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PDF versionIslamophobia – Again?
by Maureen Fiedler on Nov. 06, 2009
We were all shocked by the horrific killings at Ft. Hood, Texas, yesterday. But again and again, the media keep mentioning the suspect's religion. He's a Muslim. I must admit: I wonder if someone would say "the suspect is a Presbyterian, or a Reform Jew or a Catholic." His religion may or may not have had anything to do with these killings.
After all, Major Hasan, the suspect, is also a psychiatrist with a specialization in post-traumatic stress disorder. He must have listened to horrible war stories from patients for many weeks or months. He had orders for a deployment he did not want. There is nothing especially religious about these identities, and either one might be a factor in the shootings he allegedly committed. Indeed, he might have simply "snapped."
But in some quarters, the religious hate, the "Islamophobia," has already begun, with threats against mosques and Muslims. It's part of the "blame the entire group for what a small group, or in this case - one person, may have done."
I'll never forget the night after 9-11 when Rabbi David Saperstein walked into the studio where we were broadcasting on "religion and terrorism" with a press release from the Jewish community, utterly condemning such attitudes, which were all too evident after 9-11. "We stand with our Muslim sisters and brothers," he said. "This 'blame the group' mentality is at the root of anti-Semitism, as surely as it is at the root of Islamophobia.
On this day, I stand with my Muslim sisters and brothers.
Well, let's be honest here,
Well, let's be honest here, it's pretty rare for the average psychologist to pick up a gun, shout "Allahu Akbar", and open fire on unarmed soldiers and civilians. Evidently it was more than simply his hearing about the horrors of war. Perhaps, just perhaps, his conversion to Islam played some role in his actions.
Certainly it is true that not all Muslims are terrorists, just as it is true that not all Irish people are alcoholics. Nonetheless, just as knee-jerk condemnation of all Muslims is unfair and inappropriate, so too is an attempt to gloss over the fact that, in recent decades, the vast majority of world terrorism has been due to the actions of extremist Muslims.
Finally, I find it emblematic of a certain coldness that there appears to be no condemnation of the actions of Major Hasan, nor is there, from this columnist, any concern expressed for the victims and their families. Rather, the attention is paid to launching a pre-emptive defense of Islam. It is the same attitude that caused President Obama, just hours after this tragedy, to give lighthearted introductory remarks during a Tribal Nations Conference, and then, a few minutes in, offer comments on the shooting.
On this day, I, like millions of Americans throughout this nation, stand firmly with the victims and their families. I stand firmly and proudly behind the men and women in uniform who daily put their lives at risk for my safety and freedom, and with the families they leave behind.
I recommend that Ms. Fiedler might try doing the same sometime.
Green writes: "Evidently it
Green writes: "Evidently it was more than simply his hearing about the horrors of war."
For once, present your evidence, Clint.
You cannot.
All the evidence goes against your conclusion. Hearing about the horrors from those veterans who directly inflicted them and suffered them and could not live with themselves afterward are "simple" enough for this, especially as he was being forced back into a situation he found unbearable.
The Reverend Sister Maureen Fiedler is absolutely correct, and you find that unbearable.
Two popes have condemned Bush's dirty wars. Time for all true Roman Catholics faithful and obedient to our popes to demand an end to these immoral and unjustifiable terrorist, imperialist wars for resources. Bring home all of our personnel, now.
PACEM IN TERRIS!
frère charles du désert OSB
Other evidence? Oh, I don't
Other evidence? Oh, I don't know--how about his cry of "Allahu Akbar" before he started shooting, his praise of suicide bombing, his defense of the Islamic practice of beheading, his history of Islamic proselytization and attempts to contact Al Qaeda?
No evidence at all upon which to find a religious motivation? Really?
Admittedly, all that's tough to process when you choose to jam both fingers in your ears and sing "la la la la la...PTSD by proxy...la la la... ." Never mind that (1) no such syndrome has ever been diagnosed, and (2) people who suffer from PTSD almost never commit murder, never mind mass murder. Yeah, blame politicians--and more shamefully, "the military"--instead. Thanks for slandering my family members who served, faux-Frere.
Oh, and there's also evidence he was upset with the current President for failing to end the wars, but only a moral idiot would blame President Obama.
Your willingness to repeatedly excuse a mass murderer who killed, among others, a pregnant woman, is duly noted. At least Sr. Fiedler managed to find the slaughter "horrific." You can't even manage that.
I find war horrific.
I find war horrific.
Catholics should be very
Catholics should be very sensitive to blaming an entire religious community for the crimes of a few of its members. Consider how long persecution and discrimination lasted in England, largely fueled by reactions to conspiracies such as the Babington and Gunpowder (Guy Fawkes) Plots.
The mass murderer mentioned
The mass murderer mentioned on a site for men seeking Muslim wives that he was born in Arlington, VA, but his nationality was Palestinian.
On this day, I stand with my AMERICAN sisters and brothers.
no brainer stop the war come
no brainer
stop the war
come home
liberate our military
beat the swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks
retrain and retool for peace work
for health care
for education
for families
pro-life
no more killing
no more war
study war no more
and so find peace
The guilt lies not in any religion, but in the militarist mentality forced upon him.
He believed we must get out of the Afghan and Iraq, and was forced to return to the hell we have created, the hell he best knows, hearing it from those most traumatized by it by implementing it.
It was not Muhammed who made him massacre. It is the military.
Disband the army, the navy, the marines, the NSA.
Regroup for peace and for progress.
Become a civlized nation.
For once.
Or head out here to the desert in peace and silence, alone, away frmo the killing.
Be pro-life.
Stop the wars.
Build for peace.
PACEM IN TERRIS
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
He yelled ALLAH AKBAR before
He yelled ALLAH AKBAR before he started murdering.
The real horror is that a man
The real horror is that a man murdered 13 people in cold blood. That some people might react badly to an apparent (indeed, increasingly likely) religious motivation for the murder really doesn't compare.
The real victims are in the morgue, along with their surviving loved ones and friends trying to cope with lives so brutally snuffed out. It sure would be nice if you could stand with them, too, instead of just joining the pity party chorus which instantly assembles every time one of these crimes occurs. That, too, contributes to the sense of backlash.
Joe Leiberman goes on Fox
Joe Leiberman goes on Fox News as always to be a complete and total politico about this and claim he has evidence of things which do not exist, against the advice and the findings of General George Casey. Next will Joe, like tailgunner Joe, accuse the army, for his personal political gain, of terrorist malfeasance, and not because it is indeed the military's fault, and the fault of our absolutely criminally incompetent past commander in chief?
bring the war home.
stop the war
start peace.
Meanwhile in a somewhat
Meanwhile in a somewhat related matter of justice and injustice in our nation, the most "Catholic" and Republican Justices (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia),voted for the swift execution of a human being, despite repeated papal condemnation of the death penalty, as unnecessary, and as homicide in ipse.
Courageously Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, a true and faithful Roman Catholic, voted for due process in this case, prohibited by Virginia's rush to kill.
================================================================
Today's Washington Post reports in part (please see the complete article):
Supreme court denies request to stay D.C. sniper's execution
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 9, 2009; 3:44 PM
The Supreme Court on Monday denied John Allen Muhammad's request to stay his execution, clearing the way for Virginia to put to death the man who terrorized the Washington region as the Beltway Sniper.
Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor objected to the court's haste, saying it "highlights once again the perversity of executing inmates before their appeals process has been fully concluded."
Stevens, writing for the three, said Virginia had short-circuited the process by scheduling Muhammad's execution for Tuesday night, earlier than the court would normally have reviewed his petition for the court to take his case.
"By denying Muhammad's stay application, we have allowed Virginia to truncate our deliberative process on a matter -- involving a death row inmate -- that demands the most careful attention," Stevens wrote.
As former Nation of Islam
As former Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X stated to near universal condemnation nearly 46 years ago:
"Chickens come home to roost."
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