By now, many readers may have seen Tunku Varadarajan’s controversial column for Forbes from last week, “Going Muslim.” In it, Varadarajan coins a new term to describe Major Nidal Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood two weeks ago. “Going Muslim” is Varadarajan’s variation of “going postal,” a phrase coined a few years ago, after a string of (non-Muslim) U.S. postal workers went on killing sprees. Here is how Varadarajan defines the term:
This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.
The most irksome part of Varadarajan’s column for me was the following paragraph:
The difference between “going postal,” in the conventional sense, and “going Muslim,” in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological “snapping” point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage–the camouflage of integration–in an act of revelatory catharsis. In spite of suggestions by some who know him that he had a history of “harassment” as a Muslim in the army, Maj. Hasan did not “snap” in the “postal” manner. He gave away his possessions on the morning of his day of murder. He even gave away–to a neighbor–a packet of frozen broccoli that he did not wish to see go to waste, even as he mapped in his mind the laying waste of lives at Fort Hood. His was a meticulous, even punctilious “departure.”
In fact, reports from Hasan’s colleagues strongly suggest a profile of a person who was borderline psychotic for several years, but who finally snapped around 2007. Yes, he gave away his broccoli on the day he went on a shooting spree. But that is in fact entirely in keeping with how psychotics behave.
What Varadarajan doesn’t realize is that the kind of paranoid argument he is making about immigrants in “camouflage” could very easily be used against any other immigrant group, including Hindus, as a pretext for mistrust or active discrimination.
Varadarajan also make a claim about “integration” into American society that is simply not supported by any facts. The diverse groups of immigrants who are Muslim have done just fine in terms of their economic performance, civil participation, etc. By coining this pernicious phrase, and by promoting an argument based self-evidently on bigotry, Varadarajan has shown us why we no longer need to take anything he says seriously.
Much of Varadarajan’s animus is really directed at affirmative action, and seems to be an extension of the post 9/11 claim he made several years ago, which Manish responded to here, that Muslims really ought to be singled out for profiling, especially in connection with mass transit. There are some unconfirmed reports that Nidal Hasan, despite signs that he was incompetent and unhinged, may have been treated with kid gloves by his superiors at Walter Reed who wanted to avoid seeming to persecute a Muslim colleague. If proven true, they would support Varadarajan’s claim, with which I agree, that political correctness ought not be a consideration in situations like Hasan’s. But I have my doubts about how significant political correctness really was; it seems as likely that the army bureaucrats supervising Hasan simply didn’t want to deal with the arduous and extended process for firing him.
Even if the political correctness claim is supported by facts that will come out of the forthcoming investigation, the focus of our concern should be the Army protocols for assessing mentally ill service members, not Muslims as a group.
Needless to say, Varadarajan’s column has caused quite a firestorm of controversy in the NYU community. You can see some of the responses, including one from the president of the university, here.
maybe tamils are not just fifth columns, they are also shiftless enough to get other people to do their dirty work for them.
Based on that article, it would bear examination if there is an American constituency desirous of following Pakistan in figuratively joining the Middle East. But would a Muslim say from Turkey be interested in such a relocation?
that’s what tunku does, at the end of the article-
i agree with the nominalist-
the ‘going’ bit captures the throwing off of the cloak
Dr. Manzoor Ejaz on Major Hasan. “Major Hasan embraces tradition” http://www.wichaar.com/news/294/ARTICLE/17265/2009-11-14.html
A refreshingly cant-free perspective.
Gustavo, do you think if someone admits to you that they are frightened by Islam, because of their experiences of seeing really disturbing extremist ideology up close, do you think they are bigots? Because the heat and noise generated by extremist Muslims really is alienating people from Islam in general, because it seems like the prevailing narrative of Islam today is one of something sinister, coercive, intolerant and potentially violent. And this makes them frightened of the religion. And when they articulate this, and do identify the existence of ideologies of supremacism and bigotry that need to be addressed, they are attacked sometimes as being irrational. Do you understand how this can be frustrating, and is actually, really unhelpful to society?
Wonder why the recent Vande Mataram controversy, in the desh, has not surfaced here in the discussion? A muslim, cleric-led organization in India, seemingly out of the blue, declared that the singing of the aforementioned national song of India is un-Islamic and declared a fatwa against it. The thing that riled me the most was that in the media, where plenty of discussion took place on this, most respected Muslim commentators and clergy, with a few honorable exceptions, actually weakly defended the above organization by saying, in paraphrase, “well, it is un-Islamic but perhaps the timing of this declaration is not good”! I expected that there would be forceful reactions from most muslim intellectuals that would say that “whatever is there in the Koran and Islam, this kind of confrontational attitude over a non-issue, especially after this controversy has been discussed and resolved before, shows something is very wrong with this muslim organization in not wanting to fully engage in civic citizenship of the country and is borderline separatist.”
Sorry for the longish, maybe orthogonal, comment, but I think it’s relevant here, as an example of how seemingly assimilated, well-off muslims still engage, or have to deal with, this type of leadership in free societies.
What concerns me is the concept of “discarded camouflage”in the Vardarajan piece in Forbes (Nov 9, 2009). The overtly racist tone of this article suggests a deeply embedded Hindutva philosophy camouflaged in a Western educated exterior. Since this is not the first time he has expressed such views, though not quite so brazenly before, it might be viewed by psychiatrists as signs of a volcano about to erupt. Is this man about to drop his own camouflage? Let Homeland Security be forewarned!
Excellent column from Mr Tunuku. Looking at most of the comments made here…most of the mutineers seem to be more concerned about the offense the column would cause to their muslim friends than confronting the truth about the menace of islamic terrorism . Pseudo secularism at its best.
Is there an ideology that is causing havoc from the streets of Muslim cities like Peshawar, Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Jakarta, Tehran, etc. to the streets where Muslims are a minority like in the streets of New Delhi or Mumbai?
Of course.
I am Muslim and I am not denying the ideology that has some currency among a certain subset of Muslims.
The epicenter of the “War on Terror” is in South Asia, not the Arab Middle East or Arab North Africa!
However, the article grossly characterizes Islam in a pejorative light.
Many South Asian Muslims look at Hinduism as an abrasion of ancient prejudices and biases. The treatment of widows being condemned to a life of poverty and misery, including child brides is horrendous. The caste prejudicial system and the wanton violence of Hindu mobs ransacking Muslim slums and villages is not very enlightened.
India may be an emerging superpower, but Desis of all religious stripes have social issues they must overcome to join the community of “civilized nations.” That means abandoning the tribal and communal prejudices of our cultures.
Tunku Varadarajan has written some excellent articles, particularly in the aftermath of 9-11, where he forcefully drew attention to India’s role as a severe victim of Islamic terrorism in Kashmir and elsewhere. And how India was helping the war on terror, through intelligence inputs, and economic assistance to Afghanistan, in contrast to Pakistan’s support for the Taliban scum. His one disappointing article was on Indian spelling bee winners, where he played on the stereotype of Indian kids learning purely through rote learning. That was a disservice. Otherwise, he’s been excellent. An obviously liberal person who sees the essential goodness of Indians and Hindus. That is very needed in the mindless liberal vs conservative divide in America today, where true liberals are supposed to be more sympathetic to Moslems.