Saturday, July 16, 2005
This is a from a NY Times story:
In Leeds, England
"Sanjay Dutt and his friends grappled Friday with why their friend Kakey, better known to the world as Shehzad Tanweer, had decided to become a suicide bomber.
'He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it,' Mr. Dutt, 22, said. 'Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?'"
Ok, let me get your argument straight: He was sick of injustice and the way the world is going about it, so he decided to make a change for the better by killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
This is exactly the kind of thing people are talking about when they accuse Muslims of condoning terrorism, albeit subtly. Why does it always have to be, "I don't agree with what he/they did, but....."? Why can't people admit it's wrong, whatever the reason? Every time something like this happens, we regurgitate the same message: Islam is a religion of peace. And every time there's widespread mania about writing to newspapers and expressing sympathy with the victims and their nations as quickly as possible, because otherwise our silence would be seen as tacit approval of the perpetrators' actions. But every time a fraction of the Muslim population also tries to make suicide bombers look like victims. I'm sick of it.
No, I don't write letters to the editor anymore to let the world know how sorry I am about what happened. Does that mean I didn't feel outraged? If it does, then 99% of the American, and in fact the world, population didn't feel outraged either because we didn't see written proof of their outrage. I, as a Muslim and as a human being, refuse to make excuses for mass killing, and I refuse to make attempts to exonerate myself from the forced guilf of association.
In Leeds, England
'He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it,' Mr. Dutt, 22, said. 'Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?'"
Ok, let me get your argument straight: He was sick of injustice and the way the world is going about it, so he decided to make a change for the better by killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
This is exactly the kind of thing people are talking about when they accuse Muslims of condoning terrorism, albeit subtly. Why does it always have to be, "I don't agree with what he/they did, but....."? Why can't people admit it's wrong, whatever the reason? Every time something like this happens, we regurgitate the same message: Islam is a religion of peace. And every time there's widespread mania about writing to newspapers and expressing sympathy with the victims and their nations as quickly as possible, because otherwise our silence would be seen as tacit approval of the perpetrators' actions. But every time a fraction of the Muslim population also tries to make suicide bombers look like victims. I'm sick of it.
No, I don't write letters to the editor anymore to let the world know how sorry I am about what happened. Does that mean I didn't feel outraged? If it does, then 99% of the American, and in fact the world, population didn't feel outraged either because we didn't see written proof of their outrage. I, as a Muslim and as a human being, refuse to make excuses for mass killing, and I refuse to make attempts to exonerate myself from the forced guilf of association.
