May 03, 2005

Bloody Lies: How Long Before They Resurface??
by Lorraine Berry

How long before the ritual murder/blood libel is re-activated in America?

You know, things are bad when you start hauling out material from a long-ago abandoned dissertation to try to understand what's going on in America. The more I listen to Pat Robertson, the more I think he sounds like Bernardino da Feltre, the crazed Franciscan Observant preacher in northern Italy, who, in 1475, incited, through his sermons, the Simon of Trent case

where the Jews of Trent were accused of killing Simon for ritualistic purposes. (There were two types of accusations: ritual murder, which was the belief that Jews crucified young boys ala Jesus, and blood libel, which was the belief that Jews killed Christian boys and used their blood to make matzoh at Passover. For more information, see Jo Miller's work briefly summarized here).

What, you say, does this have to do with Pat Robertson? I'm getting there, I swear.  Aside from the fact that there are nutjobs out there who still believe that Simon was tortured by Jews, the truth of the matter is that these ideas--that our enemies kill babies, drink their blood, etcetera, are still out there. For example, in January, Esquire exposed the mythof the woman who claimed that while under captivity by Uday Hussein, she was aware that he drank margaritas with glasses rimmed with the blood of virgins. This was a story originally reported in the Washington Post.
So, here's the recipe for disaster that I see coming together:

We all know by now that Pat Robertson believes that Muslims can't be trusted to be judges. That they will destroy the judicial system, and that the current judicial system is a worse threat to America than a few "bearded men flying airplanes into towers."

In December, Cornell released a study that showed that 41 percent of Americans favoured some kind of restrictions on the civil rights of Muslim-Americans. The numbers of people who favoured restrictions rose depending on two factors: how much of their news was received from only watching t.v., and how "religious" they considered themselves. In other words, people who identified themselves as religious, or people who got all their news from t.v. were more likely to want to restrict Muslims.

Take this fact, and mix in the insane ravings of Reverend (sic) Robertson. Now, add to it these articles that purport to show that there have been ritual murders by Muslims.
(One of these articles was put out by David Horowitz's group.)

Theo Van Gogh's murder has been labeled as a ritual murder in Europe.

These are what these hate-filled images looked like back then. In the days to come, I fully anticipate some form of these images, libels, and horrors will re-emerge. If preachers like Pat Robertson continue with their unholy war against Muslims, it is only a matter of time before the barely-rational (and I use the term loosely) will slide into the completely irrational. The fundies, afraid that that it's not enough that people fear Muslims as terrorists, will resurrect ancient folkloric motifs to prove that their enemies are "less than human." I would argue that they've come close with their constant association of gays with child molestation.

I am trying to keep track of these trends and I ask that if anyone sees anything in their local newspaper that looks like this type of propaganda, that you contact me.

Posted by in Christian Fundamentalism, Conspiracy, Culture War, Extremists, Extremists, Islam, Prejudice, W T F
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