| SILENT NO MORE: Confronting America's False Images of Islam Paul Findley Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 2001 |
Rating: 3.5 Fair |
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| ISBN 1-59008-000-9 | 323pp. | HC/FCI | $23.95 | |
The events of 11 September 2001 made it imperative that every U.S. citizen acquire a better understanding of Islam. This book is not the best way to do that, but it will help.
Former congressman Findley1 (R-IL) has made himself an unofficial ambassador to the Muslim world2. He is the author of three other books, traveled widely in the Middle East and Indonesia, and lectured frequently on Americans' misconceptions of Islam.
This book is largely a collection of recounted conversations between Findley and various representatives of the Muslim world. Many of them are Americans; the number of Muslims in this country is in the millions3 and growing. Findley's technique of letting Muslims speak for themselves is effective and often affecting. Their words dispel a great number of myths — for example, the one that says women are required to walk two paces behind their husbands when in public. This effect is somewhat diluted by Findley's interjection of parties he has been to, complete with descriptions of décor and menus. Some of the quoted comments are ill-chosen: On page 44, Mohammed Ali is quoted, "If I hadn't become a Muslim, I wouldn't be who I am today." Well, yeah...4
The book also falls short in its historical perspective. When treating the distant past, it tends to over-praise Muslim achievements; See for example page 42, which contains the statement that "In 1312, Muslims from the Mali region of Africa were the first to explore the interior of the future United States, using the Mississippi River as their access route." No citation for this statement is provided.5 Also, it omits significant crimes by Muslims of the recent past. Yemen, for example, is described in very favorable terms; the attack on the U.S.S. Cole is not mentioned until much later in the book, and then only in passing.
The former congressman's main point is that, largely because of distorted accounts in history texts and in the news, most Americans believe Muslims are monsters. He notes the initial reaction against Arab-seeming Americans by both the Clinton administration and ordinary people in the wake of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. This crime, of course, was done by a nominally Christian Caucasian man. Findley's point is perfectly valid; and he provides ample documentation. Only the fact that the book was published before September 11th prevented it from including the prime current example. But he also provides plenty of counter-examples, and the prime one of these has lately been quoted often by others. It comes from an account of the Crusades. Referring to a favorite hymn of his childhood, Findley writes on page 20:
"The hymn conveys a distorted view of Islam that is still accepted as accurate by many Christians, perhaps most of them. Its words give no hint that the knights, cast in the hymn as heroes, actually slaughtered thousands of innocent Muslims and rejoiced in the carnage. Calling themselves Christians, the Crusaders ignored their religion's commitment to tolerance, compassion and justice. They acted instead like vengeful, bloodthirsty savages. The hymn would have lost all appeal had I known what one of the Crusaders wrote on July 15, 1099, from the bloody scene in Jerusalem: "With drawn swords our people ran through the city; nor did they spare anyone, even those pleading for mercy. The horses waded in blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and wonderful judgement of God." The slaughter was not confined to Jerusalem. The Crusaders, seeking out "heathens and infidels", killed Muslims, Jews, and even other Christians throughout the Middle East, notably in Antioch and Constantinople. In contrast, on the three separate occasions when Muslims took control of Jerusalem, no blood was shed. – Page 20 |
The truth is certainly that the Crusades, just like the later Inquisition and the Salem witch trials, were savage and un-Christian exercises of power. There were such abuses on both sides. Lacking enough personal knowledge to decide for myself, I accept Findley's judgement that the Christians were worse, for I judge him too intelligent to rely on fabrications.
Findley does not help his case when he makes obvious errors or omissions of fact. Referring to a Frontline interview with Osama bin Laden, he writes:
In segments omitted by the producers, bin Laden attempted to modify his earlier call to kill Americans by limiting the threat to military personnel. He also condemned the U.S. government for its complicity in Israel's long history of sustained brutality against Palestinian civilians — men, women and children, most of whom are Muslim. Although he did not list it among his grievances, he could have mentioned that U.S. forces fired a massive barrage of cruise missiles against bin Laden's training camp in Afghanistan, an assault clearly aimed at bin Laden and his supporters. – Page 76 |
Clearly. But Findley omits the reason for that assault6, which was that, in a criminal trial, the perpetrators of the first attempt at bringing down the World Trade Center implicated bin Laden in that act, as well as in the bombings of two U.S. embassies. The way this piece is written makes it seem as though bin Laden is the innocent victim of U.S. aggression. In the immortal words of Niven & Pournelle, "That has been found not to be the case."
And it is on page 80 that he describes the republic of Yemen as peaceful and hospitable to Americans, condemning a film that depicts a mob attacking the U.S. embassy in its capital city Sana'a as "the fertile imagination of a Hollywood scriptwriter". He does not mention the actual attack on the U.S.S. Cole.7
On page 82 is further obfuscation:
An example of anti-Muslim stereotyping appears in the 1999 State Department Report on Global Terrorism. Those responsible for the document — among them Secretary of State Madeleine Albright — need instruction in truth-in-packaging. The report declares flatly that the "primary terrorist threats to the United States" emanate from Asia and the Middle East, where Muslims predominate, but the statistics and narrative presented elsewhere in the same document run counter to that conclusion. They identify Latin America as a far more active center of anti-U.S. terrorism than either the Middle East or Asia. The report lists ninety-six episodes in Latin America, thirty in Western Europe, nine in Eurasia, and sixteen in Africa. Six occurred in Asia and eleven in the Middle East. Several of the eleven were defensive in nature and therefore improperly classified as terrorism. – Page 82 |
These points are valid, but Findley glosses over two crucial points. First, the place where a terrorist incident takes place is not necessarily where it "emanates from". Second, the terrorism in Latin America is mostly kidnapping of U.S. civilians for ransom, rather than bombings of U.S facilities. The latter is a far more significant threat, even though it occurs less frequently.
Findley obviously is a people person8. The narrative concentrates on people; all the pictures are of people, singly or in associative groups; and the index lists nothing but the names of individuals. There's nothing wrong with being a people person; but in writing a book like this you need to balance it out. I do not recommend this book.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.