09th Sep 2004
Whither Moderate Islam?
From an article in the International Herald Tribune:
“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,” Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the widely watched satellite television station Al Arabiya, said in one of the most striking of these [soul-searching] commentaries [by Muslims in the wake of last week’s Russian school siege].
That is more or less what I chickened out on saying in this post. I needed to sleep on it.
I had also written that one thing that especially troubled me in the days and weeks after the September 11th attacks was the utter lack of American Muslims taking to the streets by the thousands carrying signs that said, “Not in our Name!” to show the viewers around the world of Al-Jazeera. Where were they? The time is overdue for the moderates within Islam to raise their voices, because meanwhile what is representative of the religion for the rest of the world is pretty much this and this and this and this and this and this and this and so on.
More on the topic from NPR’s program To the Point.
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It is weird the ‘givens’ some Middle Easterners can hold true. I have an old friend who is quite westernized, speaks English impeccably, etc. but who remains convinced that 9/11 was a conspiracy, and that Israel was involved.
I am still perplexed by this, but I’ve also seen polls which show those feelings are quite widespread in the region.
I’ve also noticed that they seem to be the only ones to dance around the occupied vehicles they’ve just blown up or set ablaze. . . To most of the world, war is a grim duty, a perhaps neccessary hell. But I think a lot of these guys actually enjoy inflicting carnage.