We knew it was going to happen, right? Some entrepreneur would use Christian-Muslim tensions to, well, profit.
Not in the traditional manner by pandering to religious votes the way they usually do in American politics.
Now. They do it with a smile. A chip of insensitivity on their shoulder. And, outright, unabashed greed. For example, this week in Columbus, Ohio where many Arabs and Muslims live, a local car dealer has decided to use today’s controversies to sell Mitsubishis.
Dennis Mitsubishi, according to Reuters News Wire, has designed a radio commercial that proclaims a “jihad” on the US auto market, offering special discount sales days called “Fatwa Fridays.”
And to add icing to the Hariseh, and using a popular business sales promotion, the dealership will be giving toys to the children of new customers. Not stuffed lions or dinosaurs, but rather, “rubber scimitars.”
Oh, it doesn’t stop there. This stoty just gets worse.
Dennis Mitsubishi of Columbus, Ohio, is going to dress up its sales staff in “Berqas.”
Mitsubishi, the Japanese-based motor company, has not issued any comments on the planned radio ads by its satellite dealership. According to Reuters, the proposed radio ads even mention the pope, who last week caused a ruckus when he associated violence with Islam.
We can’t put all the blame on the dealership for this racist advertising campaign.
Most Americans will probably think this is all cute. They are used to the conveyor belt of slander directed at Arabs and Muslims. Americans blame Arabs and Muslims for all of the world’s violence, as if Christians really turned the other cheek over the past 19 hundred centuries or have not engaged in excessive religious-driven violence like the Inquisition or the Crusades.
American society routinely slanders Arabs and Muslims on television, in the news media, in Hollywood movies, and on talk radio where Arab and Muslim-bashing is the fodder of choice for offensive humor.
And so do their religious leaders. Pope Benedict XVI is only the most recent Christian leader to slander Islam, mud surfing on a wave of anti-Islamic and anti-Arab hatred from Christian evangelists Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell that come right out and assert that Islam is evil.
The real problem isn’t the religious or political leader who expresses a racist view against Arabs or slanders Islam. They are just the purveyors of the filth.
They produce the products, hoping to sell cars, win votes or win unjustified wars in places like Iraq and maybe even soon, Iran.
No. The real problem is the American public. Graham, Robertson, Falwell and the Columbia Mitsubishi dealership would not come up with all this hatred veiled as sermons or advertisements if not for the fact that the “demand” is out there.
Americans want to hear the hatred and religious leaders like many American politicians just want to give it to them because the reward in sales or votes far outweighs the momentary slap on the wrist they will get.
Because that is all that happens to people who slander Arabs and Muslims in America.
Can you imagine the outrage if the dealership decided to hand out pointed white hoods and white sheets and emblems of the Ku Klux Klan, in all sizes — small, medium, large and extra large — to customers.
Or maybe they open the American closet where real anti-Semitism lays buried under a pile of today’s more popular foreign phobias, and offered a discount to Jewish customers who converted to Christianity during the dealership Credit Check?
I can just see the stampedes. Mitsubishi can turn into a patriotic symbol of American sales and enterprise ingenuity.
Of course, there might be a few Americans still alive who remember that the Mitsubishi car company is related to the Mitsubishi airplane company. You know, the Japanese company that manufactured those bombers that dive bombed in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in a manner that is not that much different from Al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
Maybe the Ford Motor Company might put out radio ads that say, “Well, we used to be the symbol of American anti-Semitism, but what’s worse than our competitors at Mitsubishi who took all those innocent lives at Pearl Harbor. Which car would you rather drive.”
Of course, being Arab-American, I’d want to see if there was another choice. One wrapped in less red, white and blue patriotism and more principle and fundamental morality.
There’s no way in today’s America that “principle” or “morality” can compete with “rubber scimitars.”
— Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian-American columnist with Arabisto.com