Muslims Must
Help Themselves
By Tarek Fatah
Canada
Mark
Whitby was visibly disturbed as he talked to BBC
TV giving an eyewitness account of the shooting.
"He half-tripped and was half-pushed to the
floor and the policeman nearest to me had a black
automatic pistol in his left hand. He held it
down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."
Within a flash, Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian
electrician, first reported to be of South Asian
origin, lay dead. His fault? He looked like a
Muslim.
The news has shocked British Muslims and has played
into the hands of Al-Qaeda who continue to churn
out propaganda about how the so-called Christian
West is out to destroy the Islamic world.
First reports quoted Police as saying the dead
man was linked to the London bombings, but by
Saturday a spokesman for Scotland Yard had admitted
"the man was unconnected to the incidents
of Thursday," in which bombs placed on three
subway cars and a double-decker bus failed to
detonate properly.
By any account the London Bobbies made a huge
error in judgment and a colossal tactical mistake,
giving the Al-Qaeda much to validate their propaganda.
From other reports I've read, four plain-clothes
officers held down the suspect while a fifth shot
the man multiple times. This was clearly overkill.
Even if the Police suspected he was carrying a
bomb, handcuffs, a strong blow to the head and
other non-lethal options were available to incapacitate
him. If we are to stand up for the rule of law,
it must apply to all.
If Al-Qaeda suicide bombers desire their own death
and martyrdom, surely one way to fight them is
to deny them this wish. Unfortunately, the US
and its allies have since 9/11 walked into every
trap laid out for them by the Islamo-anarchists.
What was once contained to a mere 100 square miles
in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan,
has unfortunately mushroomed to a 100,000 square
miles in Iraq, thanks to the US invasion. Both
Bush and Bin Laden have fed off each other, providing
sustenance to one another in implementing their
agendas.
To fight malaria, one does not shoot down mosquitoes;
one drains the swamps. Sadly, the Anglo-American
'War on Terrorism' has done just the opposite.
Instead of draining the swamps, they have created
many more while they fire and try to kill the
mosquitoes.
The American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan,
the continued despair of the Palestinian people,
the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and
this latest killing on a London railway platform,
all provide fodder for the propaganda machine
of the Islamo-anarchists. They prey on the minds
of young Muslims and by each action; push them
further into the hands of the extremists.
This has to end if we are to stop the world slipping
into a spiral of death and violence with death
worshippers cheering on the impending Armageddon
as the final day of this war of civilizations.
If the Anglo-American axis has contributed to
this death spiral, the reaction of the traditional
leadership of western Muslims is equally pathetic
and embarrassing. One day they decry the Bush-Blair
agenda, the next, they sing eulogies.
When the self-styled leaders of the Muslim community
announced a press conference in Toronto to denounce
terrorism, my first reaction was "too little,
too late, and too pretentious" However, giving
them a benefit of doubt, I went along to hear
what they had to say.
What followed has left me deeply concerned about
where the Muslim community is headed. The imams
sounded deeply apologetic and repeatedly told
the press that they were willing to work as informers
of CSIS and the RCMP. However, they refused to
acknowledge that they were part of the problem.
After encouraging segregation, extremism, misogyny
and homophobia on an unparalleled scale one would
have hoped that the Imams had turned a corner
and had recognized the dangers of promoting extremism.
In words they did, but in practice the culture
of exclusion was still being practiced. The President
of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a woman, was
denied entry from the main door and asked to enter
from a side entrance, marked "for sisters
only."
How could the imams reconcile their claim to fight
extremism while they treat women as second-class
citizens?
If the Imams wish to fight extremism and terrorism
they should combat not only the terrorism of blowing
up of trains and planes, but also the terror of
the spoken word - of threats against gays and
lesbians; against dancers and musicians; against
artists and agnostics; against free thinkers and
secular intellectuals. Verbal threats and intimidation
are destructive of community and individuals,
and must be curtailed. Such terror is manifested
in the calling into question the 'Muslimness'
of fellow Muslims, in the throwing of apostasy
charges against fellow Muslims.
Ordinary Western Muslims are caught between the
devil and deep sea. On one hand we have the Anglo-US
axis fighting a political war with guns and bombs,
while on the other we have a terrorist death cult
invoking Islam to wreak havoc on the very societies
that have opened their doors to us.
The Imams in Toronto are not the answer to our
leadership vacuum. On the contrary, we need to
take politics out of the mosques and away from
the hands of the clergy. There is a need for open
and vigorous debate among Muslim community in
Canada; from the Left to the Right; from the elected
MPs to the downtown housing and poverty activists.
A discussion that includes Muslims who are derided
as the fringe; from Muslim gays and lesbians to
the doubting agnostics and atheists; from tattooed
artists to bearded scholars; from single mums
on welfare to the brilliant entrepreneurs on Bay
Street… all of us need to sit and hear each
other with respect and dignity, because none of
us has a monopoly on Islam and there are no master
franchises for sale by Allah.
If we don't, we step into the unknown at our own
peril and we will only have ourselves to blame.
(Courtesy The Kitchener Record, Canada. Tarek
Fatah is host of the weekly CTS-TV show, The Muslim
Chronicle and a founding member of the Muslim
Canadian Congress, a grass roots progressive Muslim
organization.)
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