There was a controversy a few years ago at WisCon which involved the science fiction author Elizabeth Moon who was invited as the guest of honor at WisCon 35, the premier Feminist Science Fiction convention in the world, in 2010 but after she made a rather negative blog post about Muslims her invitation was cancelled. This is an excerpt from her blog post.
I know–I do not dispute–that many Muslims had nothing to do with the attacks, did not approve of them, would have stopped them if they could. I do not dispute that there are moderate, even liberal, Muslims, that many Muslims have all the virtues of civilized persons and are admirable in all those ways. I am totally, 100%, appalled at those who want to burn the Koran (which, by the way, I have read in English translation, with the same attention I’ve given to other holy books) or throw paint on mosques or beat up Muslims. But Muslims fail to recognize how much forbearance they’ve had. Schools in my area held consciousness-raising sessions for kids about not teasing children in Muslim-defined clothing…but not about not teasing Jewish children or racial minorities. More law enforcement was dedicated to protecting mosques than synagogues–and synagogues are still targeted for vandalism. What I heard, in my area, after 9/11, was not condemnation by local mosques of the attack–but an immediate cry for protection even before anything happened. Our church, and many others (not, obviously all) already had in place a “peace and reconciliation” program that urged us to understand, forgive, pray for, not just innocent Muslims but the attackers themselves. It sponsored a talk by a Muslim from a local mosque–but the talk was all about how wonderful Islam was–totally ignoring the historical roots of Islamic violence.
I love the last line about “ignoring the historical roots of violence in Islam…”
While she seems to forget the 22,000 distinct native American tribes wiped out by Christians in the US. The millions of Incans and other indigenous peoples wiped out by Christian, the numerous Papal wars, Byzantine empire all spurred on by the “Holy Roman” Church. Even now in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin killing there are millions of people accusing African Americans of being “race baiters” which constitutes little more than a deliberate attempt by a largely “white christian” society’s attempt to sweep a very real racial issue under the rug.