The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

Woaw. Slow up. Before you go any further you should know that in no way am I some raving, conservative lunatic. Quite the opposite. I did my share of mind altering drugs in my younger days. I’m an artist and keep company with a wide variety of people. If I were to lean any direction, it would most certainly be Left vs. Right. So take that into full understanding in what I’m about to (try to) get into.

I was watching the HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher. It’s a talk show of sorts. Maher comes on and makes fun of different things and different people. Some of it truly is funny - some, not so. He’s vehemently anti-religious. So much so, in my opinion, that he goes over board.

Now, I’m a fairly lax, laid-back religious person. I don’t really spend a lot of time worrying if people do or don’t believe in what I believe in. I make friends on both sides of the isle, if you will. But one fault I found in Maher this evening, one that I’ve found in many Americans (and I should say white) is their projection of their values on the rest of the world.

We live in a pretty cool country. It’s got a lot of problems. But like any good family, some of those faults are what make up the lovable traits that make us who we are. But we should never forget that our way is not the only way. Tonight, Maher made the case that any Muslim man who wouldn’t shake hands with a woman was a religious fanatic. I would have to disagree with him. I know many Muslims who will not or seek to lessen physical contact between themselves and women. They are not doing it because they think women are filthy, satan spawn or some other crap. They do it for many reasons, too many to list here (and they can give their own reasons in their own words here if they’d like to). But because someone does something that’s different than the way we do it, they should not be labeled a fanatic. If anything, I find this attitude, an attitude that fosters an ‘us & them’ attitude, to be fanatical. People all come in different shapes and sizes. Different outlooks on life. And after having watched Maher, he seems to have some pretty big problems with religion (I’d say it’s personal with Islam), which he then pimps to his audience as a way of making a living.

The West, and more specifically, whites in the West, must stop holding other cultures up to their narrow view of what is right and wrong. Islam is an easy target because from many in the West, it’s so opposite from what we have here. It’s had over a thousand years to incubate and take on a cultural form in many parts of the world. So when I hear western women talking about women in Islam being persecuted (which some are, I’m sure - I’m not arguing that. But women are persecuted in the U.S. as well. Just look at domestic violence), they assume that in order for a woman to be free, it must match the standards of freedom from a white, western woman’s perspective. I personally know countless Muslim women (converts as well as ‘ethnic’ Muslim women) who would never trade in their hijabs (headscarfs) for a mini skirt. For them, that is their sense of identity.

So, in the end, I guess I’m just trying to make a counter point. The world just really isn’t this simple. A little more humility on our part, Mr.Maher. Thank you. Enjoyed the show tonight.