If you would believe Sanjeev Nayyar of DNA India, the right way to understand American opposition to a mosque in New York (conveniently titled the Ground Zero mosque) is to:
· Quote a battle dating from 1683 AD & claim a precedent of revenge dating from that battle and claim that "American" memory extends all the way back to 100 years before their country was formed.
· Claim a semantic objection by the collective unconscious to the name proposed: "Cordoba House". The stunning logic is that "Cordoba" symbolized Islamic inroads into Christian Europe; never mind that since then, the south of Spain has almost developed a collective amnesia to their Muslim heritage, as a visit to the region would inform anyone.
· In the fantastic imagination of the columnist, 9/11 is "perceived as an Islamic attempt to take revenge for the loss in the Battle of Vienna in 1683"... perceived by whom? And how? In which opinion poll? Or in which interview? Oh bother, never mind with the trivial details.
· Then Sanjeev jumps on a magic carpet and travels from New York to North India to draw parallels between a mosque in present day New York and temples destroyed in the 17th century by Aurangzeb... never mind the Taj Mahal built by the Mughals, screw the Red Fort, forget the ghazals and the famous miniature paintings... let us focus solely on the sordid details of two destroyed Hindu temples just because they serve this argument better (that " the mosque is a symbol of Muslim victory over the Christian west … (or over tolerant Hindustan?")
· Lo and behold, it is at this juncture that "a few questions arise" in the mind of Sanjeev Nayyar and what are they?
o Why do liberals in democracies not use the same yardsticks to apply in countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia and J&K?
o Consider, my thudding heart, these paragons against which we are advised to compare ourselves:
o Saudi Arabia: never was a democracy; is a monarchy (defined as King Rules. King with very deep oil wells. Hence everyone's friend. Regardless of liberals, yardsticks and oil-sipping hybrids)
o Pakistan: tin-pot generals, Mr.10% presidents, cataclysmic floods and the Taliban... they have enough slightly more pressing problems than liberals with yardsticks, no?
o Malaysia: I haven’t heard much about religious persecution in Malaysia but I do know there are very big Hindu temples in Malaysia which entertain quite a few pilgrims.
o J&K: J&K is a mess, more or less the same as Pakistan where people have enough problems from the mujaheddin, the Indian Army, the Pakistani ISI, the VHP, you name it... and we wonder why they don’t proclaim deep and profound thoughts about religious freedom.
Hence, as this utterly logical flow of argument flows, this mosque becomes “an attempt to rewrite history which will result in Americans forgetting the Twin towers 200 years from now”. Ah, the utterly sinister workings of the Islamic mind... who else could have smoked out this devilry but Mr. Nayyar from DNA!
Towards the end of the article, the mysterious & secretive liberals (They Who Shall Not Be Named) who made an appearance earlier in the column, arrive again to raise a parting question “Why the past is so important when there are more pressing concerns in the present?” and vanish again, into the mists of time, confusion, secrecy, whatever. But intrepid Mr.Nayyar, who never bothers to mention them by name or quote sources, doesn't spare them... no way! He trots out poor Vivekananda to track down and answer these confounding liberals with a good patriotic dose of Hindu nationalism.
So lets quickly recap the highlights of shoddy journalism in play here:
- Connecting facts that sound significant but bear no relation or impact on each other (eg: American memory and Islamic inroads in Spain)
- The creation of strawmen (liberals) without any records to back up who they are or what they said; the creation of another level of strawmen (the so-called intolerant states against which Level 1 Strawmen raise arguments)
And thats just the top two...
I know of at least a dozen bloggers who write phenomenally better copy than this; so I wonder why DNA relies on such inferior talent to turn out fundamentally flawed opinions like this?
3 comments:
Hear hear.... Really enjoyed the systematic demolition. The editors of the DNA will serve their readers better with this rebuttal rather than the fantastical nonsense people like Nayyar trot out.
Puzzles me how a mainstream newspaper allows someone like this : http://twitter.com/RajeevSrinivasa to write columns.
Mainstream newspaper allows it because this guys views chime with whats going on in the heads of average readers.
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