Note: As I just finished a rather lengthy op-ed piece on the recent Paris attacks, terrorism and Islam, I don’t feel the need to retread all of that ground here. I will post a link to the column once it hits the press. I did want to offer some other commentary on my experiences on Twitter and elsewhere online Friday night hours after the attacks took place. Those thoughts and my interactions on Twitter, are collected here.
Umer Ali, a journalism student and contributor with The Nation, should be commended for having the courage to say what many in the West, even seasoned reporters and editors at major newspapers, have cowardly avoided, namely that terrorism (and the oppression of women, apostates and gay people) in 2015 is motivated by religion, contrary to the popular phrase on Twitter this weekend, “terrorism has no religion,” and that religion is political Islam based on literal and fundamentalist interpretations of the Quran and the hadith.
Sure, most everyday Muslims are peaceful believers — even though high percentages of Muslims support Sharia law in Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, according to Pew — but as I pointed out in the column this week, it is the dangerous, religiously-fueled ideologies permeating in places like Iraq and Syria that need to be challenged by leaders within Muslims communities since it is Muslims themselves, people of other faiths and skeptics and gays living in secrecy who are suffering the most under the heel of these oppressive regimes and statelets.
Here is how Ali concluded his honest and clear-minded look at the real problem:
The fundamental mistake committed by Muslims all over the world is statements like ‘Terrorism has no religion’, ‘Terrorists don’t represent Islam.’ Rather than being in denial and delusional, let’s accept the fact that these terrorists ARE Muslims and they DO represent an interpretation of Islam – which most Muslims reject.
Neither equating the whole Islamic world with terrorism, nor giving sweeping statements, acquitting it from the responsibility, is the solution. Islam needs a reformation and Muslims need to be educated about changing world realities and evolving societies.
West, on the other hand must realize that invading countries for the actions of few is not a viable solution, for it only helps radicalize more minds. A global effort to rewrite the anti-terrorism narrative is need of the hour too.
Thousands of liberals and Islamic apologists took to Twitter on Friday night and through the weekend in an attempt to disabuse us of the notion that religion has anything to do with terrorism. Most that I saw were critical of people who were bigoted against Muslims as people, but many, like the following tweet, did not distinguish between Muslims as people and criticisms of Islam on its own merits:
Muslims are not the enemy. Terrorism has no religion.
— Miguel Poblador (@MiguelPoblador) November 16, 2015
And there were and are many, many more, like these:
Terrorism has no nationally or religion. Don't discriminate an entire religion for the wrong doings of certain people #MuslimsAreNotTerorist
— cecilia (@Cece_Flowers98) November 16, 2015
Terrorism has no religion but terrorists do.
Funeral prayers of Bin Laden and Yakub Memon is proof of that.
— Zaid Hamid (@SirZaidHamid) November 16, 2015
Terrorism has no religion. And it never will. https://t.co/WC5YbQNO9P pic.twitter.com/WLmo1VLGS0
— Lucy Sherriff (@sherrifflucy) November 15, 2015
And, of course, this misguided tweet, and with it, the viral, cherry-picked quote from the Quran that makes Allah sound like some kind of peace-loving Jain:
Islam is a religion of peace. Terrorism has no place in the Muslim faith. #NotInMyName pic.twitter.com/Qyf0KCfnul
— Emine Rose Mutlu (@eminerosemutlu) November 15, 2015
Growing increasingly impatient with deluded statements like, “Islam is a religion of peace,” I took to Twitter myself Friday night and posted the following series of tweets:
The phrase "terrorism has no religion" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. … #Paris #Islam (1/3)
— Our Daily Train (@ourdailytrain) November 14, 2015
The phrase seems to be a #RegressiveLeft attempt at political correctness in fear of offending someone. In any case … #Paris #Islam (2/3)
— Our Daily Train (@ourdailytrain) November 14, 2015
Terrorism has been undeniably motivated by religion & its texts many times now & in the past.#Paris #Islam "terrorism has no religion" (3/3)
— Our Daily Train (@ourdailytrain) November 14, 2015
And for proof of this, in addition to the numerous examples Umer Ali pointed out, we need to look no further than ISIS’ own statement on the attacks in Paris, which, in part, reads:
Youths who divorced the world and went to their enemy seeking to be killed in the cause of Allah, in support of His religion and His Prophet, Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, and his charges, and to put the nose of His enemies in the ground.
As Ali Rizvi pointed out, ISIS’ statement is a reference to verse 59:2 in the Quran.
The point is that, just like with the Yahweh in the Bible, for however many verses Muslim apologists produce that seem to condemn murder and point to the benevolence of their god, other verses paint a contrary view. And even if the message from verse 5:32 in the Quran posted above was the consistent message throughout scripture, it’s still suspect and doesn’t hold water since no loving father or deity says, “Look, wretch, at how great I am; now get on all-fours and worship me” or else, die — unless, of course, we alter the definition of “love” to include such things as self-loathing and masochism.
The sooner we realize this as a society, the sooner we realize that Christopher Hitchens was right all along, that religion “infects us in our most basic integrity” as human beings, the better, and society will not move forward on a path toward lasting peace until that day.