Contrition

After 9/11, I was amazed at the reaction of the world Muslim community to the attacks. It was underwhelming.

I kept imagining what the response would have been if fundamentalist Christians had perpetrated a similar attack on Mecca. Americans would have been horrified. Churches would have collected millions to help the victims and the reconstruction. The Pope would have done backflips apologizing to anyone who would listen. And the US would have deported any fundamentalist suspected of cooperating with the murderers.

From the world Muslim community after 9/11, the US got: we're sorry but...

And then we Americans heard nothing but criticism: you Americans are preventing us from slaughtering the Jews, you Americans have troops stationed near our holiest sites, you Americans support an embargo against Iraq that is killing 5000 Muslim children a month...

And we saw the mindset that refused to believe that Saddam was killing his own people, believed zealously that suicide bombers are martyrs, and continues to maintain that the government in Darfur has an absolute right to slaughter non-Muslims.

It's nice to hear from an Iraqi who knows what real contrtion sounds like:tell me a secret:

as a religious Muslim, i am very terrified, and ashamed more than i can describe, and really really sad, because of what happened to the churches in Iraq, it is the most terrible thing that can happen, the criminals who are attacking the houses of God, as we call them, should be given the maximum punishment, that is not enough at all, but i cant find the words or ideas to deal with this, i wish i can apologize to every Christian, i wish i can protect every church, but sadly i say that i can't, i cant protect the mosques or the churches, and i don't know what to do about it

Here's to a world where everyone's faith (or lack of faith) is a private matter.
- posted by total @ 8/04/2004 11:12:00 AM .