Sada-e-Watan
Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com
Muslims shouldn't have to keep apologising for terrorist attacks - we are victims too
Illustration: Simon Letch
The general response in the West to the appalling January 7
Paris attacks show that the Western view of terrorism has barely changed since
9/11. The same themes persist - "they" are terrorising "us". "Their" moderates
need to do more to stop "their" extremists from attacking "us". Why aren't more
of "their" moderates speaking out? Why don't "they" respect "our" values? Why
don't "they" take responsibility?
Surely holding all Muslims
(one-quarter of the world's population) collectively responsible for the
actions of fringe groups should be universally hounded as imbecilic. Instead,
many of the "official" Muslim spokespeople have taken this exclusionary message
to heart.
Each time there is a terrorist attack on a Western country,
they all but trip over themselves and each other to condemn - at times not even
waiting for anyone to confirm the actual motives of those ultimately held
responsible.
The same set formula, the same mantras are reported. "We
condemn. It has nothing to do with us or our faith."
One can hardly
blame them for this. In the Australian imagination, terrorism and Islam are
interchangeable.
Whether it be small evangelical and far-right groups
complaining about halal certification of Vegemite or opponents of mosque
developments, the spectre of terrorism is ever present.
Even after it
was established that a fringe loner was responsible for the Martin Place
attack, some commentators insisted "sheikh" Haron had a substantial
following.
Those who scream the loudest about the alleged Islamic threat
to Australia are often those complaining they aren't free to speak loudly about
the threat because of "stifling political correctness" or Section 18Cof the
Racial Discrimination Act.
Yet there's a new generation of Muslims born
and brought up in Australia who better understand and are less afraid to engage
with media, politics and mainstream culture than their elders.
Many of
them see their elders' rush to condemn terrorist acts as having the opposite
effect to that intended. They see their elders' statements as reinforcing a
dominant mindset on Islam and Muslims that is patronising and at times even
xenophobic.
Conventional wisdom about terrorism is certainly worth
questioning.
Jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State
regard many, if not most, Muslims as kuffar, plural of kafir or infidel. These
groups have killed a far greater number of Muslims than Jews and
Christians.
In December, about 132 students and 13 staff at the Army
Public School in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar were gunned down by
the Pakistan Taliban. The Peshawar attacks received nowhere near as much media
coverage nor pious statements from world leaders.
Nor was there much
said about Boko Haram's assaults in Nigeria. In one such assault, which took
place around the same time as the Paris attack, more than 1000 people were
murdered. The Nigerian schoolgirls have still not been captured, though they
have been immortalised in a Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting them as pregnant
welfare queens demanding no one touch their payments.
Muslims are often
accused of seeing themselves as victims. But when so little emphasis is placed
on a far greater number of non-Western terror deaths, young Western Muslims can
be forgiven for seeing this as an indication of chronic Western
victimhood.
Westerners are the only victims - or at least the only
victims who matter.
No one should be murdered for drawing cartoons or for
working as a policeman or for visiting a supermarket. But our knowledge and
consciousness of terrorism is almost always limited to our own cultural
backyard. Our sense of reality is distorted.
According to the 2013
Global Terrorism Index, 80 per cent of all terrorism-related deaths occurred in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.
In sixth place was
India, where terrorist deaths doubled. And who are the most feared group in
India? "Communist terrorist groups are by far the most frequent perpetrators
and the main cause of deaths in India," the report noted. "Three Maoist
communist groups claimed responsibility for 192 deaths in 2013, which was
nearly half of all deaths from terrorism in India."
The Maoist uprising,
which started in 1967, has been operating in 20 of India's 29 states.
But is the hypocrisy and victimhood that pervades much of the Australian and the
broader Western debate on terrorism enough reason for community spokespersons
not to speak the truth and call a spade a spade?
Haters can allow their
hate to compromise their beliefs. They can point the finger at Muslims for
being terrorists whilst ignoring them - and others - as victims.
Perhaps
the issue is not whether to condemn terrorism but rather when, to condemn all
political violence regardless of who are perpetrators and who are victims.
Ultimately it doesn't matter who the victims are. Unjustly killing one is
equivalent to killing all humanity. Surely that's a Biblical and Qur'anic
principle we can all agree on.
Irfan Yusuf is a
lawyer and author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage
Islamofascist.
