Globe: Throwing Rocks at Muslims

More Boston Globe Islam-Bashing
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

Followup to: The Boston Globe's Problem with Muslims

On February 27th Boston Globe Senior Vice President and Editorial Page Editor Renée Loth wrote an op-ed entitled The Yoga Fatwa. She started her column with a charming piece of Islamophobic incitement.

RECENTLY I read that Indonesia's top Islamic body has banned yoga for the country's Muslims, claiming that the ancient Hindu practice could corrupt the purity of the faith. Similar rulings were handed down in Malaysia and Egypt last year. As strict religious edicts go, banning yoga isn't up there with honor killings or acid attacks. But it sure is another reason to love America.

By implication the "yoga fatwa" is another reason to hate Islam or at least to consider it un-American.

Concern about the idolatrous aspects of yogic practices has a long history among Christians and Jews as well as among Muslims. (See "Yoga and Meditation" The Rebbe's Perspective On "Kosher Yoga".)

If Loth really wanted to discuss religious ideas that are offensive to the average America, she could have addressed Jewish laws relating to food or lending.

Not only does the mere glance of a non-Jew render certain wines unfit for Jews to drink under the rules of ritual consumability (kashrut), but Halakhah (Jewish law) commands Jews to lend to non-Jews at interest and to fellow Jews with no interest.

Aren't the bigotries of Jewish law and religion just another reason to love America for forbidding such discriminatory practices?

Because the "yoga fatwa" is not quite enough to ramp up the Islamophobia, Loth throws in "honor killings" and acid attacks, neither of which are specific to Islamic cultures and which are both condemned by Islamic teachings, religious leaders, and religious scholars.

I am old enough to remember the days when African Americans might be beheaded for whistling at a white gal and when a white gal's family might kill her for "consorting" with Black men. (See Honor Killing in Iraq?).

The noisiest Jewish and non-Jewish Islamophobes point to the murder of Aasiya Hassan as an honor killing even though there is no evidence to that effect. (See Asra Nomani on Aasiya Beheading and Killing Aasiya and Scare-Mongering Islam.) Yet no one is even addressing how to categorize the Daniel Malakov murder.

Issues of romance, family loyalties, marriage, and divorce are complex and often create animosities that unfortunately can lead to violence. Religion is not the key issue that Islamophobes like Loth try to make it for the sake of their racist agenda.

Please send an email of complaint about Renée Loth's anti-Muslim prejudice to the Boston Globe Editorial Board (m_pritchard@globe.com, loth@globe.com, macgilnws@globe.com, gagen@globe.com, a_haywoode@globe.com, l_harmon@globe.com, berger@globe.com) as well as to Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. (publisher@nytimes.com) and to Scott H. Heekin-Canedy (president@nytimes.com), who are respectively the publisher and president of the NY Times, which owns the Boston Globe.
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