General Discussion

. . .
She Galloped on in this vein for several more minutes, piling one “example” of evil Muslims upon the next, and not stopping to expand or elaborate.


There was no way I could address all of the supposed examples she cited to justify “fear of Islam”; she listed 33 items in less than two minutes—about one every four seconds.

This was no nuanced discussion about the problems of Islamist extremism. No, this was a screed that sought to taint all of Islam, and all Muslims—presumably myself included—as aiders and abetters of terrorism. Any effort I might make to draw distinctions and unpick some complex realities from this fabric of bigotry would be doomed. It would have taken several minutes, if not my entire allotted time. It also would have put me on the defensive, when the key to winning any argument is to put your opponent on the back foot. So, instead, I chose to zero in on the most ludicrous assertion: that Saudi Arabia was the “birthplace of Islam.”

“Just on a factual point,” I responded, “you said that Islam was born in Saudi Arabia. Islam was born in 610 A.D. Saudi Arabia was born in 1932 A.D. So you were only 1,322 years off! Not bad.”

By mocking and debunking that particular claim, I poured doubt on the rest of them—and made my opponent look foolish in the process.