friedman, there are such fully condemnable actions occurring in these and many other places around the world; why do you have to single out Pakistan once more as a country whose citizens are expected to maintain a higher level of moral outrage than you expect of those in other (non-Muslim) countries?
Jerry D. Rose – Editor, The Sun State Activist
Let me get your logic straight. You’re only allowed to criticize a moral failure if you’ve criticized every moral failure in every other country? You’re kidding, right?
Sorry James, I didn’t see your comment until today. It’s well taken. I don’t think, though, that I quite upbraided Friedmann for “criticizing a moral failure,” but for failing to understand the connection between the “moral failures” of the Arab world and the “moral failure” of U.S. and Western policies that create the ground for Islamic anger. Since these failures ARE connected, in my view, he gives a very complete account of that Arab failure when he ignores those provocations. Maybe if I had made that point a little more clearly, you might not have thought that I was “kidding.” (I wasn’t).