We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us, by an awful lot... yet we're exempted from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in, says the Shakespeare in Love star
Sydney: Ben Affleck, a Hollywood star and director, won praise on social media after an angry debate with anti-Islam TV host Bill Maher and author Sam Harris, attacking the negative, "incomplete" image they were painting for world Muslims.
[We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us, by an awful lot... yet we're exempted from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in, says the Shakespeare in Love star. (Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty Images)]
"Hold on — are you the person who officially understand the codified doctrine of Islam?" Affleck interrupted Harris who was attacking Islam, Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday.
The star was a guest in Friday's TV show Real Time With Bill Maher to promote his new film, Gone Girl, when the panel discussed current affairs.
He became incensed when the host Bill Maher and author Sam Harris began talking about radical Islamists, feeling they were stereotyping all Muslims.
"We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people," Harris began.
"It's intellectually ridiculous."
He then told them their talk was "gross and racist": "It's like saying, 'Oh, you shifty Jew!'"
Harris continued to argue that Islam was currently the "motherlode of bad ideas," and Maher agreed, which led Affleck to counter, "It's just an ugly thing to say", before launching into a tirade.
"How about the more than a billion people who are not fanatical, who don't punish women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, pray five times a day and don't do any of the things that 'all Muslims do'? You're stereotyping. You're taking a few bad things and you're painting the whole religion with that same brush," Affleck said.
The heated debate went on when Harris, who has been criticized repeatedly for spreading negative views on Islam, claimed that millions of Muslims were fundamentalists.
"Because it's the only religion that acts like the mafia that will f--king kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book," Maher added.
Affleck, who was visibly angered by the discussion, added: "We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us, by an awful lot... yet we're exempted from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in... I'm specifically telling you that I disagree with what you think."
The actor won praise on social media for accusing both men of religious stereotyping while discussing Islam with them on Maher’s HBO talk show, and also prompted analysis from journalists and on social media.
Mehdi Hasan, Huffington Post UK's political director, praised Affleck on Twitter, then wrote: "Five people on a major US TV panel show discuss what Islam is or isn't. But no space on panel for an actual Muslim."
Aziz Hamza, an Arabic novelist, tweeted: "Respect to Ben Affleck".
Maher had courted controversy with another rant about Islam earlier in the week, during which he called female genital mutilation an Islamic problem.
"You know, but this is the problem, is that these kinds of conversations that we're having aren't really being had in any kind of legitimate way," Reza Aslan, a scholar of religions, a professor at University of California, Riverside, and the author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, responded to his claims on CNN.
"We're not talking about women in the Muslim world. We're using two or three examples to justify a generalization. That's actually the definition of bigotry."
"Bill Maher offered Muslims an Eid gift last night by demonizing Muslims but Thankfully Ben Affleck was on panel", Dean Obeidallah tweeted @Deanofcomedy.
Another tweet is from Josh Ghoulish. "Here I thought Ben Affleck couldn't be any cooler and then he slams Bill Maher's gross generalizations of Islam while promoting GONE GIRL", he tweeted @thejoshl.
Comments
| Quick linksNews
National
International
Regional
Politics
Education & Career
Business
Science & Technology
Health
Views & Analysis
The Funny Side
© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.
Haj, one of the five pillars of Islam that every capable Muslim must perform at least once, begins with over pilgrims praying Arafat plain on Youm-ul-Arafa
Hundreds of .... More
Also Read: The Holy Kaaba adorned with new cover
In a spirited speech near the India Gate monument a short while later, Modi told a huge gathering that Indians had a responsibility to fulfill Gandhi's dream by ridding the country of dirt and filth by 2019, the 150th.... More
Also Read: 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' launched at AMU, MANU
India imports two-thirds of its electronics, mostly from China. So does much of the world, including the US. The most American of products, from the world's most valuable company, Apple, is famously designed in California, made in China..... More
The US based Sikh Foundation for Justice (SFJ) in coordination with the American Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (AGPC), Tuesday held a Citizens' Court in Lafayette Park, a small park infront of the White House to indict PM Narendra Modi for the human rights violations in 2002 in Gujarat.. .... More
Also Read: Americans join as Kashmiris, Sikhs hold protest against Modi