ARYAN NATIONS DEFLATES ‘SOVEREIGNS’ IN MONTANA

III Percenters have planned or led anti-Muslim
gatherings across the country, rallied via social
media by Arizona hardliner Jon Ritzheimer, who
also threatened at one point to personally arrest
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) for having
voted in favor of Obama’s arms deal with Iran.
“We III Percent, we militiamen, are standing at
the ready across our nation,” Ritzheimer said in
an August YouTube video promoting the armed
protest idea. “And when you strike, we will strike
back. We will level and demolish every mosque
across this country.”
GETTY IMAGES/AFP PHOTO/JEWEL SAMAD (HAQ); AP IMAGES/RAAD ADAYLEH (NORTH CAROLINA VICTIMS); AP IMAGES/PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS (COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS)
Out of the Frying Pan
The ramping-up of anti-Muslim sentiment — in
Irving and across the country — did not begin only
after the Paris and San Bernardino attacks of late
2015. Recently released FBI hate crime statistics
for 2014 show that hate crimes against Muslims
rose that year by about 14%, even as hate crimes in
every other major category dropped. The increase
was apparently driven by reports of atrocities by the
Islamic State, mainly in Africa and the Middle East.
Although the 2014 rise was relatively small, there
seems to be little doubt that when the 2015 numbers
are published by the FBI in late 2016, they will
reflect a dramatic jump.
The tone for 2015 already was set in January
with the deadly assault by jihadist terrorists on
Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine, and
other French targets. After that, it seemed American
Muslims were powerless to cool the growing ardor
of their haters. When a group gathered in Garland,
Texas, later that month for an event themed “Stand
with the Prophet against terror and hate,” anti-Muslim
protests followed. “They were not grateful that
local Muslim-Americans had taken it upon themselves
to combat extremism, but rather outraged
that Muslim-Americans would dare to gather publicly
at all,” observed Vox’s Max Fisher.
Other attacks — mostly abroad but also including
a thwarted attempt by two jihadists to shoot people
gathered at a deliberately provocative Muhammad
Art Exhibit and Contest held in Texas in May, and
the July murders of four Marines and a sailor in
Chattanooga, Tenn., by a Muslim gunman — only
fueled the fire.
So did a media landscape that treats every issue
as if it’s up for debate, fails to fact-check before it
broadcasts, and repeatedly showcases pundits with
histories of demonizing, ill-informed and factually
inaccurate statements.
Following the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, for
instance, Fox News “terrorism expert” Steve
Emerson claimed that certain parts of Europe are
“no-go zones” where “non-Muslims just simply don’t
go” — a baseless myth that earned him international
criticism and mockery. Emerson later apologized, but
that did not stop other Fox pundits and politicians
from repeating and amplifying Emerson’s assertion
— among them Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a former
GOP presidential candidate whose claims about
British no-go zones were similarly ridiculed.
The problem goes beyond right-wing conspiracy
theorists and haters on the Internet, and beyond
the Fox News shows that regularly offer platforms
to paranoid Islamophobes like Emerson and hate
group leaders like Robert Spencer. Liberal satirist
Bill Maher, an outspoken atheist whose broad critique
of religion has become increasingly ugly when
it comes to Islam, said of the faith: “What we’ve
said all along, and have been called bigots for it, is
when there’s this many bad apples, there’s something
wrong with the orchard.” Richard Dawkins,
an abrasive British scientist and fellow atheist, has
Muslims on the
defensive: Recent
attacks on Muslims
have victimized the
offices of the Council
on American-Islamic
Relations (clockwise
from bottom right),
three people murdered
in North Carolina, and
Sarkar Haq, who was
beaten in New York.
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