author Nathan lean identifies what he
sees as a rising tide of anti-muslim
sentiment in North America and Europe
and joining us now for more on his
findings in Washington DC Nathan lean
research director at the bridge
initiative at Georgetown University and
the author of the islamophobia industry
Nathan it's good of you to be on TVO
tonight tell us what motivated you to
write this book first
off sure well Steve thanks for having me
it's a pleasure to be here uh in the
summer of 2010
uh when people here in the United States
were uh involved in sort of the human
and cry over the ground zero mosque
which wasn't a mosque and wasn't at
Ground Zero I became curious about the
growth of anti-muslim prejudice in the
United States um and as I looked into
some of the individuals and groups that
were behind um that sort of orchestrated
uh controversy it became clear to me
that um while I think a significant
number of people here in the United
States and elsewhere around the world do
have sort of legitimate concerns about
violence carried out by Muslims around
the world there is a network that exists
expressly for the purpose of whipping up
uh fervor and you've called it an
industry why use that word well I call
it an industry uh it's not an industry
in the same way that for instance the
automobile industry is an industry but
it is an industry in the sense that you
have uh dozens of individuals and groups
uh here in the United States and Europe
that are connected uh they share funding
uh well into the tens of millions of
dollars the center for American progress
reported that uh over the course of 10
years more than $42 million went to
seven different uh groups uh and the
Council on American Islamic relations
has said that between 2008 in
2011 um that number is actually closer
to 120 million um so these groups are
are heavily funded um they're often uh
comprised of sort of armchair Scholars
American bloggers like Pamela Geller and
Robert Spencer who form um sort of I
would say popup nonprofit groups
expressly for the purpose of advancing
um anti-muslim Prejudice into society
and they're pretty successful at it do
you doubt that they are genuine in their
beliefs about uh what they
preach no no I don't doubt that they're
genuine in their beliefs at all I think
they are um they are very concerned
about what they see as an Islamic
problem uh but the issue that I have is
the degree to which take episodes of
violence carried out by Muslims around
the world and then make generalizations
about the Islamic faith on the whole or
at large I think that's something that
that is harmful uh to ordinary Muslim
Americans ordinary Muslim Canadians and
others around the world and what do you
think their political goals
are well it's it's a really complicated
question and they're not uh necessarily
the same for any one individual I think
quite honestly a lot of the um uh sort
of ideological bent comes from
very sort of Hardcore or fervent
pro-israel beliefs and so often times
what we see is that the Palestinian
Israeli conflict is sort of refracted
through this nasty political narrative
in the United States here where we uh
see groups like Pamela Geller and Robert
Spencer's afdi the American Freedom
Defense Initiative going to back um for
candidates that they think will um be
tougher when it comes to um that
conflict or that will side with Israel
we see uh in some cases um the
Evangelical Christian uh Community
getting on board um where you have
activist uh sort of networks throughout
the heartland of the country that are
very much involved in um in realizing uh
the success of proposed anti-sharia
bills in fact the um the head of uh the
one of the largest groups here in the
United States act for America uh Bri
Gabriel uh is herself
um a Christian with Evangelical beliefs
but has as her field director for act
for America the uh the former field
director of the Christian Coalition um
so there are a lot of sort of different
overlaps here but those are just a few
examples okay let me uh follow up on the
Geller Spencer um Duo uh they were in
Toronto not too long ago and just out of
Interest I went to see them speak
because I'd heard how controversial they
were and um I don't know uh Nathan you
know it's a it's a fairly pro-israel
speech which is not illegal although
some days it's it's harder than other
days to be pro-israel nowadays um you
know there there are a lot of things
happening in the name of Islam around
the world that are of great concern to a
lot of people and they of course mention
those but what do you find so nefarious
about what they're up
to well first I think your points are
absolutely right if you look at a group
like the American Freedom Defense
Initiative I think what you see when you
dig a little bit deeper is that despite
the fact that they're sort of articulate
and and deliver this lofty uh language
of freedom of speech and you know basic
s of Western and especially American
rights is that they are more actively
engaged in promoting kind of a hateful
uh worldview of Muslims um here in the
United States this is the group that
mind you was behind the ground zero
mosque controversy the American Freedom
Defense Initiative um organized that uh
that protest in Manhattan this happens
to be the same group that has spent um
hundreds of thousands of dollars running
bus ads here in Washington DC uh in
major metropolitan cities across the
United States disparaging Muslims taking
uh cherry-picking verses out of the
Quran plopping them alongside imagery of
9/11 um and and and advancing the idea
that there's something especially uh
violent um about about Islam one of the
more recent bus advertisements referred
to Islamic Jew hatred as being in the
Quran uh this is the same group group
that that most recently in Garland Texas
hosted the draw Muhammad um art
exhibition is what they called it it was
a cartoon contest where they used a
generous portion of their funding
$10,000 to to essentially um award prize
money to the uh to the cartoon that won
this was quite controversial and in fact
um provoked an attack in which two
wouldbe ambushers were killed by police
and it ignited here in the United States
this sort of national debate about free
speech it was articulated a as a free
speech event by Pamela Geller and Robert
Spencer despite the fact Steve that the
keynote speaker at the event the the
Dutch politician gett velders uh has
advocated Banning the Quran so it's
unclear to me why it would be an event
about Free Speech when the the person at
the center of the event is someone who
wants to ban a religious book Nathan let
me read you an excerpt from an essay
called The islamophobia Myth this
admittedly came out I think seven or no
it's all it's 10 years old already but
Kenan Malik wrote it and here's some of
what he has to say does islamophobia
really exist or is the hatred and abuse
of Muslims being exaggerated to suit
politicians needs and Silence the
Critics of Islam the trouble with
islamophobia is that it is an irrational
concept it confuses hatred of and
discrimination against Muslims on the
one hand with criticism of Islam on the
other the charge of islamophobia is all
too often used not to highlight racism
but to stifle criticism and in in
reality discrimination against Muslims
is not as great as is often perceived
but criticism of Islam should be greater
what's your reaction to that
Nathan well first of all islamophobia is
not a new phenomenon the word
islamophobia uh dates back to 1910 so
this is an old Prejudice that we're
talking about it was first used uh by
two authors who referred to the way in
which uh Muslims in West Africa were
treated by French colonizers
um the second point I would make though
is is I think uh necessary it's
necessary to kind of get the straw man
out of the way here criticism of Islam
is not a problem criticism of of Muslim
acts of violence around the world is
certainly not a problem and and should
be expected uh from all of us the
problem though which I think Keenan
Malik doesn't quite seem to understand
is twofold first uh when criticism of
Islam or when criticism of Muslims
Ventures into the direction of
misattribution of generalization or of
reductionism these logical fallacies
where we make claims about things like
Sharia law and then apply them large to
the entire religion of Islam or we take
one or two acts of violence carried out
by people around the world and then
attribute that to the religion of Islam
that is where we get ourselves um headed
in the direction of of prejudice and and
and potentially when it's acted upon um
discrimination I think it's uh quite
unhelpful I know you mentioned in that
list of people who you thought was
behind this islamophobia industry you
talked about academics you talked about
guest speakers like Geller and Spencer I
I'd like to focus just a little bit now
on politics and the media because of
course we all know that a lot more
people are going to die in traffic
accidents than through terrorism and yet
uh not too many people let me not put it
that way let me say there seem to be
many fewer people who are concerned
about what's going to happen to them
when they get behind the wheel of a car
than potentially seeing harm come to
them in terms of a terrorist incident
how culpable do you think media and
politics are separately or together uh
in perpetuating this islamophobia
industry that you've written
about well quite frankly I think they're
extraordinarily culpable I think uh part
of the problem though uh is our tendency
to focus on what I've called a a foreign
enemy domestic threat phenomenon so
instead of talking about things that are
happening right here at home mass
shootings and movie theaters um the uh
killing of unarmed black men by white
police off officers which seems to be a
sort of New Normal here in the United
States we're talking about um acts of
violence that occur around the world
carried out by Muslims or or Muslim
groups and then using those acts as sort
of a reason to connect the dots and say
aha look something like this could
happen here now that's not to deny the
fact that groups like Isis and others
that carry out um you know violence
extraordinary violence all around the
world are real and that violence is real
and it should be acted upon and we
should deal with it it uh the issue
though is when we we don't really kind
of examine the things that are are right
here in front of us at home and we tend
to focus on violence as it happens
across the world from across the Muslim
majority World especially from Morocco
to Bahrain and then and then sort of
make a logical leap where we're saying
hey look uh there was an attack in
Casablanca hey look uh there was an
attack in Yemen uh this too can happen
in the United States and this is a
reason therefore for us to amp up our
security this is a reason for us to
profile people uh based on their
religious affiliation at the airport
this is a reason for us to um you
conduct wiretapping Mass surveillance of
mosques and and and many of the I think
unamerican uh practices that we see
carried out all the time Nathan we've
got a couple of minutes left here and I
want to touch on one more thing I I have
no doubt but that you've seen this clip
but just in case some of our viewers
have not this is Sam Harris the author
and Ben Affleck on Bill Mars program
real time on HBO started as a rather
mild mannered debate and it turned into
something else roll the clip
please we have been sold this meme of
islamophobia where every criticism of
the doctrine of Islam gets conflated
with bigotry toward Muslims as people
right that is intellectually ridiculous
even it gets are you the person who
understands the officially codified
doctrine of Islam You're The Interpreter
of that so you can say this is I'm
actually well educated on this topic I'm
asking you so you're saying if I
criticize the you're saying that Islam
is not a real thing that if you're
critical of something well it's not a
real thing when we do it right well I'm
not denying that that certain people are
bigoted against Muslims as people that's
and that's a problem big of you but the
why hle about it's gross it's racist or
how about more than a billion people who
aren't fanatical who don't punish women
who just want to go to
schore don't any of the things you're
saying all Muslim a second stereotyp
and you painting a the whole group
religion with
that okay in terms of the islamophobia
industry Nathan how significant do you
think that exchange
was I think it was extraordinarily
significant uh but mostly for the fact
that you have a celebrity figure like
Ben Affleck bringing attention to an
issue that's very real I think the sad
thing though about Bill Maher is that
Bill Maher is really U wonderful to a
lot of progressives or so-called
liberals on a whole host of issues but
when it comes to Islam he and his pal
Sam Harris seemed to want the tag team
and and make these these claims U that
are quite honestly Bas baseless and
illogical um the the thing for Affleck
though is that he wasn't so articulate
in how he responded uh to the remarks
that that were off base uh by Maher and
by by Harris uh both of whom engaged I
think in in in reductionism which is one
of the sort of logical fallacies that I
cited earlier that is that they cite
these extraordinarily extreme examples
um and of those examples cite the most
extreme cases so for instance when they
talk about something like Sharia or
Islamic law they don't talk about the
way that Sharia or Islamic law might
deal with for instance marriage uh
disputes or the way that it might deal
with sort of other family matters they
talk about hand chopping and stoning and
and and you know the death penalty for
apostasy um as it's carried out by by a
minority of countries across the Muslim
U majority world but you know drawing I
think further from that they take these
extraordinarily um extreme examples and
then make a generalized statement about
Islam these are problems that Muslims
have to deal with this is an essentially
Islamic problem what I think they don't
understand is that in addition to
engaging in the logical fallacy of
reductionism their critique and it's
fine again to be critical of the tenants
of Islam is is is actually U viewed by
many Muslims around the world as a
critique of their identity uh Bill Meer
seems to kind of think that religions
are things that are uh just kind of
floating around uh you know above our
heads that they're a set of ideas that
are sort of disconnected from who we are
as people and because they're ideas as
he as he says the motherload of bad
ideas or Sam Harris says the motherload
of bad ideas that that that we can
critique them um not understanding that
these are actually very central part
parts of of people's identity and that
Muslims all around the world uh believe
that their religion um forms how they
view the world around them how they
interact with their family how they
interact with their friends how um they
find meaning and and give value to their
lives and so when we sort of obsess on
these extreme examples and critique them
and say look these are things that are
Islamic in nature these are things that
Muslims have to deal with um I think we
we begin to venture into an area that
that that's more along the lines of
prejudice than it is really objective
liberal critique that's Nathan lean he's
the author of the islamophobia industry
Nathan we thank you for joining us from
Washington DC on TVO tonight take care
my pleasure thanks for having me help
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