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Posted on 09/02/2002 4:18:22 PM PDT by zapiks44
Muslims can only feel unease about 11 September
They ask if we will also pray for the uncounted, innocent - maybe inevitable - victims of war in Afghanistan
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
02 September 2002
I have been dreading 11 September for a good two months. And now it is nearly upon us that weight has become almost intolerable. What happened to the 2,823 Americans and their families was unutterable and I hate the malevolent malcontents who perpetrate these acts – indeed the Tunisian-Swedish hijacker arrested on Friday may be one such plotter. However, I have to make this unambiguous proclamation to avoid misunderstanding as I explain what my true feelings are about the anniversary.
I know that the world is supposed to accept the premise that this was the worst tragedy to befall us all and that in order not to be seen as a supporter of global terrorism, we must show our stars and stripes, participate faithfully in the surfeit of remembrance which has already begun.
Most will oblige, so cowed are we, jittery and daunted, by the Bush test: "You are with us or against us". Muslims in America are under the worst pressure. They avoid meetings or centres; some pray quietly behind closed curtains, avoid mosques and are teaching their children not to tell their classmates that they are Muslim. Altaf Ali, a director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has just warned all those who choose to ignore the order to display their grief: "If we do not go out and show support in acts of solidarity it will backfire and harm us." Meanwhile, almost completely unreported and largely unknown is the arrest a week ago of a 37-year-old doctor – Robert Goldstein – who was found in Florida with ammunition and detailed plans to blow up 50 Islamic centres and mosques.
So the right things will be done and said by Muslims on both sides of the Atlantic. What we feel is another matter. And for most people in the world, this only confirms that American lives are more valuable than others. So many questions have been stifled because of this great suffering of America.
On Friday evening I went to ArRum, a stylish cultural centre in Clerkenwell, frequented by successful British Muslim professionals and their non-Muslim friends or partners. The space, which reflects modernity and Islamic aesthetics, was set up by Ridah Nijabat, a sharp Muslim woman who knew a niche existed for such a place. Where else do trendy Muslim Britons or, come to think of it, Sikhs, Hindus or black Britons go? The Groucho and other clubs are hardly going to welcome them – you have to be Art Malik to get a look in – and such punters would find those places uncomfortably cliquey and boozy. Here they relax, and feel safe enough to talk honestly about the future, of their own lives as the in-between people – of Islam, globalisation, the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Europe and the almighty US.
I met a banker in Armani suit, a flash city broker, a pharmacist, a playwright and a theatre producer, a radio and television journalist, an art collector, a civil servant, a wannabe actress, and Shazia Mirza, the daring stand-up comedienne whose star is rising fast although some mullahs would love to smite her down.
In one corner they were getting heated about the excessive sentences just handed out to some of the men who rioted in Bradford last summer. I share their sense of outrage. The men did wrong; their families delivered them to the police and yet they were given more than four years. One chap, the banker, asked: "Did the judge punish them more because he thinks all Muslim men are secret terrorists? How can this be right when rich footballers get away with nothing for beating up Asians?"
None of these people is an apologist for the extremists, the haters and killers who say that they do what they do for the good of Islam. But most are uneasy about this coming anniversary. They ask if we will also pray for the uncounted, innocent – maybe inevitable – victims of war in Afghanistan? Do we even know how many children were orphaned and whether anyone will provide compensation for them?
And can we be told what is happening to the prisoners in Cuba? The media has lost interest but these men are being held – uncharged – in violation of the most basic standards of legal justice. Oh, and those black victims in Kenya and Tanzania when Osama Bin Laden's bombs exploded near the US embassies (12 Americans died, hundreds of Africans were killed or maimed). Are any monuments planned to these first victims of Muslim Stalinists?
These questions are on the lips of non-Muslims too. In fact, if your ancestry is in the so-called Third World, you cannot but question the theatrical anniversary we are about to experience. This week, we will be manipulated by emotional stories about babies who were born on that day in New York, healthy babies to two parents who feel damaged. I wonder how many of these sensitive couples remember 2 December 1984? Would they recognise the name Bhopal? And, if they did, would they recall that between 16,000 and 30,000 Indians were choked to grisly death by acid fumes, and that 500,000 were wounded? In his book, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, Dominique LaPierre calls this "the most murderous industrial disaster in history". Read this, if you can, without screaming. A young girl with bells on her ankles was piled in with the dead, still alive with frothy bubbles coming out of her burnt insides; Muslim graves had to take 10 victims each; hearts, livers and spleens tripled in size and victims drowned in their own secretions.
An Indian court last week reminded the world that, 18 years on, Union Carbide, the American company responsible, and the chief executive officer James Anderson have escaped justice. So do US couples who gave birth on 2 December feel a sense of horror?
Not all Americans are indifferent. Radicals, human-rights activists and lawyers, some prominent African-Americans too, are dissenting, even in this period of enforced mourning. Legal challenges are being mounted against arbitrary detentions of all creatures brown across the country. The novelist Walter Mosley said last month: "Most Black Americans were appalled but not surprised by the hatred and anger which produced the attack. Black Americans are aware of the attitude of America towards people who are different, people whose beliefs are different, people of a different colour."
Earlier this year I shared a platform with Ryan Amundson, whose brother Craig – a young husband and father – was killed on 11 September. Craig's wife, Amber, and Ryan had been to Afghanistan and brought pictures to show of the suffering there. They spoke out against revenge and said they did not want their story to be repeated endlessly; instead the focus should move to other victims of this war against terrorism.
Last September, Arundhati Roy wrote that America's grief has "been immense and immensely public". It would be a shame if this became an opportunity for the US to usurp the world's sorrow and to mourn and avenge only their own, leaving it to others to ask the harsh questions. Sadly, that is exactly what has happened, except that British and US Muslims have been pushed into such a corner that they no longer dare to ask the questions openly. And the frustration of this is palpable, especially at this time.
There, I have said it. Now the deluge of abuse.
Funny how that niche is here in the West, and not in Tehran or Baghdad or Cairo or Riyadh.
Oh, wait - it says "modernity", doesn't it? That certainly explains it, insofar as anything more "modern" than about 1350 is anathema to Islam...
If it were up to me Muslims would not be felling anything.
We have failed to react with total rage.WE WILL pay a huge price just as WE did in Europe because of the appeasement of Hitler crowd.
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Thanks for posting, "You Worry Me!"
I got this as an email from several pilot friends.
The title: "You Worry Me!", is so appropriate!
Those who worry us, had better realize that their Islamakazi Butt Buddies mass murdered several thousand innocent Americans on 9/11.
The world changed and all their pcing and diversity whining will not alter that change.
They are either with us or againsts. They can choose life or death. The choice is theirs!
Our Jihad to kill every Islamakazi who hates America started on 9/11/2001. The neutrals who worry us had best understand that!
Very well said Dave. I purposly left the pilot's name off to protect him.
"...They (muslims) avoid meetings or centres; some pray quietly behind closed curtains, avoid mosques..."
That is an unqualified absolute lie,especially here in L.A. These people aren't hiding(!!!),as a a matter of fact, they're everywhere I go and everyday.They have nothing to fear as there's been no "clampdown/negative public speeches" regarding Muslims by our President,Congress,or ANY elected official for that matter.What a ridiculous naive statement for anyone,much less a "British Muslim" make.(VERY Stupid actually!)
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