[Buddha-l] Was Buddhists Taking a Stand Against Islamophobia

[Richard Hayes]

On Sep 24, 2012, at 3:05 PM, Dan Lusthaus <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> wrote:

>> There was a time when I thought a list called buddha-l would mostly carry messages about Buddhism rather than endlessly tedious screeds based on people's unfounded fears about our nation's universities being taken over by billionaires from overseas. 
> 
> We here in the Northeast have already seen it -- it may take awhile to reach your neck of the woods, but it is coming.

We'll see. So far there's not much of a Muslim presence where I live. In New Mexico, the most populous religions are Roman Catholicism (26%), evangelical Protestants (25%), unaffiliated (22%) and mainline Protestant (15%). Mormons have 3%, Jews 2%, and Buddhists 2%. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Scientologists and followers of native religions all together make up less than 2% of New Mexico's population. More than 50% of the people who live in this state were born here. The number of people who have migrated here from outside the USA makes up only 17% of the population, the vast majority of them being from Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas. 

To ask me to wring my hands about the imminent Muslim threat in my part of the country is approximately equivalent to my asking you to wring your hands about the huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and weapon-grade anthrax in Cambridge, MA. The stockpile of nuclear weapons and biological and chemical weapons in New Mexico concerns me, as does the spill of several million gallons of jet fuel from a local USAF base into the New Mexican aquifer, as does fracking, because that is taking place where I live and is having deleterious effects on people, especially poor people, who live in this area. Being concerned about a clear and present danger seems a better use of my time and energy than worrying about something that really is not a factor in life here.

> As usual, you pretend something doesn't exist by pretending it is right wing paranoia.

That Islam barely exists where I live is not something I am pretending. The 2010 census bears it out. That Muslims are found elsewhere, I fully acknowledge. I've lived in such places. That I pretend Muslims do not exist elsewhere is a fantasy that you harbor for reasons I do not understand. That I deny that there are any potentially dangerous fanatics in the world is a fiction of your creation. All I know is that you have an exceedingly poor knowledge about what goes on in my head and my heart. You might consider sticking to what you know.

> I guess that sort of strategy is necessary to maintain the illusions...

Bad guess.

> What are you doing about Islamic antisemitism (promoted and proliferated by state media throughout the muslim world)?

About the same that I do about anti-Muslim bias when it manifests in Jewish people and evangelical Christians. Prejudice is best countered by pointing out the absence of vyāpti between the sādhyadharma and the sādhanadharma.

> Let me repeat this question:
> Why label anyone willing to acknowledge that Islam has a long violent streak as Islamophobes?

That is a question best addressed to someone who labels *anyone* willing to acknowledge that Muslims have violence in their history an Islamophobe. That is not something I have ever done. I have entertained the possibility that *some* people are Islamophobes, particularly those who focus their attention almost entirely on Muslim violence and ignore the violence of Israelis, Americans and Europeans.

Ever tallied up the number of foreign nations the USA has bombed since 1930? How does that compare with the number of countries Norway, Myanmar, Indonesia, Afghanistan, or Iran have bombed during that same period? Any vyāpti to be found as you examine those numbers?

> Now we know the answer. 

I don't know who "we" are. I think it is mostly you who have imagined a solution to a problem of your own invention. Knowledge has not yet entered the picture. Fantasy and obsession are in evidence in your characterizations of my beliefs and practices, but no knowledge.

Richard Hayes