Jihad. Islam. Muslim. Koran. Terrorist. Zealot. Why the fear of using those words to describe an actual jihad attack by a Muslim zealot terrorist on non-Muslims in the name of Islam after interpreting the Koran? See, it isn't that hard to say.
(Click here for a list of close to twenty jihad events within the U.S in the six months).
Why do politicians, newscasters, the President, and even Dr.Phil fall over each other to exhort tens of millions of citizens (most of whom are at least the intellectual equal of the 'exhorters') to practice restraint in both their rush to judgement, and their arrival at conclusions, over all matters involving Islam ... such as the jihad attack at Ft. Hood.
Even the President of the Unites States speaking at the Ft. Hood memorial service, and after several days of similar urgings to us all, could summon up only "no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor". Even then, with his tacit and belated admission of Islamic influence in the attack, he couldn't utter the forbidden words. (Incidentally, a 48 year old community organizing attorney, and a daytime television dating advisor, have no moral authority to lecture you - their intellectual equals - on what conclusions you may arrive at).
So why the reluctance to publicly address violence committed by many Muslims based on their reading and interpretation of the Koran? Do we seriously believe that violence committed by a Baptist or other entity, having left a pre-violence trail of Biblical and religious evidence behind him or her similar to that of Major Hasan, would not have been immediately denounced in the pubic arena as the act of a religious zealot? A 'radical fundamentalist'? We all know the answer.
Even President Obama, while urging us to caution in this matter of rushing to judgement on Islam, had no hesitancy to rush to judgment in his accusations towards a Cambridge police officer on July 22, 2009, and immediately linked the incident to race. "... the Cambridge police acted stupidly ..."
Our culture has no fear of antagonizing or insulting Christians for instance. It happens on a daily basis in the arenas of television, news commentaries, politics, comedy, and coffee shops. Christians are routinely satirized, ridiculed, accused of various conservative social ills, and subject to other forms of abuse. So why no fear of cultural judgement of Christians, yet plenty of fear of similarly judging Islam? Simple. We do not worry that comments seeming to be harsh will inflame or radicalize Christians, Hindus, or Buddhists to take up the sword afterwards in the name of their religions.
We do however worry that such will be the case with many followers of Islam. This is the bottom line of our worries and reluctance to name the problem.
In Chicago very recently, two Muslims were arrested intending to go to Denmark and blow up a newspaper that printed an 'offending' cartoon of Mohammed. Let us not forget that cartoon spurred riots and deaths around the world when that cartoon was printed. There have been many other such incidents. Author Salman Rushdie went into hiding to avoid a death sentence put on him by an Iranian ayatollah for comments about Mohammed in a book. Muslims overseas rioted, with deaths, over a (retracted) Newsweek story about 'disrespect' towards the Koran in Guantanamo. Religious rioting, with deaths, occurred over 'inappropriate' dress in a Nigerian beauty pageant ... and there have been many more. Many jihad attacks around the world were done with proclamations of revenge for perceived slights against Islam. This is what motivates the legitimate fear of deliberately or accidently insulting Islam.
Are you a Muslim reading this blog? We non-Muslims all understand that the great majority of Muslims do not engage in violence in the name of your religion. Truly, we really do. There is no need therefore for Muslims to continually denounce every act of violence committed in the name of Islam for the purposes of image damage control. Non-Muslims equally have no need to skirt the issue when an act of violence in the name of Islam actually does occur.
However, the problems of violence within the fringes of Islam are real, ongoing, numerous, and serious. Do we, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, seriously think we are standing in security lines at the airport because of the fear of the behavior of Baptists and Hindus?
Islam is the 'religion of peace' for most Muslims. But alas, if even a small fraction of one percent of 1.2 billion Muslims around the world, and in the U.S., interpret the Koran in a manner advocating violence, then that number would still be in the millions. Here in the United States, there have been at least twenty incidents of violence (or near or averted violence) related to Islam within the last few months alone. Again, that is in the last few months. There have been dozens of terrorism convictions in the United States related to Islam since 9/11. It is important to know that many of those were involving U.S. citizens and were 'home grown'.
A recent poll/study conducted by Pew revealed that one of four young Muslim men in America approved of suicide bombing in the name of Islam under different types of circumstances presented to them in the poll ... that's one out of four who live in America. For the sake of the inevitable argument about the error margins in polls, let us assume the poll is 66% inaccurate. That would result in one out of twelve young American Muslims men approving of suicide bombing. Would that make you feel better than one out of four? Most of us would be appalled if a poll revealed that only one in ten thousand Baptists approved of suicide bombing in the name of their religion .... under any circumstances. If it were a poll of Baptists, the only number we would accept without horror would be zero Baptists approving of such things.
Imagine the public political and media frenzy if a poll revealed one out of four Baptists approved of suicide bombing. Yet almost no (or muted) reaction to the Pew poll regarding Muslims on the subject. The reason? We intuitively and intellectually know that violence by the 'many few' in the name of Islam is common so we are accustomed to it. It is not common to other religions of the world. Moral equivalency arguments, comparing the individual and occasional Christian who goes violent every few years in the name of Christianity, to the near daily, worldwide, onslaught of violence in the name of Islam are weak and disingenuous.
Even some Muslims often jump to the same conclusions about violence and Islam. These are the same conclusions public figures encourage the rest of us not to arrive at. Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), wrote a statement of condemnation of the attack on Ft. Hood before even knowing the name of the attacker or motive of the attack. He released the statement after finding out the name of the attacker, but still before knowing whether it was done in the name of Islam.
Does the fear of naming and addressing the overall problem of violence related to Islam help us or hurt us? Does the resulting fear of lawsuits, fear of being ostracized, fear of political retribution, fear of workplace punishment, or fear of retaliatory violence, cause us to to overlook or avoid the obvious. Are these the factors that contributed to Ft. Hood and other similar events .. or will contribute to future events? Would some of these events have been avoided by lack of such fear?
If it walks like a Jihad Duck .......
