Sadaiyappan’s trolling and a few other now-deleted gems (try and pick less disgusting handles, thanks) suggest that it’s time to close this thread. Thank you to those who debated civilly and especially to Ashvin, whose comments were a model for how to make a point effectively and respectfully.

You also need to take it in context of the general muslim (the region that extends from Pakistan to Morocco) and middle east view of Indians. They look down on Indians. And they hate the religion. Like that Iranian guy who the other day laughed–c’mon how can god have ten arms. So I think it was easy for Ibish to juxtapose Hindu with child molester. There is no easy way to spin this. We all know English quite well. I’m with Anna.

My dog jagat: I’m a Muslim and I’m INDIAN, from INDIA. And I’m tired of my fellow Hindu countrymen telling me that I’m not really Indian because I’m Muslim. And please learn some geography. The Muslim world extends from Morroco through south eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, east through Asia to Indonesia and Malaysia. Also, India is the third largest Muslim nation in terms of population. And as far as “the middle east view of Indians” — to contrast to your anecdotal story, my husband is a white skinned Arab. I’m a fairly dark skinned Indian.

I doubt Mr Ibish has ever watched the show prior to appearing on it. He doesn’t exactly strike me as having a sense of humor having seen some of his other tv appearances. So I doubt he was “in” on Colbert’s dry sense of humor, much less be smart enough to play along with it. He answered Colbert’s just like he does any of his other interviews.

I don’t think hindhu child molesters exist — hindhus are the most passive people on the planet..

Let’s not even GO THERE

If you are a regular viewer or one familiar with the show will understand that guests are supposed to play along with the absurdities. (Read the transcript posted above to understand this)

Parsing the responses from these interviews is a waste of time and pointless …

He’s said a lot of damning things in the past and continues to thrive. Damnation is apparently only for those who cannot afford a good legal team.

Btw, Vikram is on your side chachaji (check out his first comment for confirmation that his use of the word Freudian was intentional).

Well, if the issue at hand is now that he shouldn’t have used “secret any-relgion” then I’m glad that we can agree that he was not maligning Hinduism by using the word child-molester in the same sentence.

I do grant you the point that hinduism is constantly left out of discussions about religion and that a hindu in america might feel like a second-class citizen for that reason. I have not lived as a hindu in america and i might not be as sensitive to that fact.

I don’t really want to get into the whole “secret hindu” .vs. “secret Jew” thing (or less offensively “being secretly Jewish” perhaps?). And I’m sure Ibish doesn’t either; the right wing loons give him a hard enough time already. All I’ll say is that with the history of anti-semitism in this country and in the western world in general, it is understandable why “secret hindu” might be seen as a lot more benign than “being secretly jewish”. If the Colbert report was based in Goa, the opposite would perhaps be true.

Peace.

ashvin, I made my earlier comment, especially 12, as an exaggeration. However, I do think that Ibish, whose career apparently is about encouraging reasonable discourse and making sure Islam is not poorly perceived (look at the appearance I linked to which was all about the appearance of discrimination), throws in a sentence that was very poorly considered: it is less about the conflation to me, it is primarily about the implication that somehow the fact that somebody is a “secret Hindu” should be an issue (there is a lot of discourse in this country that advocates acceptance of the religions of the book, basically of the vein that people of all religions, be it Islam, Christianity, or Judaism should be accepted – you can do a scan of a variety of political speeches where you will see this: Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism etc. are rarely, if ever, mentioned) but additionally about the fact that he mentioned them together in a construction that is prone to misinterpretation (again, I think the questions multiple people raise about using the term “secret Jew” are relevant).

And to boot, the comment he left here (if it is indeed him) is truly ridiculous in its prickliness, umbrage, and linguistic condescension.

Although you (and Sandeep, Seahawks fan, Vikram, others) argue persuasively why this was ‘just a slip’ – that it’s no big deal, etc (though if it were a ‘Freudian’ slip, Vikram, wouldn’t that damn him even more?) – and although I often like to give people the benefit of doubt, in my overall take on this I agree with Anna.

The Colbert Show may be a high-pressure situation, but spokespersons and polemicists like Ibish ought to have their talking points, perhaps even soundbites, all ready to go, no extempore thinking and no Freudian slips. Anyone could anticipate that he would be asked about Osama and ‘secret Muslim’. The answer should not have included any reference to a ‘secret Other Religion’ – that just opens a can of worms – no matter what other inclusive or exclusive disjunctions or parenthetical dilatory clauses follow. It should not have happened, so yes he embarrassed himself, and he gets no benefit of doubt.

But what I am really surprized by is his own post upthread in his defence. A simple apology, even if only admitting an unfortunate choice of words (which at the least it was) – was what was called for, but he offers a lesson in grammatical structure instead.

As a historical point of fact – accusations of being a ‘secret Hindu’ or ‘secret Jew’ have been made with extremely malign intent and horrible consequences (Goan Inquisition, Spanish Inquisition, etc). Therefore, saying that ‘secret Hindu’ is a ‘benign false claim’ (we would very much like it to be so) is profoundly ahistorical, a mistake that people working to counter present-day ‘malign’ false claims and prejudices should not have made.