I was reading an unpublished manuscript—I don’t want to name the title or the author, and the circumstances of my reading it are irrelevant here—but the book, a work of fiction, made a group of Muslim refugees the “bad guys.”
Now, I’m sure that there really are some Muslims who are not the nicest people in the world. I’m also sure there are some Jews, some Catholics, some Protestants, some Hindus, some Buddhists—you name the group—who are rabid and nasty, too. But depicting this group as the author did, I find inflammatory.
In this, the week of Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday, especially, but really all year ’round, can’t we work toward peace? And as authors, can’t we try not to depict as the “bad guys” a group that too many already see as “the others”?
No, I don’t believe in censorship, and yes, I know that some Muslims really take Sharia law seriously and literally like the ones in the book, stoning people to death for “offenses” that don’t offend the rest of us, cutting off hands and genitals…but I think it’s our responsibility as authors to not throw wood on the fires of hatred.
Let us be mindful of the results our writing can bring. People reading our books, even if they are fiction as this manuscript was, may see a book as something more than just a good read. They may take an unintended lesson from it. Let us not help sow or grow the seeds of hate.
The manuscript in question was well written, well constructed. And if it had been recounting a true incident, I might not see it in the same light. But this was a case of an author CHOOSING to write a novel in which Muslims were the bad guys. Let us work toward peace and write toward peace. It is our responsibility as responsible authors.