Authoritarianism and Islam
The authors of “The Tyranny of Brotherhood” (Commentary, Sept. 18) are being too kind to the West.
The truth is that there are tyrannies in the Arabic wleorld that enjoy the exigent support of the West in their pliant ways. There is reference ad nauseum to the “Iranian-backed Hezbollah” but a convenient blind eye is turned to $3-billion-a-year-backed Egyptian dictator. The so-called elections that were held to install Hosni Mubarak make even the old Brezhnev type of 99% majority in the Soviet Union look respectable. Saddam Hussein, before he strode into Kuwait, was openly supported by America and European countries while he was frittering away his oil millions in arms purchases. The shah of Iran was championed as a statesman while his secret service was busy imprisoning and torturing anyone who dared speak out.
In the media, Islam is daily abused, villified and ridiculed, yet the behavior of indigenous Muslims is not such as to warrant any ire. Islam is systematically misrepresented by Christian and Jewish so-called experts as it suits their purpose to do so. Every cudgel is taken up so long as some stereotyping of Muslims is implied. Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin are almost canonized with an callous disregard for the anguish caused to the 1 billion Muslims of the world.
MUSLIM MULLICK
Calabasas
There is a common weakness in our human psyche that compares our best with somebody else’s worst. This is not only true of interpersonal relationships but also of interreligious encounter. Christianity and Islam, ancient formidable enemies, have been guilty of this practice for centuries. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world and in many parts of this country, it still exists. That is why it is very heartening to read the magnificent article by Maher Hathout and Salam Al-Marayati.
Their exposure of the genuine spirit of Islam and also of its historical and contemporary abuse must be seen as the first step for all religions, including Christianity, to take a hard objective look at the essence of their respective religious traditions and acknowledge their historical and contemporary abuses and extremisms.
It would be wrong to judge any movement only by its extremes. Religious wars were fought not because of religion but rather in spite of it.
The Rev. VIVIAN BEN LIMA
Archdiocese of Los Angeles