Inappropriate speaker

Editorial

Religious extremism is not a phrase one often associates with the Amish, the simple living Christian sect that traditionally resists violence or force of any kind. But a small breakaway Amish group in Ohio is accused of hate crimes for alleged attacks in which mainstream Amish had their beards and hair forcibly cut and photographs taken of them. Amish are religiously obligated to allow their hair to grow and to avoid being photographed.

While the incident is newsworthy precisely because it is so rare, it does go to show, perhaps, that even the most pacifist traditions can produce exceptional extremism. This is a mantra that has been pressed upon us a great deal in the past decade, since the most horrific act of terrorism on American soil recalibrated the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims domestically and abroad. Americans – and Canadians, and others – have had to be reminded repeatedly that Islam is a religion of peace.

Of course, broad generalizations – even when they are positive – are still broad generalizations, as Jewish people know very well. The same font of generalization that allows people to admire the great characteristics of the Jewish people is, ultimately, the same basis for those who make nasty generalizations.

One should always be wary of generalizations, especially when trying to understand complex situations.

Islam is a religion of peace for those who practise peace, but Osama bin Laden was also a Muslim, as are a host of other people who do not fit the pattern of Islam as a religion of peace. Christianity is also a religion of peace, yet how many have died in the name of that cause? Judaism is not without our own figures of violence and intolerance, from the rock-throwing Shabbat-enforcers to Yigal Amir and Baruch Goldstein.

Generalizations about the peaceable – or violent – nature of any group are destined to be debunked by exceptional instances of contradictory evidence. To summarily dismiss – or embrace – an entire people based on the actions of some is irrational. To advocate for yourself, your group or your cause by denigrating and debasing others is unacceptable.

For these and other reasons, some statements by Mosab Hassan Yousef should have left the mostly Jewish audience in Richmond last week much more discomfited than they apparently did. Because he didn’t focus on the topic of how Hamas operates and, instead, chose to disparage Islam numerous times, the event’s sponsors – Chabad of Richmond, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Jewish Independent – should be embarrassed, in retrospect, for having invited him.

The so-called “Son of Hamas” (which is the title of his book) is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding leader of Hamas. The younger Yousef was also a terrorist, but he found Christianity and a new direction in his life as an informant for the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet. He now lives in California and tours in speaking engagements selling his book.

Yousef’s rejection of Islam is total. The things he says about the Prophet Muhammad explain the security attendees had to pass through in order to hear his presentation – and why he was not an appropriate speaker for our community.

Violent and unpleasant material can be teased out of any religious text. Close readers of the Torah and the Christian Bible can find plenty of places where the words of the ancients do not conform to today’s standards of decency. Religions and the people who follow them must be judged on the merits of their actions, which are guided by informed interpretation of their holy books, not on the worst examples one can dig out of the books themselves. The nub of this statement is the term “interpretation.”

Those who reject interpretation of ancient texts are generally called fundamentalists. Fundamentalism – not Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other wisdom tradition – is to blame for much of our world’s troubles. (The Talmud has made Judaism almost by definition a religion of interpreters, though even this has not prevented a few extremists like those mentioned above.)

Yousef appears to have veered from fundamentalist Islam to fundamentalist Christianity, which may be less of a shift than it appears at first blush. The absoluteness of his opposition to Islam detracts, rather than adds, to constructive dialogue and civil society, let alone the possibility for peace.

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