Looking at Christianity's brutal history today, one might well advance an argument that all Catholics are bloodthirsty fanatics. Indeed, this logic would be analogous to the argument that Islam is inherently violent and that Muslims have a "predisposition" toward violence. Yet such a generalization is unthinkable. To my knowledge, no mainstream newspaper or magazine has drawn a straight line between the Crusades and the Nazi Holocaust of Jews, let alone between the birth of Christ and various acts of terrorism committed by Christian fundamentalists. Furthermore, as Talal Asad argues, the same people who call the actions of suicide bombers unjustified legitimize the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands. In short, only the violence of certain groups is highlighted and coded as a product of those groups' religious affinity.

XREF: Echoes the broader critical-theory argument about asymmetric attribution of violence to Muslims versus Christians, familiar from Said's Orientalism and post-9/11 discourse critiques. SEED: Could become an essay on how selective religious attribution of violence shapes policy and public fear — the asymmetry between how Christian and Muslim violence is framed.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 198