On Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, the panel had a discussion about Islam, Boko Haram, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Among some of the points discussed were whether or not the term “Islamaphobic” is even a legitimate phrase. Maher doesn’t think so, and neither does panelist Dinesh D’Souza. They also delve into whether groups like Boko Haram really are, in fact, outliers. And finally, they discuss Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women’s rights and human rights activist who speaks out against Islam around the world and was recently disinvited from a commencement ceremony based on that fact.
Most sites featuring this clip today are focusing on Maher’s broader points about Islam.
“There’s no mention here of connecting this to the religion, which is always what I am seeking to do because I think that’s the elephant in the room,” he said. “And that in the religion at large, women are seen as property, second-class at best, often as property.”
But the “liberals” on the panel, of course, disagree. In discussing Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Maher touched on her background, including the fact that she was the victim of genital mutilation at age 5. Further into the discussion, this exchange took place between Maher and comedian Baratunde Thurston:
BARATUNDE: The more specific challenge with her is, she has gone very far out in criticism of Islam, ever farther than you Bill ..
MAHER: Well she had a bad experience.
BARATUNDE: She had a very bad experience but I had a bad experience with the metro, I don’t say, you know, all public transit should be burned.
I mean … seriously? Right now someone is saying “it was just an offhand comment, it was just an analogy, he was trying to make a point.” Besides the demeaning comparison, the analogy doesn’t hold up to scrutiny even by his own lax standards. Ali didn’t just run into a series of unfortunate events and suddenly condemn an innocent, inanimate system. She was mutilated, abused, and mistreated, as millions of women are, by virtue of the practice of the religion itself. A more apt metro analogy would be that every day, the metro picks one random passenger to run over, and Baratunde happened to be that passenger. He would rightly object to the entire system.
Inherent in his comparison is that liberal blind spot that would have you believe that bad things that happen as a result of the practice of Islam are simply circumstantial, almost random occurrences unrelated to the actual operation of the system; like a ticket not coming out of the machine after you pay at the metro station. But it is not random. Ali’s whole point is that it is part and parcel. Which makes Baratunde’s ridiculous flippant comments not just gross, but woefully and willfully ignorant. Shameful. His commentary throughout the segment was illustrative of exactly the kind of faux “tolerance” that Maher was objecting to in the first place.
“Where it becomes dangerous is that liberals like yourself do not stand up for liberalism. Liberalism means, one, mostly, equality of women,” said Maher to the liberals on the panel. Yet what liberals will say about Maher’s point of view, what they have said about it, and about Ali’s as well, is that it is Islamaphobic. Here is what Maher has to say about that:
“They said she is Islamophobic, who my friend Sam Harris reminded me today our deceased friend Christopher Hitchens said Islamophobic is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.”
For some liberals, nothing is intolerable, except and unless it something done by white Christian Americans.
Of course, Thurston is free to think and say these dumb things, and even go on TV to do it. He is free to make money off of it. He is free to speak at a graduation ceremony based on them. Too bad he doesn’t think Aayan Hirsi Ali should be afforded the same.
The entire segment, though, was very interesting and worth watching. There is a partial transcript available at Real Clear Politics.