Opinion

Just Say No to Celebrity Extremists

Big name zealots locked in a symbiosis of hatred. Are we finally moving on?

By Mitchell Anderson, 11 May 2011, TheTyee.ca

Glenn Beck

Ex-Fox huckster Glenn Beck: Decade of hysteria finally blowing over?

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The death of Osama bin Laden is as good a time as any to reflect on the state of extremism around the globe. In the years since 9-11, the world has been wrenched by radicals on both sides of the East-West divide who have opportunistically stoked distrust for the "other" in order to elevate their own profile and power.

In a strange symbiosis of hatred, many celebrity extremists from the last decade from Ann Coulter to bin Laden became wealthy and powerful preaching the impossibility of reconciliation while holding up their loopy counterparts as evidence.

Thankfully this decade of hysteria seems to be blowing over. Glenn Beck's show was recently cancelled after his audience dropped by almost forty per cent. Coulter's influence has been on the wane for years.

And bin Laden's death drew a mere 300 protesters in Cairo, where only two months before 250,000 crammed into Tahrir Square to celebrate the peaceful overthrow of the Mubarak regime.

Rather than the violent revolution to install a medieval Islamic caliphate that bin Laden had sought for decades, this was a non-violent middle-class movement courageously demanding democracy and human rights.

Who's out?

The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired a wave of uprisings throughout the Middle East led by some of the bravest souls on the planet. The courage required to face brutal regimes like Libya and Syria on the streets also makes the suburban indignation of the Tea Party seem comical in comparison.

These struggles for liberty would make the American founding fathers proud and are shifting the opinion held by many in the West that Arab nations are somehow incapable of democracy.

The tactic of defining community by who is out, rather than who is in, remains a time-tested tool of political hucksters the world-over. A recent domestic example is Reverend Terry Jones who catapulted himself to fame in July 2010 when he threatened to burn a copy of Koran to protest over the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Even though he reneged on this promised act of idiocy, the resulting outrage in the Middle East killed at least 20 people.

Eight months later he changed his mind again, holding a mock trial for the Islamic holy book and burning a copy in a barbeque in the back of his tiny Gainesville Church, which has an active membership of about 30 people.

This intolerant tree falling in the forest might never have been noticed had not Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced it in a speech 12 days later. Another 30 people including seven UN workers were promptly killed in resulting riots in Afghanistan.

Western reporters in that country were amazed that even well-educated Afghans thought that Koran burning was a common American pastime. They apparently had no idea that Jones was such a pariah and laughingstock in America that he had the sell the congregation furniture on eBay to make ends meet.

Even an organization billing itself as the Extreme Right Wing, an "armed Christian conservative group," dissociated itself from the stunt because it exceeded even their stupidity quotient.

Global echo chamber

Such details certainly do not deter Jones's extremist counterparts in Afghanistan. U.S. General David Petraeus warned it was "precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems -- not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Always grateful for a chance to demonize the West, Iran's repressive leadership highlighted Jones as not merely a typical American, but one doing the bidding of the U.S. government and Israel.

The recent ability to transmit information around the world in real time has created a global echo chamber where extremists from all sides can help amplify each other beyond their wildest proportion.

But emerging technology has also created an opportunity for citizens to see beyond their own shrill messengers and decide for themselves who the "other" is. This global awakening happens more each day.

Support for bin Laden's violent views among the world's Muslim nations has been plummeting for the last 10 years. Opinion polling shows that over 80 per cent of Afghans disapprove of both al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Likewise, about 230 million Americans identify as Christians, meaning the Koran burning enthusiasts led by Terry Jones account for less than 0.00002 per cent of U.S. churchgoers.

Ending the age of intolerance

Regardless of culture, history or extremist hucksters on all sides, we humans are finding we have more in common with each other than we think.

Consider that bin Laden apparently died in one of two rooms that he had not left in five years. Rather than the wildly popular leader that many Americans might believe him to be, he spent the last half-decade imprisoned by his own violent ideology that consistently failed to gain widespread acceptance within the Muslim world.

Not to be outdone in the arena of insane ideology, Ann Coulter once said "I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo."

Are we so different? Even our extremists need each other.

Many concrete things need to happen to end the age of intolerance. High on that list is the West ending its addiction to fossil fuels and all the externalized costs of compromised foreign policy and human rights that result. The difficult road to self-determination now being fought on Arab streets also deserves our admiration and assistance.

If successful, these transformational journeys will make the world a far safer place than the trillions that continue to be poured into military spending. Like the bygone fads of hula-hoops, flared pants, and tube tops, the celebrity extremists that defined the last decade will hopefully also soon be a historical curiosity. [Tyee]

Mitchell Anderson writes about the environment and energy for The Tyee and others.

12 Comments:

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  • the real ODB

    1 year ago

    not a chance

    Not a chance that the last 2 paragraphs will ever come to fruition. Greed rules and it's not going away. As for the whack job "zealots", who's names aren't fit to print, they'll just reappear wearing different uniforms. As for bin Laden living in a room in a fortress like house (down the street from a ISI compound) sounds like a crock of crap. Personally, I believe the info that he's actually been dead for years. But the U.S. needed him to be "alive" to carry on their agenda of domination and destruction. But even U.S. citizens were tiring of it all, so they voted in their first black President who was gonna be the change the people hoped for. Instead, he's been almost a complete failure. At least with G.W., who's a criminal and a scumbag, you new what he wanted. But now that Obama has supposedly whacked Osama and unceremoniously dumped his body at sea, his popularity has soared. Which makes one wonder: "What are they planning next?" And Canadians would be smart to learn the lessons from the middle east where the people are rising up against repressive, fascist regimes. Now that Harper has his "majority" that may well be us in a few years.

  • Skywalker

    1 year ago

    And then there is Bill OReily...

    ...another whack job who should be relegated to the dust bin of society..

  • Booker

    1 year ago

    Bush et. al.

    Good article. Can you imagine the strutting that George W. Bush, Glenn Beck and Limbaugh would have been doing if Bush had caught bin Laden? The cognitive dissonance they are feeling now must be paralyzing.

    I do hope that, like Beck's TV show, the extremists are all past their prime. I thought they were in 2008 and was completely wrong, so this time I'll wait and see.

  • KWD

    1 year ago

    wishful thinking

    The age of hysteria is blowing over? If the last federal election is any indication, hysteria has been seconded from the few “celebrity extremists” to become battle cry of our political leaders. Were we not bombarded with threats claiming a coalition was an impossible reconciliation, and that everyone would suffer because the corporate world would turn against Canada if voters let that happen?

    The uprisings in the Middle East are a direct result of folks not having access to the basics of life … they want what everyone wants, enough food, shelter and energy to give meaning and purpose to their lives. Given that the number of N. Americans experiencing basic resource scarcity is increasing … food, housing and energy costs are skyrocketing … uprisings are sure to follow. When our pain becomes too great to contain and our anger takes us to the streets, will our so-called democracy become a brutal regime? Will tear-gas happy cops be replaced by a trigger-happy military?

    The notion that emerging technology has created an opportunity for citizens to take part in global awakening is promising until one takes a look at the depth of cultural understanding and empathy on display in the popular social media. The “loopy” audience may have left Beck and Coulter parade but their numbers haven’t dwindled.

    As long as we believe greed is real and not something other than the willful manipulation of those easily led to distortional thinking … even if we end our addiction to oil, and rethink foreign policy and human rights … it’s unlikely the transformational journey will take us to a place that is less violent or safer.

  • OwlRol

    1 year ago

    Still more

    Skywalker, you forgot about Rush and Newt, let alone Sara P. or the Donald. They just seem to keep coming out of the woodwork like termites eating away at real democracy.

    Military procurements and more prisons aren't on the agenda so as to sit empty or unused.

  • khed67

    1 year ago

    "failure" of the real ODB

    I would love to hear how the real ODB reached the conclusion that Obama has been "almost a complete failure." She/he neglects to elaborate, so I fear that it may just be more mindless parroting of the biased MSM slant.

    If you'd like to balance some of the anti-Obama misinformation, try sites like MediaMatters.org--especially this page:
    http://mediamatters.org/research/201001270003

    A Google search of the president's accomplishments may be similarly enlightening, provided you open your eyes.

  • the real ODB

    1 year ago

    khed67

    Easy buddy! Like many others I was elated when Obama won. I thought, good for Americans. They stopped believing the lies and hate mongering and stood up to be counted. But when push came to shove, Obama got pushed around and couldn't (or wouldn't) shove back. He basically became a lame duck which resulted in the Republicans buying the mid term elections. I'm as disappointed as the next person. He's been "allowed" to do some good, but for the most part it's not happening. And like Mungo Gerry, he'll be a one hit wonder.

  • cboo44

    1 year ago

    Just say "No"

    To ALL wing-nuts. Left and right. It is humanly correct that any foaming-mouthed extremist, of ANY ilk, should make us all feel uncomfortable.

  • michael maser

    1 year ago

    Nice thought Mitch ... but

    overlooking how mainstream media creates and sustains the circus, including its performers and practices. It's unfortunate but true that (almost) every commercial media venue prefers "bottom-feeding", i.e. serving up anything that they (executives, directors and shareholders) perceive will help increase revenues and reduce costs. Reality TV is a perfect example. Sigh ...
    An excellent counter-point is the rise in the past decade of superb documentaries, and progressive media venues like the Tyee, Common Dreams, and many others. They don't pack the bottom line like the biggies but that's not their mission. Viva!

  • Jerry Munro

    1 year ago

    The Centre Continues to Hold....

    "To ALL wing-nuts. Left and right."

    Ahhh, the complacent, smug self-righteousness of th centre/centre right! They are a marvel to behold.

    Let's all just hang here in the comfortable, ideal "centre", where everything is going along just tickety-boo, all is "okay" with the affairs of "men and women" , nature will assuredly be just "fine", the greed system still works, and its "them over there" being exploited and slaughtered, while we are doing "alright" living off the fat of the land and child labour elsewhere.

    It is the best of all possible worlds.

    Gag! Wretch! Heave! All over these mugwamp dips.

  • perplexis

    1 year ago

    Facilitation and Accession to Genocide

    As noted in the article, "80%" of Afghans oppose Taliban/al-Qaeda. However, those numbers are skewed by the total opposition to those terror groups, by ethnic minorities in the former Northern Alliance controlled lands. In Pashtun areas, TAQ has massive support. Jihad terror spews from mosques, even as US troops patrol by.

    Frankly, those who support the turnover of Afghanistan to TAQ, are aiding and abetting an inevitable Genocide, that would fall on over 10,000,000 people. And what are those myopians doing on behalf of the besieged 8,000,000 Egyptian Copt Christians, or the 7,000,000 Israeli Jews? And Indonesia's Chinese? And Turkey's Kurds? And Malaysia's Chinese? And Pakistan's Hindu population that has been reduced from 22% of the population at Partition, to less than 1% today? Answer: silent consent to oppression and slaughter.

  • Jerry Munro

    1 year ago

    The Centre Fair Reeks... of Hypocrisy.

    " And Indonesia's Chinese? And Turkey's Kurds? And Malaysia's Chinese? And Pakistan's Hindu population that has been reduced from 22% of the population at Partition, to less than 1% today? Answer: silent consent to oppression and slaughter."

    And the physical and economic genocide/cultural effacement attempt that went on against our Natives in the past. And oops, continues to go on today. And the Anglo-Canadian "national chauvanism" that continues to stonewall Les Canadienne Quebecois desire for "national recognition" within Canadian "Confederation" (not "federation".)

    It's sure a good thing we Canadians are so pure, that we can run around the globe with our heads up the rear of the US Empire, justifying its imperialist thuggery, that goes on behind a thin gauze veil of bullshit democracy and concern for "human rights".

    God Bless Amerika and those, such as Canada, who hold its coat and lick its boots.

    And we won't even get into the Jewish genocide being carried out against the original Palestinian peoples of Palestine... Oops again! That's right. We call it Israel... Zionist Israel. That we apologize for.

    Aren't we in the centre, so much better and knowing than everyone else. We are so much more compassionate and wise... and all knowing, of course.

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