Continuing Religious Discrimination
We are still wondering about the motivation of how an army Major, a physician no less, could open fire and kill or injure 43 people at the US Army base where he worked in Texas. This was the largest peacetime crime ever on a domestic military base, and by any measure, a truly great tragedy affecting a large number of people. The effects are not only at Fort Hood, but at installations all over the country and the world.
The details of the crime have been widely discussed in the news media and elsewhere. It was truly a horrible incident, a fact that no one denies. Now that authorities have identified the suspect, the talk has moved to why he did it.
Some will argue that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was trying to get out of being deployed to the Middle East. Some believe he was making a statement. Some are more charitable and believe that he may have reacted abnormally to the stress of his personal situation and cracked under the strain. Not defensible, but a possible explanation. The truth is that we may never know the real reasons for what happened on that day.
The explanation that really bothers me is that because this man’s name indicates a background from a Muslim country (it doesn’t, he’s from Virginia) and because we know that he is a Muslim, then that must have something to do with why he committed this atrocity. It does not. But judging from the reaction from radio talk programs and online commentators, you would think it did. I believe this shows just how intolerant we still are as a society.
One comment by an anonymous radio commenter seemed to sum this up for me. The question up for discussion was whether it was pertinent to the story that he was a Muslim. Many argued that it was not, as we don’t usually mention the religious preferences of criminals. Some thought it was, as part of a total picture of who this man was. One person, however, went even further. He suggested that the US Military should pay particular attention to its Muslim members, especially those who chose to pray every day. Could that really matter?
I would imagine that in the US, a great number of people are Christians. If the man who had done this act had been a practicing Christian, would that fact be discussed on the news so widely. More to the point, would someone have come on the air to say that the US Military should keep a closer eye on the activities of Christians, especially those who choose to pray everyday? Of course not! So what makes this case so very different? Nothing.
It saddens me to observe that religious bigotry is still alive and well in the US today. Our constitution has always guaranteed us the right to freely practice the religion of our choice. In practice, it has allowed us to freely practice any form of Christianity that we choose. Besides, I could even argue that those rights are somewhat abridged; as the followers of the Catholic, Mormon, or Jehovah’s Witness faiths can attest to on a historic basis. This is hardly the lack of religious bigotry that we pretend to hold out as one of our basic truths. I am ashamed of us.
One of the biggest problems we have as a society today is intolerance to those with legitimate but “minority” beliefs. unitl we can get beyond this bias, we will not truly live in a “free” country. The need is not to stop those who say these horrible things from speaking. It is to educate them on the need to treat all of their neighbors with respect.
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