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09/30/2004

A Voice of Reason

The following opinion piece by Abdel Rahman, general manager
of Al-Arabiya news channel, has been receiving quite a bit of
play, and deservedly so, including in London’s Daily Telegraph.
It first appeared in the pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-
Awsat.

---

It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is
equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all
terrorists are Muslims.

The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were
Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of
the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims.
Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are
Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims.

Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh
and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two
airliners last week were also Muslims.

Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the
suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and
buildings, all over the world, were Muslim.

What a pathetic record. What an abominable “achievement.”
Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and
our culture?

These images, when put together, or taken separately, are
shameful and degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a
history of denial. Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of
denying them and seeking to justify them with sound and fury
signifying nothing.

For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realize the
seriousness of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realization
and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in
the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed
culture.

Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sheikh – the Qatar-based
radical Egyptian cleric – and hear him recite his “fatwa” about
the religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq.
Let us contemplate the incident of this religious Sheikh allowing,
nay even calling for, the murder of civilians.

This ailing Sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying
in “infidel” Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians.

How could this Sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick
Berg, who was slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build
communication towers in that ravished country? How can we
believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy
and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and
slaughter?

In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with
nationalists or Leftist leanings, a menace and a source of
corruption because of their adoption of violence as a means of
discourse and their involvement in murder as an easy shortcut to
their objectives.

At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of
religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious
sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life.

Then came the Neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent
religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence
of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes,
that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed
humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of
hate and a universal war cry.

We can’t call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our
own.

We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists,
murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as
related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their
criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam
and stained its image.

We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful
fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; and almost
exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.

We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these
heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it
ennobling to re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues,
sending other people’s sons and daughters to certain death, while
sending their own children to European and American schools
and colleges.

---

Hott Spotts returns Oct. 7.

Brian Trumbore


AddThis Feed Button

 

-09/30/2004-      
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Hot Spots

09/30/2004

A Voice of Reason

The following opinion piece by Abdel Rahman, general manager
of Al-Arabiya news channel, has been receiving quite a bit of
play, and deservedly so, including in London’s Daily Telegraph.
It first appeared in the pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-
Awsat.

---

It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is
equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all
terrorists are Muslims.

The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were
Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of
the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims.
Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are
Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims.

Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh
and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two
airliners last week were also Muslims.

Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the
suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and
buildings, all over the world, were Muslim.

What a pathetic record. What an abominable “achievement.”
Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and
our culture?

These images, when put together, or taken separately, are
shameful and degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a
history of denial. Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of
denying them and seeking to justify them with sound and fury
signifying nothing.

For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realize the
seriousness of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realization
and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in
the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed
culture.

Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sheikh – the Qatar-based
radical Egyptian cleric – and hear him recite his “fatwa” about
the religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq.
Let us contemplate the incident of this religious Sheikh allowing,
nay even calling for, the murder of civilians.

This ailing Sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying
in “infidel” Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians.

How could this Sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick
Berg, who was slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build
communication towers in that ravished country? How can we
believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy
and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and
slaughter?

In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with
nationalists or Leftist leanings, a menace and a source of
corruption because of their adoption of violence as a means of
discourse and their involvement in murder as an easy shortcut to
their objectives.

At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of
religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious
sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life.

Then came the Neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent
religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence
of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes,
that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed
humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of
hate and a universal war cry.

We can’t call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our
own.

We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists,
murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as
related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their
criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam
and stained its image.

We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful
fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; and almost
exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.

We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these
heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it
ennobling to re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues,
sending other people’s sons and daughters to certain death, while
sending their own children to European and American schools
and colleges.

---

Hott Spotts returns Oct. 7.

Brian Trumbore