Do you know what's breaking my heart too?
How long till the first innocent Muslim is killed in England, home of the hooligans? How long till mothers no longer allow their children to play outside bcs they fear for them? How long till the first shop is vandalised, and the first mosque is burnt down?
There are many languages in which Kristallnacht can be written. And they are all beneath us.
posted by Lioness @ 12:44 pm
8 furballs
8 Comments:
I'm afraid relations with muslims haven't been best since the Sept 11 attack. Mosques were burned down because of that, including one down the next town to me.
But I think after 4 years even the ignorant gobshites would have realised that it is not the general consensus of muslim to be blowing themselves in the name of Allah. I know many muslims and they are appalled by these acts, but they are worried too.
It doesn't take much. Look at what happened after Theo van Gogh was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam, Al-Zarqawi style.
Mosques and 'black' schools were firebombed. Lots of hateful graffiti was sprayed all over. I don't think any Muslims were attacked, but I'm sure many (mostly young) Dutchmen felt a burning desire to.
And most politicians were indeed more concerned about the 'plight' of the Muslims then about the feelings of the van Gogh family. You see the same happening in London already.
Two wrongs don't make a right. But catering almost exclusively to the feelings of unrest and insecurity of the Muslim community is misplaced, as well as it is bound to reinforce whatever misplaced anger some native Britons are bound to feel.
What will certainly help is that this time at least, many Muslims speak out unconditionally against the attacks. No qualifications. No wishy-washy "but you started it".
But you are right. There is a chance some idiots will feel justified in taking some form of violent action against people who have nothing to do with this. Which is sad in its own way, and only exacerbates the conflict. Let's hope not.
After 9/11, some idiot drove around and killed a bunch of people working in convenience stores. I remember hearing about it and being appalled. He was retaliating against the attacks in his own way, he blabbered. Great job he did. He killed 5 people, I think, and only one of them was Muslim. The others fit what he considered the profile. I don't have a lot of information about it because it was awhile ago but I remember just wanting to smack him.
It doesn't matter what religion the people who did this are. It doesn't matter what nationality they are. If we concentrate on that, we start placing blame on innocent people based merely on race or religion. What does matter is that these terrorists belong to a group that believes that everyone should believe the way they do and they have a perfect right to kill their enemies.
I hope that they are caught quickly.
I was dreading what would happen in the US after 9/11, and there have been some bad things, but it has not nearly as bad as I expected. One of my least favorite politicians in the world, G. W. Bush, was largely responsible for that. He insisted from the start that Islam was not our enemy and that we must not blame American Muslims for this. By any reasonable historical scale I think Americans have behaved pretty well -- not as well as I would have liked, of course, but they never do that :-)
As I think you know, I loathe the Bush administration, but all the more reason to give them credit when they do something right. It would have been easy enough, and maybe politically profitable, to have whipped up an American Kristallnacht, and they didn't do it.
I'm glad to see you post this today... and CarpeDM... you've summed up my thoughts exactly.
W may have stopped things in the US after 9-11, but it sure was an excuse for him to whomp things overseas. I guess no matter how 'important' somebody is, there is always time for revenge.
My thoughts, too. A few years ago, I treated a lovely guy who had fled Iraq about 9 years earlier, having prior to that had to serve in Saddam's army, had been shot several times in the back as part of being tortured by the regime (I saw the scars). He made it to the small US town where I practice and about 2 months after 9/11, he was assaulted by 3 guys who saw him walking around his yard. Fortunately, a family member was inside and able to come to his rescue before they could beat him worse than they did. The police got the guys, fortunately. When we were talking, he just kept shaking his head, trying to understand. We both felt so sad and helpless and angry, which is how I feel now. How must he be feeling?
It took less than 12 hours here - in Australia, for crying out loud - before the first mosque was graffiti'd with anti-muslin slogans. Sometimes I am ashamed of my country.
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