Silent Spectators
“Hezbollah are violent, cold-blooded
killers who are trying to stop the advance
of freedom. And that is the calling
of the 21st. century”. So says
President Bush as he and his stalwart
Blair anemically respond to a crisis
that threatens to reach global proportions
and worse, breed young terrorists that
America has declared a war on.
A person is only as good as his advisers
are. Bush’s gaffes are well known,
he is neither clever nor charismatic,
just the lucky winner of election confusion.
One wonders where his advisers are though.
Sleeping on the job? Can all of them
be so sold to the Israeli lobby that
they are oblivious to the massacre that
Israel commits in the name of self-defense?
And how is Hezbollah alone, “cold-blooded”
and “violent”? Did Israel
kill over 800 Lebanese with countless
more still buried under the rubble,
with a smile, a hug and cyanide?
There is a definite disparity in the
status of human life. Muslims are on
the lowest rung, way above is a white-American
and highest of all is an Israeli soldier.
After all, hundreds of people have been
killed after the kidnapping of two of
them. And the massacre of civilians
is fine by Bush so that “terrorism
is wiped out”. After all it is
only the expendable Arabs that they
are killing.
As far as violence goes, the world is
transfixed by Israel’s wanton
killings. More than a third of the casualties
are children; the bombs rain relentlessly
and despite repeated requests not to
shell, Israel bombed a UN office and
killed 4 peacekeepers. And even got
away with a pathetic apology after Kofi
Annan tried hard to protest. With greater
bravado, on 27th July a convoy of civilians
escorted by the Australians and Germans
were shelled, even though the Israeli
army was in contact with the Australians
and the convoy was clearly labeled.
And the world watched silently as the
Qana massacre occurred.
The United States wishes to eradicate
terrorism, and yet condones, nay promotes,
Israel’s state-sponsored terrorism.
The fright that Hizbullah’s rockets
strike in Israeli hearts is much the
same if not less than the terror that
American-made Apache gunships visit
upon the defenseless people of Palestine
and Gaza. Just because the world’s
schoolyard bully labels it his own way
does not make it so.
Granted, massacres have occurred multiple
times in history. And yet when it unfolds
before your very eyes it is indigestible.
Bush and Rice kept repeating the “we
do not want a fake peace” line
while the silence across the world was
deafening.
Saudi Arabia’s mufti Sheikh Abdullah
bin Jabreen said, “It is not allowed
to support this Shiite party, to operate
under its control or to pray for their
victory. Our advice to Sunnis is to
have nothing to do with them”.
The Friday khutba by Makkah’s
Imam Sudeis was a balm in all the madness,
for he unequivocally condemned Israel
and the United States. Jordan and Egypt
did the head-in-the-sand routine to
the whole fiasco, while Pakistan instead
of outright condemnation, murmured sweet
nothings about invoking the United Nations.
If only organizations could be given
Viagra equivalents, sweet nothings would
be good accompaniments!
An Arab magazine editor interviewed
on CNN two weeks after the war said
that the war had been won by the Hizbullah,
both militarily and morally. Those sitting-on-the-fence
Arab governments also seem to have made
a 180-degree turnaround. Pressured by
their respective public opinions, Saudi
Arabia is doing the hot-potato treatment
with Israel and the US, Jordan is calling
Israel “the aggressor” and
Egypt is witnessing huge anti-Israel
protests. President Musharraf seems
bogged down by national MQM politics;
we must save self before we can save
the world, so we have not graduated
too much beyond sweet nothings.
It is not just Muslim nations that are
frustrating, it is the average Muslim.
Last week, saddened by the deafening
silence globally as well as locally,
I asked a 19 year old patient somewhat
of a rhetorical question: “Where
are the Muslims?” “At home
watching TV,” he said innocently.
The horrors of war are brought into
our living rooms, all the blood and
gore, the collapsing buildings and the
torn faces. And Muslims watch and grieve,
helpless and hopeless.
Muslim inertia has been pervasive. One
would have thought that an attack on
one’s town or Beirut, once called
“the Paris of the East”,
would engender enough self-righteousness
that the inertia would dissipate. Not
so. It is compounded by some real and
some paranoid fears of Homeland Security
and the FBI, your email may be read
and you may have a threesome on the
phone. Many live in fear of that dreaded
knock on the door. Not only could they
throw you in jail these days, they would
throw away the key. What with no formal
charges and no legal representation,
all duly enshrined in the USA Patriot
Act.
“Al-Qaida’s inside”
said a friend of the London bomber after
the train bombings, referring to how
the extremist ideology had permeated
young minds. In the present situation
the conglomeration of factors is terrifying.
A young Arab feels disenchanted with
the daily killings in Iraq and Palestine,
and suddenly his house in Lebanon is
bombed and his family killed. America
and Britain are busy with the wink and
nod routine with Israel. He sees no
justice. Revenge and retaliation are
human failings. Amid the sheer frustration
of events and an uncaring world, he
takes the law into his own hands. And
another extremist is born.
“Why do they hate us,” asked
George Bush, soon after 9/11. Israel
was despised anyway; with its unflinching
support to Israel in foul times or fair,
America is now disliked by the Muslim
world. We have the genesis of Pandora’s
Box multiplied exponentially. With this
political procreation of extremists,
it would be a sad day when George Bush
asks the same question. This time even
he will know the answer.
(Mahjabeen Islam is a freelance columnist
and physician residing in Toledo Ohio.
Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)
