Nov 10, 2009 11:54 AM
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Tue Feb 9
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Nidal Hasan, a Muslim, killed a bunch of people at Ft. Hood. Clearly, this calls for the angriest members of the right wing to compete to say the most paleoracist anti-Muslim thing. Today: Pat Robertson vs. Tunku Varadarajan.
Pat Robertson, great Jesus-like man:
So you are dealing with not a religion. You're dealing with a political system. And I think we should treat it as such and treat its adherences as such as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group.
Can you top that, bearded Forbes columnist Tunku Varadarajan?
[We] must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub—disconcertingly—"Going Muslim." This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American—a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood—discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.
Not the friendly donut vendor!
The difference between "going postal," in the conventional sense, and "going Muslim," in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological "snapping" point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage—the camouflage of integration—in an act of revelatory catharsis.
Yes, I've heard of cases of Muslims shedding their "American" skins like so many reptilian aliens from 'V.' Provocative point, Respectable Columnist Tunku Varadarajan. Vote for your favorite outrage now!
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Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.
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