Hugh Fitzgerald: “Spread Hummus Not Hate” in Beaver, Pennsylvania

One more example of Meet-Your-Muslim Neighbor Ninnies:
“Clearing the Air on Islam through ‘Spread Hummus, Not Hate’ events in Beaver,” by J.D. Prose, Beaver County Times, March 31, 2017:
BEAVER — If any two things bring Beaver Countians together, it’s food and religion, and Center Township resident Toni Ashfaq will incorporate both to educate residents about Islam during events in Beaver.
“There are a lot of misunderstandings, a lot of false information floating around,” said Ashfaq, a Muslim and the organizer of two Spread Hummus, Not Hate: Meet Your Muslim Neighbor gatherings Wednesday and Saturday at Beaver Area Memorial Library. “We just want people to meet us and see that we’re just like everybody else.”
“A Wisconsin native and convert from Catholicism, Ashfaq said she and two friends — Julia Chaney, a Christian, and fellow Muslim Dr. Raniah Khairy, an OB/GYN specialist at Heritage Valley Beaver hospital in Brighton Township — began brainstorming ideas “just to kind of build bridges and promote understanding” because of the “current political climate.”…
“We thought it was a pretty catchy title,” Ashfaq said with a laugh. Just one gathering was initially planned, but after receiving an “overwhelming” response, she said a second one was added.”
“Islam has been distorted by politicians and certain media, she said, not naming anyone specifically. Regardless, Ashfaq said Muslims are “not in denial” about Muslims committing violence, but “the media too often focuses solely on Islam.”
Yes, how true. What on earth could possibly be the reason for this unwonted fixation on Islam? Could it be that the media “too often focuses solely on Islam” because there have been more than 30,500 terrorist attacks by Muslims on non-Muslims, all over the world, since 9/11? Could it be that the attacks – let’s just list a few of the places that come immediately to mind, in Paris, Nice, Toulouse, in Brussels, Berlin, Wurzburg, Munich, Reutlingen, Ansbach, in Moscow and Beslan and St. Petersburg, in Amsterdam and Madrid, in New York and Washington and Boston, in Fort Hood and San Bernardino, in Orlando and Chattanooga, in St. Cloud and Little Rock, in Bali and Mumbai and New Delhi, in the Moro Islands of the Philippines, in Buenos Aires and in Beijing – are the reason why there is this “focus”on Islam? Or might it be because Muslims are engaged in so many other kinds of violence, including the sectarian conflict, pitting Sunnis against Shia, in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Pakistan, and Yemen, which also means that in several of these countries both Iran and Saudi Arabia are also involved, fighting proxy wars? Or could it be the continuing warfare against the Egyptian state from terrorists based in the Sinai, who are both Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State sympathizers? Or the Muslims of Boko Haram, who have continued to kidnap Christian girls in Nigeria and use them as sex slaves? Or the attacks on Christians and Yazidis by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria? Or the continuing wars in post-Qaddafi Libya, with Misratan militias battling the forces of the Libyan National Army, while the remnants of the the Islamic State, defeated at Sirte in December 2016, remain a once-and-future threat in Libya, a country where things are so bad that there are those nostalgic even for Qaddafi’s mad rule? Could it be the violence by Muslims who have driven 200,000 Hindu Pandits out of Kashmir, terrified Christian farmers in the Moro Islands of the Philippines, pushed Buddhists out of the Chittagong Hills tract in Bangladesh, and killed hundreds of thousands of African Christians in the southern Sudan? Could it be the murder of the Christian Shahbaz Bhatti in Pakistan, for daring to question the blasphemy laws? Could it have something to do with the grooming gangs in England? Or the fact that in Sweden 70% of the rapes are committed by Muslims, though Muslims constitute only 4% of the population? Could any, or some, or all of this, and a great deal more in the same vein, be the reason the media “focuses” — if, in fact, it does — on Islam?
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