On May 25, Tavis Smiley interviewed atheist/ex-Muslim author and former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali on his PBS show. One particular remark by Smiley is enraging conservatives, for example in Brent Bozell's
June 1 column. I began watching Smiley's show a month ago when
Bill Richardson appeared to discuss the new Arizona illegal immigration law. I also watched the show that had Hirsi Ali. (
link to interview) This exchange was what riled people up:
Tavis: I guess I'm trying to understand where the evidence is that suggests that all of us who happen to be Christians or enlightened in some other way need to take on Muslims here in the West.
Ali: Okay, I think first and foremost what we have to acknowledge is we're not going to get a monster with horns, blue in the face, looking like a dragon called jihad coming in and terrorizing us. The people who are engaged in terrorist activities look like you and me. They look like everybody else here. Major Nidal Hasan, the military guy who in November shot 13 of his colleagues and injured 32, he's going to be on trial pretty soon, I think this week, the young man, Faisal Shahzad, in Times Square who tried to blow innocent people that he doesn't know up, these guys are acting on conviction. Somehow, the idea got into their minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter.
Tavis: But Christians do that every single day in this country.
Ali: Do they blow people up (unintelligible)?
Tavis: Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that's what Columbine is — I could do this all day long. There are so many more examples of Christians — and I happen to be a Christian. That's back to this notion of your idealizing Christianity in my mind, to my read. There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work.
Ali: Well, I think you and I disagree, not so much on is there extremism in Christianity — I fully acknowledge that. There are people who want to take the Bible and use passages from the Bible as justification for violent behavior. I'm not denying that in the least. But mainstream Christians in the 21st century are more like you. I'm an atheist, I'm not a Christian, but they are more like you — accepting of other religions and tolerant . . . There are today — I don't want to say, and it's been established, not all Muslims are terrorists, we must emphasize that, but almost all terrorist activities that take place today in our time are done and justified in the name of Islam.
Bozell responded to Smiley's first question: "What? Did Tavis Smiley somehow sleep through 9/11? Is PBS keeping him locked in a closet where he remains unaware of the ongoing terrorist attacks on Americans – successful and unsuccessful – made by Islamic radicals?"
The complaints were voluminous enough for PBS's ombudsman Michael Getler to
address this:
I thought Smiley went off course here in a way that was guaranteed to be inflammatory. He seemed to be equating the occasionally deranged individual in this country with religiously fanatic suicide bombers and those like Maj. Nidal M. Hasan at Fort Hood in Texas. While there are no doubt people who kill in the name of different religions, I don't think he made his case, or even came close.
The only specific case he cited was the Columbine High School massacre outside Denver 11 years ago. But that had nothing to do with Christianity.
I agree. While I think that Smiley is an intelligent interviewer, he did veer off-course with his attempt at saying "Christians do it too!" Getler posted Smiley's clarification:
Ms. Hirsi Ali and I were talking about violence perpetrated in the name of religion or by people who claim to be religious. We agreed that there is extremism in Christianity just as there is in Islam and other faiths. We agreed that people have always found ways to use religion to justify heinous acts. Where we disagreed was that followers of any one religion are predisposed to violence. Unfortunately, history has shown us that believers of all stripes have been misguided.
That clarification is so much better compared with, let's say, Glenn Beck's
half-baked apology for personal attacks he directed towards President Obama's children. I betcha the conservatives angry over Smiley's slip of the tongue would rather have Sean Hannity's show on PBS and Glenn Beck's show on NPR. Most of the complaints about Smiley's remark must've come from people with those mindsets. But the bottom line is that violence occurs from people from any background whether is be rich, poor, religious, non-religious, whatever.
In 2007, Smiley's show encountered controversy from the left; Media Matters
complained to PBS about discredited Republican pollster Frank Luntz delivering analysis of a
Democratic presidential forum that was to be moderated by Smiley.
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