Backlash
Speaking of audacity, the AP has a handwringing piece about renewed Muslim fears of an anti-Islamic backlash, highest ever since 9/11:
“A lot of us work very hard for this country, to make America a better place,” said Muqtedar Khan, a progressive Muslim scholar who has just given Congressional testimony on U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan before Thursday’s attack. “And this one nut like Maj. Hasan comes along and in one crazy episode of a few seconds he undermines these years and years of hard work we are doing to make American Muslims part of the mainstream in the community.”
A shout out to all the American Muslims serving in uniform, or just working hard, minding their own business, becoming part of the mainstream, enjoying American freedom.
The AP article fails to include any examples of any anti-Muslim backlash, perhaps because, with the exception of some isolated cases of mainly verbal harassment, there never was an anti-Muslim backlash in this country. Certainly nothing anywhere approaching the constant anti-American and anti-western backlash we’ve seen overseas in the years since 9/11. If anything, this country has bent over backwards to avoid any backlash. The example here was set from the outset by President Bush, who repeatedly declared this was not a war on Islam, and who sought and found allies among Muslims at home and abroad.
There has been an extensive anti-backlash backlash, however, to the extent that even suggesting Islamic extremism is a problem … has become the problem. I’m still waiting to hear the great outcry from Muslims, here and abroad, against the extremism, rather than whining about fears of being targeted every time someone from within their midst kills a dozen or 3,000 Americans.
Hang on. Here’s one. From the Boston Herald archives, Oct. 23:
Bay State Muslims should help “root out” any radicals in their midst, a Massachusetts Islamic leader urged yesterday.
“We call on Muslim leaders and organizations to root out any radical teachings they may find in Muslim communities,” said M. Bilal Kaleem, executive director of the Massachusetts Chapter Muslim American Society.
Many Muslim groups since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks have been defensive about any suggestion that there might be extremists among them. But Kaleem told the Herald embattled Muslims have just “ducked down” as they cope with a member of their community accused of being a would-be killer.
“If anybody senses imminent danger, they should alert the proper authorities,” said Kaleem, when asked if Muslims should call the cops on hate groups.
He added the Muslim community must show it’s more about civic pride and “pluralism.”
Tarek A. Mehanna, 27, of Sudbury was indicted Wednesday on charges he plotted to buy assault weapons so he could mow down mall shoppers somewhere in the United States.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said Mehanna, who journeyed to Yemen in search of terror training, also planned to kill two executive branch government officials whom the feds would not name.
Officials at the Worcester Islamic Center, where Mehanna taught, said yesterday in a statement they are in a “state of shock” over the allegations. “We are confident that the truth of these matters will surface in due course,” they added.
And the accusations that Mehanna was hell-bent on gunning for mall shoppers in a random ambush left Muslims reeling.
“As Muslims, we condemn the planning or committing of any acts of violence or terrorism,” Kaleem added. “We are particularly appalled by the prospect of random violence against our families, our friends and our neighbors in public areas.”
Thank you, Bilal Kaleem. I like a concerned American who isn’t afraid to speak out. I assume you know there are countries were you would put your life in danger, saying things like that.
Steyn: Shooting raises fears … for the sanity of the entire Western world.
Neptunus Lex, channeling NYT: Damned nuisance, this Fort Hood business. A real fly in Obama’s Islamic ointment.
Gateway: Geraldo explains Fort Hood, a crime against American Muslims.
Reynolds: Muslim veterans group says no reports of harassment of Muslim GIs. “Hmm.”
Maguire: Maybe if we apologized with greater deference …
What was that I was saying earlier about our Combat Dead, Combat Wounded? Purple Hearts all around and military valor honors for Police Sgt. Munley. All evidence points to an act of war by an al-Qaeda sympathizing unlawful combatant. Fast forward, as if on cue, via Jawa, a member of Maj. Hasan’s mosque to the BBC: “They were troops … I honestly have no pity for them.”
Case in point re the anti-Muslim “backlash” … “Duane” uncorked. Jawa’s also got your e-Jihad, all the praise for cold-blooded, cowardly murder you can stomach,
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Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:57 am Comments (3) on Saturday, November 7, 2009
3 Responses to “Backlash”
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November 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
[...] CRITTENDEN ON phony “backlash” fears. The fact that the powers-that-be are so afraid that ordinary Americans will suddenly form a [...]
November 8th, 2009 at 1:27 am
You’ve distilled my feelings about this perfectly. I don’t hate Muslims but it seems too often that many of them hate me without even knowing me. I’m very glad to read Bilal Kaleem’s remarks, as well, because all this PC deliberate ignorance is wearing thin.
America’s First Amendment was motivated by a desire to be rid of the religious battles in Europe made possible and exacerbated by established state churches and allowing clergy of different churches too much access to secular power. That should be a lesson to Muslims whose own religion is being torn apart by groups like Al Qaeda and the Salafist strain which about as close as Islam has come to Christianity’s Inquisition and the wars of its Reformation. I really believe that Muslims have suffered, or will suffer, more from their failure to stand up and rid themselves of violent radicals hired as imams sowing the seeds of violence among them. The sight of Muslim headgear or other attire shouldn’t put anyone in fear for his or her safety.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:27 am
ast:
There’s a problem with that though.
Unfortunately, and contrary to the popular memes of the day, the jihadiscum are actually following the Koran as written and intended. Islam demands conquest by the sword. Those who are “moderate muslims” are not, actually, following the diktats of the Koran. They’ve become westernized themselves and selective in which parts and pieces of the mulsim ideology they choose to follow, but the ideology demands the actions as conducted by the jihadiscum.
The problem with the westernized mulsims is that all it takes is for one mullah to show up and start teaching the ideology as it is written and intended and the whole bloody terror mess starts up all over again. We’ve got several hundred years of direct, irrefutable historic evidence that proves it.
There is also a huge failure in the current meme of Islam simply needing to reform as Christianity did.
This is a cat, it is brown, therefore all cats are brown.
Life dont work like that.
Christianity reformed because what was being preached and practiced during the dark ages and the medieval period was not Christianity as put forward by Jesus and his apostles.
It had become heavily modified by old paganisms and morphed into an abomination of the original teachings.
This is not so with Islam as practiced by the jihadiscum. Wahhabism WAS the Islamic Reformation.
There are some concepts we’re going to have to wrap our heads around, eventually.
1. Islam is not a race
2. Islam is not genetic
3. Islam is an ideology of secular conquest wrapped up in the guise of a religion.
4. There is no more potential to coexist with Islam than there was to do so with Nazism.
5. For so long as Islam exists as an accepted ideology, Islam will be at war with all the rest of the world. Not a metaphorical war, a bloody, murderous, violent, brutal, rapacious, enslaving war.