Yesterday we took a look at Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian’s Christman 2015 Washington Post article about how her Christian family went all halal at Thanksgiving time in order to please her grumpy Muslim husband. We were disturbed by the article but impressed by many of the reactions in the Post‘s online comments field.
To be sure, many readers congratulated Allen Ebrahimian’s family for their welcoming spirit. Others, however, were more critical. One reader was put off by Allen-Ebrahimian’s statement that American Islamophobia had made her cry: “I bet the families of the San Bernardino victims burst into tears occasionally too.” Another reader didn’t appreciate the Trump bashing: “So you and your friends have a problem with Donald Trump because he wants to put more scrutiny to identify potential terrorists. Say that to the families who lost their loved ones in San Bernardino and Paris.” Another pointed out that Allen-Ebrahimian had married into a religion that punishes apostates with death and allows men to have up to four wives. Yet another was “sick and tired of the seemingly endless procession of Islamophobia articles and editorials by the Washington Post….Muslims are safer here than probably any other place in the world.”
A couple of readers zeroed in on Allen-Ebrahimian’s husband – and his family: “What kind of a grown up is he when he doesn’t want to talk to your family because he was not served halal food[?]” Also: “I would be very interested to know the accommodations offered to you by your husband’s family.” Another reader had the same thought: “you (and your family) assimilated into his culture and started eating halal. What has he done to assimilate into yours?” Indeed, what’s missing from Allen-Ebrahimian’s essay is any sign of recognition on her part that she and her family have, unthinkingly or otherwise, accepted the idea that such accommodation should go only one way.
Another reader made essentially the same point: “When she was a child and her enlightened family took those global travels to broaden the kids’ minds, did they feel ‘isolated’ because nobody in Nairobi or Vienna served up Thanksgiving turkeys?…When she moved to China, did she expect people to Americanize their holidays for her benefit? On the contrary – by her own reckoning she did everything she could to leave Texas behind, and learn about, celebrate, and adapt to the traditions of her host country. Somehow in the United States, though, the progressive narrative deems that Americans are insensitive for celebrating their own traditions, and that people who move here voluntarily are victims when locals aren’t sufficiently speedy at rewriting traditions on their behalf.”
We might add that it’s especially unsettling to discover that Allen-Ebrahimian, raised in a free country, was drawn to a tyrannical Communist one (China) and, raised in a family that practiced a tolerant and loving version of the Christian faith, has now found herself whitewashing a totalitarian religious ideology.