The "official" voice of Amerians and the defacto voice for muslims
I read an article today on Staten Island Advance that discussed the perception that the islamic religion was "soft on terror" meaning that islam gives only lip-service to denouncing terrorist acts while not taking any steps to actually repudiate terrorism. It's easy for westerners like me to feel that way when the only muslim actions we see are those of the terrorists themselves. In fact, the biggest controversy we see is that muslims are donating to charities to help the very people who seem to be committing these acts of terror.
At any rate, what really struck me about the article wasn't how some muslims are building up their spin control or starting work in "reputation management." No, what struck me was a particular quote
"Islam is not like the Catholic Church, there is no central
authority who can give you one quote. Therefore it is
impossible for all Muslims to speak in one voice, just as it
is impossible for all Americans to speak in one voice,"
said Muqtedar Khan, a non-resident fellow at the
Washington-based Brookings Institution,
who studies international politics.
And my immediate response was, of course, Yes, we can! And we do!
America is a democracy. We elect men and women to speak for us so that we don't have to take a poll everytime a decision is required. Local leaders represent us for questions affecting us locally. Other leaders are elected to handle larger, state-wide concerns. Still others are elected to deal with national and international issues. These leaders do not report in a hierarchical fashion, with the local leaders reporting to the state leaders. But rather, each of these elected officials is responsible to their constituents.
Now, in a nation of over 250,000,000 people, is it possible that one person could say something that all the rest of the 249,999,999 people agree with? Nope. Not a chance. However, one person can be selected through a process that (however flawed) will result in one, single, individual to speak for us all in one voice. We have a title for that person, President of the United States of America.
Now, hold on, I'm not telling you that I like everything that our current President has done/says/does/thinks/etc/etc. What I'm saying is, the president DOES speak for us. And when he speaks, you better accept that it is the one voice of the American people. Never mind the other voices in our heads.
As for the muslims not having a similar elected office, I couldn't care less. News reports claim that there might be over 1,000,000,000 muslims in the world. And I've also heard people say that the murderers who set-off bombs in subways are just a small fraction of those billion muslims and that the terrorist don't speak for all muslims.
I'm sorry to have to be the one to point it out to you, but YES, THEY DO! The are the active "public relations" branch of your religion. They are the ones letting their deeds speak louder than others' lame and effectively complicit words. You should all be ashamed of yourselves for belonging to the same group as those shitty excuses for human beings. By NOT speaking and acting up, YOU ARE accepting their actions. Just the same as we Americans would be accepting everything that President Bush did if we failed to speak out and protest when those actions do not represent us.
See how that works? Somebody speaks on your behalf, they say they are speaking FOR YOU. If you don't take action, they are.