This past weekend the SIAO (Stop the Islamization of America Organization) led a rally against the construction of an Islamic community center within a few blocks of Ground Zero. Left-wing media spokespersons (bloggers, journalists, pundits, etc.) have called attention to an incedent of intolerance at the event, in which police rescued 2 Egyptian Christians who were surrounded and heckled by other protesters for speaking Arabic. Keith Olberman featured this story in his 'Worst Person in the World' segment last night.
The print media source for the story comes from an article on NorthJersey.com:
"At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.
"Go home," several shouted from the crowd.
"Get out," others shouted.
In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.
"I'm a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.
But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.
"I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here," a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.
The incident underscores how contentious — and, perhaps, how irrational — the debate over the mosque has become."
Notice that the quoted jeers from the crowd were anti-immigrant slogans: get out, go home. So, speaking Arabic at this event is comparable to speaking Spanish at an anti-Immigration rally. We must not forget that the anti-Muslim rhetoric post-9/11 is linked to the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric, as well. Now, according to the AAI (Arab-American Institute) the majority of Americans whose families are originally from Arabic-speaking countries are mostly Christian and not Muslim, despite the common sense association of Arabic as being unmistakably Muslim. For Arabic-speaking Christians, speaking the language does not mean that they are ethnically Arab, even though in the US speaking Arabic or having an Arabic name is how someone would be identified as Arab. It is much easier to have this more nuanced discussion of confusing identity issues online than it would be standing in a protest full of people congregating to express sloganeering anger about Muslims in America, in which speaking Arabic would immediately arouse suspicion. I would not expect nuanced conversations
in such a context, and I wouldn't expect people's sentiments to convey much nuance either.
It seems to me that the media coverage of this issue is mistaken because you cannot criticize people for being intolerant when the people who were agressors (group who harassed Egyptians) and victims (Egyptian Copts speaking Arabic) were both there to espouse intolerance. Let's just be glad that the police were there to protect the Egyptians from their ideological allies, because those whom they sided with on this issue viewed them to be on the other side of the ethnic/linguistic/religious/political/ideological fence. When dealing with populist anger you never know where that anger might turn, and it can just as easily turn against those who support it because you never know where others in the crowd are going to draw the line so as to identify someone else as a target of the angry crowd.
