Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes

Mansour El-Kikhia wrote an article today called Arabs Shouldn't Have to Apologize.

There are some things he says which are true, some things that are misleading, and some things that are plain false. The gist is that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism; instead, it is American policy we can blame. He begins:

I am fed up with the ceaseless requests by columnists, religious personalities and other American public figures for Arabs and Muslims to apologize for terrorist acts committed by thugs and murderers in the name of Islam.

He focuses on Cal Thomas in particular, but I am sure he could have used any number of names as the target for his anger and disgust, as this is not a rare or isolated meme. Even Tom Friedman broached the subject.

Now, I do not think it is either smart or necessary to ask Muslims to individually apologize for acts they did not commit. As Lincoln said in his Temperance speech, nobody likes a scold. However, if the problem is located in these communities, and it is, it seems only prudent to warn the locals, and raise the alarm. Now, onto his attack on Cal Thomas:

He represents a despicable and ignorant attitude that, unfortunately, a sizable segment of America has come to share. There is nothing American Muslims can do to satisfy this group short of packing up and leaving the United States.

But there is something they can do. They can teach their young men that violence, in response to grievances a world away, is not something that will be condoned. They can teach them to be Americans first, Muslims second, and Arabs third.

Arab and Muslim Americans are responsible for neither the twin towers nor the London subway bombings, and as Americans they should never accept responsibility for actions they did not instigate, commit or condone.

This is a narrowly true statement, it was not Arab-Americans or Muslim-Americans that perpetrated 9/11. The terrorists were foreigners, no Americans were involved.

But nobody is implying that responsibility rests in these American communities; it is a straw man set up by Mansour so he can justify his later remarks. Yet the fact they these groups remain hyphenated, that they think of themselves as Arab- and Muslim-Americans, causes many of us Infidel-Americans to worry that the latter part of the hyphenation could be dropped, if push comes to shove. I can only believe that Mansour would rather not have to divulge his primary allegiances, which is why he abhors the question.

Furthermore, in spite of the fact they are constantly condemned for one thing or another, they — like other Americans — are victims of these murderers.

This statement is anachronistic in light of the British-born terrorists that hit London on July 7. If you can have British-Muslim-Terrorists and British-Muslim-Victims, why is it inconceivable that you could have the same in America? But then Mansour delivers a whopper:

It is rejection of U.S. and British policies in the Middle East, not Islam, that has promoted terrorism against America. And for the benefits of those who do not know, 95 percent of Middle Easterners are Muslims. Hence, it is only natural that those opposing the United States and Britain in the region would be Muslims. In India, they would have been Hindu; in Latin America or Northern Ireland, they would have been Catholic.

So, instead of Islam being a rather huge animating principle, Mansour treats it as no more than an irrelevant characteristic, like having dark hair. He accuses us of making the pedestrian error of assuming causation from simple, and insignificant, correlation. Nothing to see here, move on through.

And there are so many other things wrong in this paragraph. For one, terrorism is not simply a "rejection of policy." If that were the case, then Hollywood would be the terrorist capital of the world. By reducing terrorism to "policy rejection", he is playing a dangerous game of historical determinism and removing any moral culpability from the terrorists. To say "terrorism is inevitable because of such and such a policy" is a short step away from saying "those poor terrorists, they have a point."

To claim "American policy in the Middle East" causes terrorism is a grossly truncated and inadequate statement. The complete truth is that the perceived Infidel American policy in the Muslim Middle East is used by Osama in Fatwas and by Imams in Mosques as a tool, a pretext, to agitate the young and vulnerable Muslim faithful into action. Mansour needs to relearn his history if he thinks that there is anything exceptional about American Middle East policy this past century; it is not any worse, and in many cases much more benign, than what has passed for "Arab government" or occupational powers during the past 1400 years. The "policy complaint" registered by the aggrieved, then, is not a substantive objection; these men are not freedom fighters hoping to stop American support for dictatorships. If they were, the Iraq War would not have been such a clarion call to action. The grievance is not any particular policy in the Middle East, is that we have one at all; it is a religious complaint that our unclean feet should ever traverse the holy lands of Islam.

The terrorist paradigm gets its animating strength from the specific Islamic dichotomies of Muslims and Infidels, Dar al'Islam and Dar al'Harb; the Koran itself creates the framework these young men use to justify their horrendous attacks. The grievance of "infidel troops on holy soil" is specifically an Islamic grievances, no other religion is so centered on land, its acquisition, and its defence. Why else would Pakistanis, Saudis, Syrians, Moroccans, etc. all have the same grievance? The occupation of "Islamic land", and the grievances of Muslims all over the world, is used to motivate the young Muslim men that Mansour assures us are much different, and totally immune, over here. The Koran explicitly calls for action in defense of Muslims and their land. Should we not ask for an interpretative stance from the Muslims on our soil?

In the end, Mansour's assertions collapse on first contact with reality. This is from Osama's 1996 Declaration of War. The same Osama that created Al'Qaeda, that motivated the British-born Muslim men to slaughter their own countrymen. Luckily for us, Osama is not as shy about the religious overtones of terrorism as Mansour is.

It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience.

The latest and the greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places -the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims- by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies. (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah").

As stated by the people of knowledge, it is not a secret that to use man made law instead of the Shari'a and to support the infidels against the Muslims is one of the ten "voiders" that would strip a person from his Islamic status (turn a Muslim into a Mushrik, non believer status). The All Mighty said: {and whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are the unbelievers} (Al-Ma'ida; 5:44), and {but no! by your Lord! they do not believe (in reality) until they make you a judge of that which has become a matter of disagreement among them, and then do not find the slightest misgiving in their hearts as to what you have decided and submit with entire submission} (An-Nissa; 4:65).

The right answer is to follow what have been decided by the people of knowledge, as was said by Ibn Taymiyyah (Allah's mercy upon him): "people of Islam should join forces and support each other to get rid of the main "Kufr" who is controlling the countries of the Islamic world, even to bear the lesser damage to get rid of the major one, that is the great Kufr".

I say: Since the sons of the land of the two Holy Places feel and strongly believe that fighting (Jihad) against the Kuffar in every part of the world, is absolutely essential; then they would be even more enthusiastic, more powerful and larger in number upon fighting on their own land- the place of their births- defending the greatest of their sanctities, the noble Ka'ba (the Qiblah of all Muslims). They know that the Muslims of the world will assist and help them to victory. To liberate their sanctities is the greatest of issues concerning all Muslims; It is the duty of every Muslims in this world.

Muslims need to choose whether they will follow Bin Ladenism or Modernism, and Mansour is not helping by blurring the issue.