DC Comics Mainstreaming 'Islamophobia'

DC Comics has introduced a new Muslim superhero: a Lebanese American from Dearborn, Michigan, named Simon Baz. However, material released about the character so far portrays him more as a victim than a hero. And that seems to be the point.

Central to Simon Baz’s story is that for years now, he has been a victim of “Islamophobia.” According to the Religion News Service, “a young Baz and his family, the mother in an Islamic headscarf, watch in horror as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 unfold on their television. The next panels show men wiping ‘Go home’ and other graffiti from the wall of an ‘Islamic Center of America,’ bullies ripping a headscarf off Baz’s sister Sira, and Baz going through a security check.”

After getting caught stealing a van, “the husky, olive-skinned Baz soon finds himself being interrogated by two dark-suited agents in a sequence of panels that hits on Islamophobia, illegal detentions, torture, and the war on terror.” During this interrogation Baz is “wearing an orange jumpsuit that evokes those worn by inmates at Guantanamo Bay.” Baz assures the interrogators that he is “a car thief, not a terrorist,” but his interrogators apparently wave this away, with one of them derisively calling him “Muhammad” as he “tries to strap him to a torture table.”

What a strange scenario for a superhero! Did Superman or Captain America or even Batman at his most angst-ridden and introspective ever suffer this much from external forces? Presumably Simon Baz at some point in the story discovers that he has superpowers; the apparent trajectory of the story up to the point, however, makes it hard not to wonder whether the newly empowered superhero will go to work against fighting the forces of “Islamophobia” that have so horribly victimized him and his co-religionists.

Will Simon Baz dedicate his superpowers to fighting rogue FBI agents and police who haul in innocent, pious Muslims for interrogation solely because they’re wearing a kufi or a hijab? Will he combat non-Muslim writers who dare to discuss how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism — for everyone who has ever done this has been charged with “Islamophobia”? Will he focus death rays on human rights activists who call attention to Islamic honor killing and its death penalty for apostasy – such as Pamela Geller, who has been relentlessly vilified in the mainstream media as an “Islamophobe” for doing just that?

Indeed, whether he does or not, clearly DC Comics’ intention in creating this superhero is to slay the dragon of “Islamophobia.” That’s why Simon Baz’s victimhood, so odd for a superhero, is so central to his story. In fact, it is the point of his story. He is a superhero because he is a victim, just as in today’s society groups that successfully portray themselves as victims are privileged classes that command all sorts of favors from government and media.

That’s why Islamic supremacist pressure groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) do all they can to portray Muslims as victims in the U.S., despite the fact that they enjoy more rights and freedoms here than they do in Muslim countries. They know the political clout that comes from victim status, and they want it desperately.

In reality, however, the Islamophobia from which Simon Baz so relentlessly suffers has about as much connection to reality as The War of the Worlds. Contrary to media emphases and preoccupations, and to the mythology retailed in the Simon Baz comic, Muslims are rarely the victims of religion-based “hate crimes.” FBI statistics show that there actually is no “Islamophobia.” Although anti-Semitism is much less of a media preoccupation than “Islamophobia,” Jews are actually eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.

Nonetheless, CAIR and other Islamic supremacist groups trumpets “hate crimes” against Muslims, real and imagined, and even uses hate crimes against other groups as evidence of those crimes – such as the recent murder of Sikhs in Wisconsin. Hamas-linked CAIR and other Muslims have not even hesitated to fabricate “hate crimes” against Muslims.

It appears that CAIR and other groups like it want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat. The ultimate goal of claiming victim status is to deflect attention away from jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, and shame non-Muslims away from investigating or even being suspicious of such activity in the U.S.

And that will be the result also of Simon Baz’s superhero comics, if “Islamophobia” continues to be central to his adventures. Thus for those who support the human rights that are denied by Islamic law, including the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, equality of rights of all people before the law, and don’t want to see them advance in the West whether by violent or non-violent means, Simon Baz may turn out to be less a superhero than a super-villain.