After 9/11:
“Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind. The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.” --Conservative President George W. Bush
The Worst of Humankind:
"If America is ever the target of a nuclear attack, Dirty Bomb or an all out Nuclear Bomb, we must send these Dirt-Bag Pigs directly to HELL once and for all. And if this administration is NOT going to do anything against these Muslims, then we will have to deal with the administration and get them out of office, and put in someone will guts and the balls to do what is necessary. America can no longer live under the threat of these ANIMALS on a daily basis. Call me a right wing Islamophobe, or what ever else you want to, but enough is more than enough. Yes, Islam is a terrorist religion. You want proof? Read a newspaper! Read what these Radical Islimeballs are up to these days. They won't rest until they see us destroyed and dead. Let's not wait for that . How many innocent people have to be killed by these terrorist, until we do what we have to do? America is not used to have to fight a war the way that we have been fighting the past few. We have the capability of winning a war in a week or less, so why are our hands tied behind our backs? Where is the leadership of the past? Where are the Generals Patton and MacArthur of the 21st century? Are they only a memory?" --conservative blogger
"He [Bush] never said that we would close up Gitmo and release these animals! He never said let’s forget and forgive, and he would have never allowed the incredibly insensitive idea of a Mosque to be built on that site. Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil and those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11th, ...Yes, we are placating and appeasing the Muslim world, the same Muslim world that was celebrating and dancing in the streets on 9/11 and still do. The same Muslim that want to push Israel into the sea. . Instead standing up to those terrorist threats, we placate to them because we are afraid that we may offend these mass murdering radical Muslims. And we dare not offend them by even publishing cartoons about them. Sure it was fine to paint George Bush as a dumb Chimp and to criticize and make fun of the way he pronounced the word Nuclear. But don't dare to publish a cartoon of Obama as a Black anything. And don't dare to mention the fact that Michelle Obama has a big ass or that she and her Hubby love to pig out on Hamburgers etc while she preaches Healthy Eating habits." --conservative blogger
Porochista Khakpour, Op-Ed, New York Times, 9/11/2011
"Just six days after 9/11, at the Islamic Center of Washington, President Bush said, “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind.” He added: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.” Did that assurance mean more to white Americans coming from someone who looked like them?
Xenophobia and racism still abounded, but the lid stayed on the pot. Perhaps when Republicans held both the White House and Congress, conservatives weren’t sweating a thing; for them, people of color, along with all our white liberal friends, were lumped together in one misery-loves-company fringe. But now that the tables have turned, conservatives have positioned themselves as aggrieved victims. (I recall the advice of an older female relative: Always let men you’re in relationships with have all the power; it’s when they lose power and get insecure that your problems start.)
Indeed, has the most irrational breed of 9/11 payback emerged precisely because we elected an African-American president whose middle name — the name of cousins of mine — has turned into an H-word slur? A commander in chief whom the most misled and confused perceive in cartoon cahoots with terrorists, or at least as their religion-mate? As if that weren’t enough, take last year’s Fort Hood gunman, add a helping of the would-be Times Square bomber and top it off with “ground zero mosque” — and voilà, a boiling hot summer of anti-Islamic assault. Suddenly, anyone with skin as dark as President Obama’s could be a “secret Muslim,” and any Muslim must surely be a not-so-secret terrorist."
5 comments:
So much in this Shaw.
But here is my struggle...
While not excusing the, and I am quoting former President Bush here, "...the worst of humankind..." we do need to face up to this.
The moderate leaders of Islam, both here and abroad, have not stepped up condemned terrorism as a legitimate form of dissent.
Who were the leaders of predominantly Muslim countries who were critical of their people, or who had the courage to even repeat the words of President Bush as Muslim around the world did celebrate and dance in the streets after 9/11?
I've heard frequently that those leaders would have put their lives in Jeopardy had they gone so, but does that not then give rise to a narrative that says that a radical faction has indeed taken over the peaceful religion?
There are all sorts of problems with the views of many conservative Christian leaders. Robertson, Dobson, Hagee, etc. But while they have the freedom to speak out, they are also balanced by people like Jim Wallis, Rob Bell, and Tony Campolo, people who disagree with the hateful stuff of the former, but who speak out without fear.
How come that seldom happens vis a vis Islam, or if it does, is not making news?
"How come that seldom happens vis a vis Islam, or if it does, is not making news?"
Muslims consistently condemn violence by their extremists.
I would blame the media for not covering this fact.
"A recent study by the newly established Abu Dhabi Gallup Center concluded, "Muslim Americans are satisfied with their current lives and are more optimistic than other faith groups that things are getting better." Muslims in America continue to profess a positive attitude despite being misunderstood by many and demonised by a few.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an American non-profit civil rights organisation dedicated to combating bigotry, wrote in a recent report that "…certain Americans, [who have been] prodded into paranoia by clever activists, opportunistic politicians and guileful media players, seem downright eager to deny Muslims the guarantees of religious freedom and the presumption of innocence.
One of the most common complaints about Muslims is that they do not condemn terrorism as much as they ought to. Following the London bombings in 2005, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, "To this day, no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa [a non-binding religious opinion] condemning Osama bin Laden." Such spurious statements help solidify the misperception of Muslims being sympathetic to terrorism. University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole and Professor Charles Kurzman from the University of North Carolina have documented many fatwas and statements from Muslim scholars and groups condemning terrorism. One only need enter the phrases, "Muslims Condemn Terrorism" or "Islamic Statements Against Terrorism", in any online search engine to read the multitude of statements against terrorism.
In fact the latest Gallup survey shows nine out of ten American Muslims saying that they do not sympathise with Al Qaeda and view themselves as loyal Americans. Survey results also show that Muslims are the least likely of all religious groups to say that there is ever any justification for attacking civilians. However, most of their fellow Americans do not see Muslims as being patriotic."
SOURCE
I guess that I would argue that I am not hearing from abroad what we hear in the US.
The US is simply not the heart of the Muslim world, and many in the Middle East consider American Muslims pretty liberal.
Can you cite one past or current major spokesman for Islam based in the Middle East who has spoke out against the suicide bombers, terrorism, etc?
The few that I have seen are pretty minor folks.
How about a leader of a majority Muslim country? Did any of those folks condemn the celebrations after 9/11?
Are there some who spoke out? Yes. Were they major players? I doubt it.
Al Sadr? Leader of Iran? Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood? Head of Hamas? Syria? Saudi Arabia?
Muslims outside of North America condemn terrorist attacks.
Mustafa Mashhur, General Guide, Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt;
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Pakistan;
Muti Rahman Nizami, Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Bangladesh;
Shaykh Ahmad Yassin, Founder, Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Palestine;
Rashid Ghannoushi, President, Nahda Renaissance Movement, Tunisia;
Fazil Nour, President, PAS – Parti Islam SeMalaysia, Malaysia;
and 40 other Muslim scholars and politicians:
“The undersigned, leaders of Islamic movements, are horrified by the events of Tuesday 11 September 2001 in the United States which resulted in massive killing, destruction and attack on innocent lives. We express our deepest sympathies and sorrow. We condemn, in the strongest terms, the incidents, which are against all human and Islamic norms. This is grounded in the Noble Laws of Islam which forbid all forms of attacks on innocents. God Almighty says in the Holy Qur’an: ‘No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another’ (Surah al-Isra 17:15).”
Muslims in other countries have condemned and do condemn terrorist acts.
Our media, for reasons I don't understand, do not report this as diligently as they report the attacks by the minority of Muslims who perpetrate this heinous acts and the few who celebrated by dancing in the streets.
There are 1 billion Muslims in the world. A tiny percentage are terrorists.
On the 10th anniversary of 9/11:
"In its 9/11 anniversary statement the 56-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said that it “joins the international community in remembering the horrendous and cowardly act of terrorism and the tragic loss of thousands of innocent human lives.”
“The OIC seizes this opportunity to reiterate its firm position of condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and to underscore that terrorism is a repugnant malady that seeks to destroy the fundamental ethos of humanity,” it said.
But the statement then added that the OIC’s position on terrorism is “clearly stated” in a document adopted in 2005, the OIC Ten Year Program of Action.
That document states that the OIC members condemn “terrorism in all its forms, and reject any justification or rationalization for it,” but then adds that they “distinguish it from the legitimate resistance to foreign occupation, which does not sanction the killing of innocent civilians.”
source
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