Defeating Bigotry

A 17-year-old Pakistani, along with a 60-year-old Indian activist named Kailash Satyarthi, has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala Yousafzai was honored for her death-defying stand against the regressive and fanatical Taliban and for demanding her rights to modern education and a life of freedom from fear. Her story has given hope to millions of girls like her, not just in Pakistan but around the world. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said of her: “The terrorists showed what frightens them most: a girl with a book.”

Malali’s Nobel should gladden the hearts of most Muslims, particularly in the wake of the fierce debate on Islam and Muslims viewers witnessed on Bill Maher’s "Last Word" TV show on HBO on October 6. Prominent Islamophobes Maher and Sam Harris attacked Islam, essentially declaring that Islam and its adherents were the root of all evil in our times. “Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas,” asserted Mr. Harris. An unbelieving Ben Affleck could only exclaim, “Jesus, it’s an ugly thing to say!”

Thank God for Ben Affleck, the protagonist and director of Argo, the 2012 political thriller about the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis. Affleck provided the most spark in the debate with his logic and clarity and for challenging bigotry. He called the views of Maher and Harris on Islam and Muslims “gross” and “racist.” As Harris nonchalantly continued his attack on Islam, Affleck challenged Harris: “Are you the person who understands the officially-codified document of Islam?” Mr. Harris replied, “I am actually well-educated in Islam.”

Well, let’s see. In an interview with Pat Morrison of Los Angeles Times on September 24, Harris was asked what he thought about the “the latest, distressing religion-related headlines … by Islamic State, posing as believers.”

Harris replied, “They're not posing as believers; they are true believers. They truly believe in the letter of the scripture. Everything we see ISIS doing is spelled out in the Koran and the Hadith. The problem is not how to correct the lies of religious extremists; we have to figure out how to divorce Islam from its actual doctrines. Cutting off people's heads is there in the Koran. If it said, "Cut off their legs," we would see ISIS cutting off legs. This is paint-by-number Islam.”

The “well-educated in Islam” neurosurgeon and in-your-face atheist has concluded that the solution to the world’s problems lies in “divorcing Islam from its actual doctrines.” In other words, a good Muslim is, according to Harris, an atheist Muslim, whatever that means.

Forget the breathtaking arrogance of that statement for a moment. But for Harris to claim that he understands Islam, while ignoring the fact that ISIS victims are mostly Muslims, that Muslim nations have joined America in the fight against the terrorists, and that ordinary Muslims and scholars have condemned these killers, is prejudice of the worst sort.

Incidentally, the reason for the interview with LA Times was the publication of Harris’s book, “Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.” The title is certainly intriguing, until the reader realizes that Harris found his special brand of spirituality through the drug Ecstasy.

Why, this expert on Islam wants to know, would anyone seek morality and spirituality based on a religion when she or he can so easily get it with just a few tablets of Ecstasy a day? Hence his anger at the government: “The idea that something like Ecstasy is illegal is a travesty.”

Sam Harris probably considers himself the Samuel Taylor Coleridge of our times, a ‘poet’ who discovered his very own Xanadu through a newer edition of opium.

The religious scholar Reza Aslan, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, has had his share of dealing with ignoramuses and bigots on TV. His interviews with FOX News, CNN and Bill Maher, all of which went viral on the Web, have been revealing. His take on Harris is incisive: “With Harris, we are confronted with a completely different issue, which is the idea that anyone can simply become a recognized expert in religion simply by spouting these overly simplistic criticisms of it. Sam Harris, to me, gives atheism a bad name because he comes from a tradition of atheism that is really disconnected from the titans of intellectual, philosophical atheism who gave birth to the modern world. These were experts in religion who, from a position of expertise, criticized religion. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist; he knows as much about religion as I do about neuroscience. The difference is that I don’t go around writing books about neuroscience.”

Equally apt is Reza's conclusion about Maher: “Bill Maher’s usual critique of religion in general has morphed into a real crusade against one religion in particular, Islam, which he has on repeated occasion said is worse than the other religions and not like other religions; other religions are bad, but Islam is far, far worse. And I would say that the other thing that’s a little bit different is that the criticism of Islam has really crossed the line into what can only be described as frank bigotry.”

Coming back to Malala’s Nobel: If Islam is the source of violence, one has to wonder how the Mahers and the Harrises of the world reacted when they heard that a Muslim was recognized with the highest peace award in the world for standing up to the Taliban and blazing a new trail for oppressed adolescent girls everywhere. They probably denounced the award, or rationalized it away by saying the Nobel peace prize was, after all, a political award, or that there were probably a few good Muslims (you can count them on your fingers!) among the 1.6 billion of them, and she just happened to be one who succeeded in divorcing her faith “from its actual doctrines.”

For those of us rejoicing at Malala’s Nobel Peace Prize, which must surely include most of the world’s population, we need to remember that Malala did not happen in a vacuum. Before her, there was a young woman named Mukhtar Mai, also of Pakistan, who was brutally gang-raped by Muslim men in 2002. In the face of death threats, she testified against her attackers, won in the courts and used her settlement money to start schools for girls in remote Pakistani villages. The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, also a guest with Ben Affleck on Bill Maher's HBO show, has been a tireless champion of Mukhtar Mai and did much to bring her inspiring story to the rest of the world.

In towns and villages across the world, there are brave souls, most of them girls, who break free of the cruel practices of patriarchal societies and point the way to a life of freedom and dignity. They are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, and yes, Muslims, who often have to make the ultimate sacrifice to open the door for others. A few celebrities like Angelina Jolie take up their causes and succeed in shining the spotlight on the plight of the oppressed and the vulnerable. We wouldn’t know it by listening to the Mahers and the Harrises of the world, people who only know how to deal with the currency of bigotry. Far better it would be to join ranks with those who are making a difference in the lives of others and support them in whatever way we can.

No matter how you look at it, it is clear that in terms of benefiting humanity, one Malala is worth more than a million pairs of Bill Maher and Sam Harris.

"Argo": A Thriller with a Perspective

“Argo” is a thriller worthy of the best of John le Carre. The only difference is that this movie is based not on fiction but on facts, with some liberties taken here and there to keep the story taut.

On November 4, 1979, six Americans escaped from the U.S. embassy in Tehran through a back door when loyalists of Ayatollah Khomeini overran it. Iranians were angry at the American government for refusing to hand over the Shah, who had been allowed into the country by the Carter administration for medical treatment.

The Americans found shelter in the residence of Ken Taylor, Canada’s Ambassador to Iran. While the U.S. and world attention was focused on the 52 hostages from the embassy, the CIA and the State Department began working on a plan to fly the six diplomats out of Iran. The plan they hatched was as improbable as any Hollywood production.

In fact, the plan, proposed by CIA’s disguise and exfiltration expert Tony Mendes, did involve a fake movie-production company in Hollywood called “Studio Six Productions.”
Mendez came up with a cover story for the six Americans: They were actors scouting locations in the Middle East for filming a science-fiction flick called “Argo,” (a Middle-Eastern “Star Wars” in which the fearless and flying locals try to free their homeland from foreign tyrants), with Iran as one of the potential sites.

When Mendez explained his plan to the top brass at the State Department and the CIA, they weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry at its utter absurdity. But Mendez, played superbly and with understated sensibility by actor-director Ben Affleck, convinced them that “this is the best bad idea we have.”

The Operation was a go.

Once “producer” Mendez lands at the Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, things become unpredictable even by Hollywood standards. One of the six Americans rejects his plan outright. Revolutionary guards track his every move. In an ancient bazaar the day before the escape, he and his group of six almost get beaten up.

But the real zinger comes when, at the last moment, the CIA informs Mendez that he must abort his plan. A military operation to rescue all the 58 hostages is in the works by the Carter administration. The Hollywood caper must cease immediately.

I will not spoil the movie by telling you what ensues, other than to say that the truth turns out to be not only stranger than fiction but a good deal more exciting. The movie draws you in as it alternates between street scenes in Tehran where young revolutionaries denounce the United States and kill Iranians suspected of treachery, the claustrophobic confinement of the Americans and the tension at the State Department and the CIA. The final chase scene sets the pulse racing and the heart pounding. Two aging Hollywood honchos, played brilliantly by Alan Arkin and John Goodman, oversee the logistics from the Hollywood end and provide comic relief. (Lamenting the seeming futility of American efforts, one remarks to the other, “John Wayne has been in the ground six months and this is what’s left of America!”)

“Argo” impresses because of the way Affleck handles the explosive hostage issue in the context of history. In 1950, Iranians democratically elected Mohammed Mosaddeq as their Prime Minister. One of the first things Mosaddeq did was to nationalize Iran’s oil companies to benefit ordinary Iranians. In 1953, however, he was overthrown in a CIA-engineered coup, followed by the installation of the Reza Shah Pahlavi as Iran’s absolute monarch.

Until his fall in 1979, the Shah ruled Iran with an iron hand. Savak, the secret organization he built to enforce his will, became synonymous with murderous savagery. In 23 years, SAVAK summarily executed thousands of Iranian men and women to keep any insurgency under control. Meanwhile, the Shah continued to enjoy unconditional support from successive U.S. governments.

When Ayatollah Khomeini assumed supreme power in 1979, he unleashed his own brand of terror. Vengeance, in the form of beheadings, hanging and torture, became the order of the day. A severe austerity descended on the nation and Iranians were left wondering if a middle path would ever be in their destiny.

Director Affleck does not ignore the historical context for the intense animosity Iranians felt toward America. As Argo’s screenwriter Chris Terrio aptly put it, “What I hope people come away with is the complexity of what happened, the fact that there is no antagonist here. On all sides of this, there were people trying to do the right thing.”

Iran is again in the news now, 33 years after the hostage crisis. As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Citing the “mortal danger” posed by a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel under Bibi Netanyahu has been hell-bent on launching a unilateral, preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Only the stern opposition by the Obama administration and top U.S. military leaders have kept the intransigent Israeli leader under control.

The middle path for Iran and its leaders seem as elusive as ever, in spite of what history has taught the nation in the past three decades. The Republican Party, particularly in light of the bellicose statements from Mitt Romney vis-à-vis Iran, appears equally impervious to history’s lessons.

President Obama has said that “the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” But what he has also said is that sanctions are already taking a terrible toll on Iran and that its leaders cannot ignore its effects for long. Nuclear experts have confirmed that Iran is nowhere near building a nuclear arsenal, despite the bluster of its leaders, and that diplomacy, backed by sanctions, remains the best option for containing Iran’s nuclear ambition.

America cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of its past in Iran, no matter how much goading it has to withstand from Israel. If “Argo” can communicate this message, however subliminally, it will have served a far more ambitious goal than keeping viewers entertained and enthralled.