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| Africa: North |
| Muslim 'Moderates' And Terrorism |
| 2005-07-28 |
| Hat tip to Powerline. EFL. RTWT. The poor people dressed in Islamic garb or in dirty blue trousers and T-shirts sitting in 118-degree heat in the hall of the Sharm el-Sheik Hospital were either the brothers, the cousins, or the friends of the people wounded in the terrorist attack of the day before. Just plenty of desperate young people. No women were there, no mothers, or sisters, or wives. Egyptian women almost don't live in Sharm. The family and children of the workers are in the villages near Cairo, and their beloved men come to visit for one week once a month. Sharm is inhabited by a couple of thousand military people and public officials that President Mubarak, just like President Sadat, keeps as a defense vanguard near his own villa; or by poor workers, waiters, drivers, plumbers, and cooks - lots of day laborers that serve the enormous tourism business. Only a large group of very poor workers, the other face of the holiday town of Sharm el-Sheik, have been the killed and the wounded here. You understand many things about terrorism when you speak to them; and you understand also, unfortunately, why we will never be able to count on what we call "the moderate Muslims" for the war against terrorism. So, let's test this thesis and ask: "Do they hate terrorists?" The answer is "Yes, very much so," and they really do, - they close their fists and watch in rage and repeat to me that they deeply hope that Mr. Mubarak will catch them all, will put them in prison, will kill them. Are they ready to fight them? Yes, at every level, with their hands, if requested, and with demonstrations that actually, while I'm in Sharm, suddenly appear in the hot streets and just in front of the cameras of the international press: "Down with terrorism," "We are against terrorism"... But then, if it's so, why can the great moderate Muslim world not really fight their own enemy? They themselves give me the answers: "Bin Laden? The Muslim Brotherhood? Certainly the terrorist attacks are not their work, no! This is a lie. A Muslim could never do this. And if they say they do it in the name of Islam, they are not Islamic; or, most likely, this shows, like the television says, that someone uses the name of Islam just to hide the real perpetrators." So while the most common victims of Islamists are Muslims, many Muslims don't seem to be able to make that connection. Or, rather, just aren't willing to. And, of course, their preferred scapegoats are... well, I don't think you need to read the article to guess, but do it anyway. |
| Posted by:Robert Crawford |
| #5 Look at it this way, the terrorists are raising the level of the gene pool by killing their fellow muslims. Would that they could kill them all and make our targeting so much easier. |
| Posted by: Angenter Ebbick4281 2005-07-28 15:02 |
| #4 Holding two wildly divergent, simultaneous thoughts on the same subject is a hallmark of the Arab mind. I once had a well-off (had to be in order to escape to Oman) and quite intelligent Kuwaiti refugee tell me the Palestinians in Kuwait were collaborating with the Iraqi invaders, but were getting paid by the Zionists. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-07-28 11:36 |
| #3 "And if they say they do it in the name of Islam, they are not Islamic; or, most likely, this shows, like the television says, that someone uses the name of Islam just to hide the real perpetrators." In other words, it's the jooooooos. I don't believe there is a "moderate" muslim group. I think all those "quiet" muslims aren't quiet and angry with the terrorists. They are quiet and secretly proud of the fact that muslims (finally) are shaking up the world. The very notion of a "moderate" muslim community is a fabrication of the west, based on our values, norms and worldviews. In other words, we're projecting ourselves onto muslims...what WE would do in such instances. The west did it for years with palis. We've heard people say "Why else would someone blow themself up, unless their condition was intolerable!" But this argument falls way short when you look at the 9/11 3/11 7/7 etc bombers. They weren't "desparate" with "no more options." So, I am coming to the conclusion that such a group -- moderate muslims -- does not, in reality, exist. I think there is an ANGRY muslim group, though. These are people affected by terror, directly, as those in sharm, etc. But they don't blame their religion for it. They deflect, rationalize...anything but self-reflect. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2005-07-28 09:52 |
| #2 Being moderate means you don't pick sides. Being moderate means you shut up and watch who's going to come out on top. Being moderate means you think its safer to keep a low profile. Being moderate means you accomodate whomever you belive is the greater threat to your existance at the moment. Being moderate means you'll move on if things get too sticky where you're at. The Jews practiced this in Europe for hundreds of years, until the environment changed in the 1930s. And they didn't have agents acting in their name in general society out killing citizens of every country. |
| Posted by: Glater Uninter1262 2005-07-28 09:01 |
| #1 Holding two equally stupid concepts at once. The hallmark of a made muzzieman. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-28 07:49 |