Words With Stereotypes Attached

Another question concerns the language of the newspapers. A column in that day's Fort Worth paper opened by saying that the Shiite Republican plot against House Speaker Newt Gingrich had come to naught. What is one to make of the use of a term like "Shiite Republican plot"?

That is a good example of the introduction of terms into our culture through the media that have negative stereotypes attached to them. For most people "Shiite" has a very negative sense, and so the writer is talking within a cultural discourse that is understood by the readers: Shiite is negative, and that is how it is being introduced. For an Iranian who happens to be an American Iranian, he is going to be offended by that.

It is part of the problem with language. Political correctness has a lot of problems associated with it, because we take it to such absurd lengths; but there is an idea of just being sensitive to people's cultures. And one of the things that the Qurʾān says is that We created you as peoples and tribes so that you might come to know one another, and that the noblest of you are the most God-wary:

One of the things that Thomas Cleary said about that verse is that we talk about the problem of racism, the problem of all of these attitudes, but we have never really examined how we break these down. And he thought that the Qurʾānic injunction there, to come to know one another, is part of what this is all about: this is literally trying to come to know a tradition. How do they view the world? How do you look at things? — as a way of understanding a people.

And the Muslims are as guilty as any other people of being narrow and not trying to understand the other. There are some Muslims who come here bringing a lot of their attitudes from other places. When you come to America, you have to learn what is appropriate within this culture. You have to learn that you are a guest in a host country. And the same, equally, would be for Americans going to a Muslim country: you are a guest in a host country. In this culture we have a saying: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. And there is a wisdom there, in that one has to recognise that there are sensitivities.