"September 12, 2006 -- WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.
The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.
Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.Yes, our extremists and our culture."
2006-09-12
One Arab's Apology
This gentleman voices what I have all along suspected of peace-loving, moderate Muslims:
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7 comments:
Wow. Amazing essay. The spreading of this attitude is THE cure that will lead to security and prosperity in Arabia and the larger Islamia. The Bushies believed that their actions in Afgahnistan and Iraq would promote this view, which people like me believe is the natural civilized state of humanity: freedom, organized by a govt erected by and ruled by us, which exists to protect us from imposition on our freedom by our fellows.
Where the Bushies correct? It's hard at this point to argue definatively that they were, but also I can't declare that they were incorrect.
This the only area in which I have a problem with his essay:
"Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large."
It's not Arab's, Arab-Americans that is the problem, it's radical, militant Islamic fascism that is the problem. But again, maybe he's afraid to take it to that degree.
I salute him never the less for having the courage to step forward as he did.
More voices and demonstrations by people like this guy, and fewer freak-outs at airports by the sight of Arabs wearing declarative tshirts.
Six: Consider that in Arabic/Islamic communities, people can freely and securely proclaim "Death to Isreal" and "Long Live the 911 Cruseaders!", or whatever, but in many situations must fear for their lives if they merely show a picture of Mohumad, a female ankle, enthusiastic disdain for people proclaiming "Death to Isreal." I agree that only a small fraction of muslims are conducting anti-civilization terror. But some much bigger fraction cheers them, and an even bigger fraction effectively tolerates them.
Meanwhile only a small fraction actively cheers against the self-proclaimed "jihadis".
I think that this guy would charactorize himself as previously a member of the "effective tolerators" who has screwed up his courage to join the small -- but we hope growing -- ranks of loud detractors of the brutes.
If Arab-Americans should apologize for 9/11, then European Americans should apologize for slavery, for the genocide of indigenous Americans, for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for starting the LA riots, for Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, the Tuskegee experiment and for the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.
This is more "most of us are good" nonsense from a PR consultant. The fact is, most Muslims are peaceful people - even the ones who cover their hair and follow Shariya law. Only a few extremists can be blamed for the bad press that Islam has received. I believe those are Islamic extremists and extremists in the media and Western governments who have made an entire religion a scapegoat for the evil actions of a few people.
"I think that this guy would charactorize himself as previously a member of the "effective tolerators" who has screwed up his courage to join the small -- but we hope growing -- ranks of loud detractors of the brutes."
Paul, would you admit that you have been an "effective tolerator" of the Bush administration's war crimes and their attacks on American civil liberties?
Will you join us in the large and growing "ranks of loud detractors of the brutes?"
Nadir: This guy isn't apologizing for what ancient Arabs did to ancient honkies. He's not even apologizing for what some Arabs have done recently. He's appologizing for his own lack of action within a general cultural enviornment wherein few speak out against the anti-civilization Islamic crusaders; he's apologizing for failing to match the volume, intensity, and frequency of these terrorists with his own espousal of civilization: toleration, freedom, and democracy.
Timothy McVeigh and the Unibomber never received a large applause, or muted opposition, from their larger culture of Americana. They had to hide in the shadows, and the society in which they lived responded decisively, without fear of or respect for them.
I might somewhat concede your point against my perhaps tepid opposition to Bush's torturing. But Bush's toture is not the cause of all this madness, in my judgement; runaway islamic crusaderism is. This guy agrees.
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