Posted on 03/14/2006 2:16:32 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
"Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.” I wrote those words days after 9/11 and have been criticized for them ever since. But an incident on March 3 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill suggests I did not go far enough.
That was when a just-graduated student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, and an Iranian immigrant, drove a sport utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone. He struck nine people but, fortunately, none were severely injured.
Until his would-be murderous rampage, Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major, had an apparently normal existence and promising future. In high school, he had been student council president and a member of the National Honor Society. A number of UNC students told the Los Angeles Times that he “was a serious student, shy but friendly.” One fellow student, Brian Copeland, “was impressed with his knowledge of classical Western thought, adding “He was kind and gentle, rather than aggressive and violent.” The university chancellor, James Moeser, called him a good student, if “totally a loner, introverted and into himself.”
In fact, no one who knew him said a bad word about him, which is important, for it signals that he is not some low-life, not homicidal, not psychotic, but a conscientious student and amiable person. Which raises the obvious question: why would a regular person try to kill a random assortment of students? Taheri-azar’s post-arrest remarks offer some clues.
· He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.”
· He explained to a detective that “people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States[’] turn to be killed.”
· He said he acted to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.”
· He portrayed his actions as “an eye for an eye.”
· A police affidavit notes that “Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States Government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack.”
· He told a judge, “I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.”
In brief, Taheri-azar represents the ultimate Islamist nightmare: a seemingly well-adjusted Muslim whose religion inspires him, out of the blue, to murder non-Muslims. Taheri-azar acknowledged planning his jihad for over two years, or during his university sojourn. It’s not hard to imagine how his ideas developed, given the coherence of Islamist ideology, its immense reach (including a Muslim Student Association at UNC), and its resonance among many Muslims.
Were Taheri-azar unique in his surreptitious adoption of radical Islam, one could ignore his case, but he fits into a widespread pattern of Muslims who lead quiet lives before turning to terrorism. Their number includes the 9/11 hijackers, the London transport bombers, and Maher Hawash, the Intel engineer arrested before he could join the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mohammed Ali Alayed, the Saudi living in Houston fits, the pattern because he stabbed and murdered Ariel Sellouk, a Jewish man who was his one-time friend. So do some converts to Islam; who suspected Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman, would turn up in Iraq as a suicide bomber throwing herself against an American military base?
This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal-appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims. Who knows whence the next jihadi? How can one be confident a law-abiding Muslim will not suddenly erupt in a homicidal rage? Yes, of course, their numbers are very small, but they are disproportionately much higher than among non-Muslims.
This syndrome helps explain the fear of Islam and mistrust of Muslims that polls have shown on the rise since 9/11.
The Muslim response of denouncing these views as bias, as the “new antisemitism,” or “Islamophobia” is as baseless as accusing anti-Nazis of “Germanophobia” or anti-Communists of “Russophobia.” Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels.”
God and "allah" do not mean the same thing. "Allah is the NAME of the Islamic Ilah(god). You should get into the habit of correcting this error western journalists perposely make.
Islam brainwashes Muslims and by definition is a cult. Five times a day they have to stop whatever they're doing and bow to Allah. Every single thing they do is covered by a rigid set rules(even toilet etiquette is covered), so where is there time for original thought or common sense? We're at war -- it's Nazism all over again. So called moderate Muslims, co-workers or neighbors in the West, have friends and family back home subject to reprisals, so shouldn't ever be trusted. That network of spies does exist, the corner mosque, mullahs, visitors or immigrants from the M.E., all should be viewed with extreme caution. Nobody's going to protect this country but us, and we'd better get serious.
True, I was just being mean since infidels aren't allowed to even say Allah.
So, instead of saying someone "went postal", one can now say they "went muslim"?
She has said she has renounced Islam and considers herself a humanist. Thus, she is not a muslim denouncing Islam. That having been said I fully agree with her analysis.
Interesting. Source?
How can any rational mind follow the byzantine labyrinth of lunatic doggerel that constitutes this "religion"?
I can't read more than two or three paragraphs of it.
Another way to phrase that is, what kind of mind would WANT to follow the byzantine labyrinth of lunatic doggerel that constitutes this "religion"?
Is this what people need to give meaning to their lives?
Adding to this mindless drek the homicidal, sociopathological, tyrannical mandates of it's brigand prophet makes it all the more a "religion" to be BANNED from any society that has any hope of peace.
If you would read it all, you'd see how they brainwash muslims to be the mindless drones they are.
When you see one of those muslims on the street with those "dead" eyes, you'll remember this article and know that he's one of "them".
Muslims have learned to whine, blame others, snivel and use the language of victimhood very well. But it is wearing thin.
Exactly correct!
Ahhh,, if all men believed we would get 72 virgins for raping one woman,,,You'd better lock your doors!
Proving once again that there are basically only three kinds of Muslims:
* Murdering fascist fanatics
* Enablers of murdering fascist fanatics
* Lapsed Muslims
Wouldn't that be Sufism?
Very impressive Nathan. Added to my personal archive.
So, should we just ignore the fact that Albania was officially atheist for 45 years and that only 7% of its population identified as Muslim in its most recent census? That is actually less than the number that identified as Orthodox or Catholic (18% + 12% for a total 30% Christian), with 60% identifying as nonreligious. If nothing else, that would suggest that once unindoctrinated the ex-Muslims are far less likely to return to their death cult than Christians are to return to their faith.
I believe Sufism - the ecstatic "mystical" form of Islam - is what is described in the lengthy extract that somebody posted above (the whirling dervishes,etc.). Generally Sufis are too busy entering "ecstatic" states, usually by spinning to make themselves dizzy or chanting until they hyperventilate, to cause much harm. It's not considered orthodox Islam by most of the rest of the Islamic world.
Sufism has always had a following among Westerners who like that sort of thing, too, and in general it's sort of a harmless hippy thing among Westerners.
However, one of the problems is that there are currents in it that use it to extend Islam (the Maharabbitun, I think they are called) and have gotten a number of Western converts, who are attracted by the "mystical" aspect and then move on to a more orthodox and hence more classically violent and totalitarian form of Islam.
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