It is always highly amusing to witness fanaticism in action. When a person is uncritically loyal to something/someone – and it is invariably funniest when that entity is a political party – you will hear him/her suspend all forms of rationality when trying to justify a leader’s statements or actions.
I rarely get surprised when such people express statements in support of their ‘unerring’ idols. Even if those statements/actions are contradictory, or go against their own beliefs and principles that they have been articulating all these while, cognitive dissonance kicks in and they will attempt all sorts of weird ways to justify those statements/actions.
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‘Oh we don’t know what (s)he says behind closed doors.’
(But that politician from the other party, yeah we don’t know what (s)he says behind closed doors, but it can’t be anything positive.)
‘Oh (s)he is a good person; time will show this.’
(That person from the other party, is not a good person, and we don’t need evidence for that.)
‘Islam teaches us to think well of others.’
(But go ahead, think badly of those from the other party)
‘Oh (s)he is not politicizing the issue; (s)he is just bringing up an important matter.’
(But when a person from the other party brings up the same issue, (s)he must be politicizing the matter!)
‘Oh it’s not that they contradict each other, we must look at the context in which they said whatever they said.’
(When the other party’s members contradict themselves, to hell with context!)
‘The opponents prayed in public??? Gosh, trying to score political points!’
(Wow, look at our leaders, always pictured being in mosques and around religious scholars. God bless them!)
‘Have you asked what (s)he meant when (s)he said that? We cannot assume things.’
(But i don’t need to ask the other party for explanations of what they say; after all, i can only judge by what i see! It doesn’t make sense for me to not take him/her at his/her word!)
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Even if their ‘idols’ said the earth was flat, these people will say: ‘oh (s)he wasn’t wrong, it’s just that his/her words were taken out of context’; ‘there were some religious scholars who used to believe the earth was flat, so we must respect differences in opinions’; ‘let us ask what (s)he really means by that statement, and let us not jump to conclusions.’
Source: Walid J. Abdullah
