A Forbes columnist attributed Muslim violence to inherent religious tendency

Evidence

The most virulent expression of this new green scare was articulated by New York University professor Tunku Varadarajan. In a November 2009 Forbes article titled “Going Muslim,” Varadarajan argued that what precipitated the tragedy at Fort Hood was a condition that he suggested was inherent to all Muslims: the tendency toward violence. He argued that Hasan didn’t “go postal”—that is, break down and become violent. (The term became popular after a 1986 shooting by a postal worker.) Hasan was simply enacting, in a cold and calculated manner, the teachings of Islam. He was “going Muslim.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 607

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• DEFINE: Explains the coinage ‘going Muslim’ as an inversion of ‘going postal,’ the key rhetorical move Varadarajan makes.
• XREF: The ‘green scare’ framing connects to scholarship comparing post-9/11 Islamophobia to McCarthy-era Red Scares.

Related

• For one prominent pundit, Muslim violence is inherent, not a stress response (similarity 0.93)
• A media intellectual framed Muslim-American violence as inherent religious tendency, not breakdown (similarity 0.92)
• A professor framed Fort Hood violence as inherent to all Muslims, not psychological breakdown (similarity 0.91)
• A top commentator framed Muslim identity itself as a turn toward violence (similarity 0.90)