Last week, Iranian-American scholar Reza Aslan taught all North Americans a lesson: don’t generalize when it comes to regions of the world you know nothing about. In an interview with CNN, Aslan destroyed Bill Maher’s two cents that the Muslim world “has too much in common with ISIS.” His message? Not all Muslim countries are the same. While women are brutally repressed in Saudi Arabia and Iran, they have equal rights in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
“Do you know that Muslims have elected seven women as their heads of state in those Muslim-majority countries?” Aslan asked the befuddled anchors. “How many women do we have as heads of state in the United States?”
Burn. As a colleague wrote on Facebook: “CNN, Bill Maher: You’ll find the aloe in aisle four.” And the criticism didn’t end there. ………….
In North America, we’re often better at talking about problems than solving them. Take income inequality. Experts and journalists have found countless ways to present the massive problem – “CEOs earn 300 times that of ordinary workers”, “The wealthiest 10 per cent of Canadians earn almost half of the country’s income” – yet policy-wise, nothing concrete has changed. We should look to Brazil for answers. Over a decade ago, the government started a program called Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) which gives money to poor mothers on the condition their children go to school and get vaccinated. The handout keeps many just above the poverty line, but works in tandem with other programs such as the minimum wage. The results? Kids graduate and extreme poverty has been reduced by 89 per cent.
