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| Europe |
| Muslims address silence on Europe attacks |
| 2006-06-25 |
| Europe's Muslims have remained largely silent in the face of terrorist attacks that have killed 254 people in Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Europeans want to know why. Why have so few of them publicly condemned the train and bus bombings in Madrid and London? Why have so few spoken out against the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, killed because his work was considered an insult to Islam? Talk to Europe's mainstream Muslims privately, however, and it turns out they have a lot to say. Seek them out in the neighborhoods where they live and work — in the outdoor markets and butcher shops that sell halal meat, in the book stores that display literature on Islam and the West, in the boutiques that promote Islamic dress codes, in the Turkish restaurants and smoky Tunisian teahouses, in their schools and youth clubs — and they denounce, the vast majority unequivocally, attacks against civilians in both Europe and the United States. "Van Gogh was a crazy man, but no one has the right to kill anyone who says bad things about the Quran," said Mohammed Azahaf, a 23-year-old student who runs a youth center in Amsterdam. "If you kill one, it's like killing the whole of mankind," he said, quoting a line from the Muslim holy book. Why, then, the public silence? For some of the more than five dozen Muslims interviewed for this story in Amsterdam, Paris and London, it's a sense of shame, or even guilt, that innocents have been killed in the name of Islam; they say those feelings make them seek to be "invisible." For those lucky enough to have jobs, there is little time to protest or even write letters to newspapers. For others, there is fear of being branded anti-Islam in their communities. |
| Posted by:anonymous2u |
| #7 LGF has a story that there's going to be a celebration of Islam schedled for 7/7 to prevent islamophobia and promote "tolerance." |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2006-06-25 13:02 |
| #6 This is total BS. They say nothing because they agree with these acts. They feed bullshit to anyone stupid enough to swallow it. Remember the old tome, "actions speak loudr than words". Their actions are screaming at western culture but we ignore it. |
| Posted by: SOP35/Rat 2006-06-25 12:41 |
| #5 As .com used to often say, Muzzy First. |
| Posted by: Jaiper Phavitch4682 2006-06-25 12:22 |
| #4 "Many of Europe's best-integrated Muslims say their lives are so far removed from those of the radicals that it simply has never occurred to them to protest." Dateline 1945: "Many of Germany's citizens say their lives were so far removed from those of the Nazis that it simply had never occurred to them to protest." |
| Posted by: Darrell 2006-06-25 11:48 |
| #3 "I am not responsible for the attacks." Over and over. What does a person's guilt or innocence have to do with whether a person protests or aggressively denounces something as wrong? I am not personally guilty of spousal abuse nor am I a victim of it, but I find it quite natural to denounce it aggressively when it happens. That they don't find it natural to denounce these murderous bombings indicates to me a severe disorder of some kind. In the end, it's about their loyalty to that cur Mohammad, his slavemaster Allah, and the umma. All else is a secondary consideration. |
| Posted by: Jules 2006-06-25 11:36 |
| #2 Muslims everywhere do not condemn terror because most of their leaders support it. See this 2 year old report on mosque based terror in Europe, as written by Dutch intelligence. www.minbzk.nl/contents/pages/42345/fromdawatojihad.pdf |
| Posted by: Omaiting Clutch9925 2006-06-25 06:13 |
| #1 God I'm tired of these "root causes" style articles. Fluff. This is an AP Agenda piece - the writer is attempting to both illicit sympathy as well as equate silent complicity with innocence. More moral equivalency games. After following the law, people must do what they think is right. Judge everyone by their acts, or the lack. Everything else is as compelling as the occasional dust bunny in your navel. |
| Posted by: Chuper Snuth5629 2006-06-25 02:35 |