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Syed Farooq is an American: Let's stop the Muslim vs. Christian debate and take a look at ourselves
Salon ^ | December 3, 2015 | Steven Salaita

Posted on 12/03/2015 10:20:56 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

Dear Compatriots:

I address you in a moment of collective stress, with another mass shooting, this one in San Bernardino, California, dominating the news. Guessing the identity of shooters-black or white, Christian or Muslim, man or woman (though masculinity is almost guaranteed)-has become a vicious social media ritual. Too many people seem to believe we can discern motivation by ethnicity, or that ethnicity alone determines what type of terror can rightly be deemed terrorism.

It was with much sadness that I witnessed your gleeful reaction when police named Syed Farooq, a devout Muslim, as one of the suspects. You seem to be under the impression that a Muslim shooter absolves the United States of brutality, forgetting that Farooq is also an American. This worldview allows you to embrace mythologies that exonerate you of political violence.

But we must acknowledge Farooq's nationality, because his terrible deed does not arise from an unknowable foreign culture, but from one endemic to the United States. You can exempt yourself from Farooq's actions only if you are willing to exclude minorities from your national identity. Many of you are happy to do that, but it's an intellectually lazy choice.

It is why I greet you as a compatriot. The greeting might make you uncomfortable because I am Arab, but I am also American. Being American requires no special ethnic, religious, or ideological character, even though our nationality contains implicit demands. One of those demands is to not be Arab or Muslim.

Enough about technicalities, though. I don't approach you to be pedantic or to beg for your acceptance, nor do I have any interest in situating mass murder into hierarchies of tolerability. I merely ask you to consider why those hierarchies exist and why it's so easy to name state violence as necessary or desirable. There's a connection between the supposed deviance of Farooq’s shooting and your endless, adamant justification of U.S. bloodletting throughout the world.

To put it plainly: thinking about violent behavior as something innately foreign is a terrific rationale for delivering violence to foreign places. It forces you to hate people and demands your loyalty to institutions designed to contravene your interests.

I think you've been hoodwinked by politicians and luminaries into hating Arabs and Muslims. This hatred is bad for Arabs and Muslims, of course, but it also does you little good. It might make you feel better about your place in the American racial hierarchy. It might alleviate your majoritarian anxieties. It might reaffirm the superiority of your faith. It might make patriotism easier to accept.

It doesn't, however, help you better understand this world and it certainly won't keep food on your table. In fact, it deprives everybody of intellectual and economic sustenance.

The attitudes you possess-that Arabs are beholden to violent culture, that Islam singularly produces religious evil, that Syrian refugees threaten American safety, that the Middle East and South Asia are places of mystical barbarity-have existed since before 9/11, but they seem to have a particular resonance in the current presidential election.

It's become remarkably disturbing, to be honest. It reminds me a bit too much of the rhetoric preceding the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. I don't select the analogy at random: more than one eminent conservative has suggested interning Muslims. Liberal beacon Wesley Clark did, too, when he spoke approvingly of interment and proposed it as a remedy for the "disloyal."

Every day I hear another demagogue inflaming your outrage, urging you to maintain an acutely resentful psychology. Ben Carson, often described as judicious and presidential, recently proclaimed that he "would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," a flagrant constitutional violation and a vulgar bit of pointless scapegoating.

Last week, Donald Trump repeated the canard that Arabs in New Jersey celebrated as the Twin Towers collapsed, claiming that he witnessed "a heavy Arab population that were cheering as the buildings came down." Trump implies that all Arabs supported 9/11. None, therefore, is trustworthy. There is no reason to make this sort of comment other than to manipulate our desire for safety and thereby create a pretext for unthinkable possibilities.

Is it too difficult to recognize the many problems of a discourse that relies so heavily on demonization to generate support? The demagogue can enact violence only when his audience refuses to recognize the violent nature of demagoguery.

Politicians love nothing more than a frightened, uninformed citizenry. It's how they convince us to cosign our dispossession. People who discern gray areas and have the ability to reason through propaganda are their most undesirable clients. The United States cannot be a functional democracy if we make ourselves so compliant.

Believe it or not, Arabs and Muslims (and other minorities) are not the source of your problems. Turn to the politicians who promise you an uncomplicated world for a better target of your anger.

I know you're ready to counter with "terrorism," but the term is largely a bromide in the American political vocabulary. It's useless to debate which groups commit more violence. No week passes that we don't hear of another white supremacist plot to murder South Asians, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics or African Americans. The U.S. and its allies generate extraordinary destruction in the regions of the world said to be uniquely barbaric. Police kill with impunity. Our president orders death by remote control. Everybody suffers but the people who oversee this horror.

Displays of spectacular cruelty pervade the United States, but you embrace any opportunity to disavow them as an exotic problem. And still more people will be killed today-many by those for whom you voted and to whom you pay taxes.

We should work to better understand how the elite apportion discourses of violence into categories of good and evil, civilized and savage, rational and unreasonable. Who creates these binaries? Who suffers their finality? Who profits from their endurance?

Let's explore these questions together. We'll surely be surprised by what we learn through the simple act of listening. Before we do, though, I ask you to remember that I am proudly Arab but legally American, and I refuse to entertain the possibility that either category invalidates the other.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blameamerica; coexist; islam; shooting; terrorism
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To: Art in Idaho

Why doesn’t the Rainbow Mosque suggest that muzzies give up the 5x/day prayer thing?


81 posted on 12/03/2015 10:51:24 AM PST by Paladin2 (my non-desktop devices are no longer allowed to try to fix speling and punctuation, nor my gran-mah.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“I didn’t bother to read it. I assume it’s one of those PC all-cultures-are-equal(ly-bad) screeds.”

The gist: Since all the facts don’t help push the narrative, it’s time we stop looking at these obvious facts.

You’re welcome.


82 posted on 12/03/2015 10:51:52 AM PST by Ueriah
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To: Ueriah

Thanks!


83 posted on 12/03/2015 10:52:39 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Beware of the grievance-industrial complex)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

This needs a “Projectile Barf Alert”.


84 posted on 12/03/2015 10:52:47 AM PST by Pajamajan ( Pray for our nation. Thank the Lord for everything you have. Don't wait. Do it today.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I assume it’s one of those PC all-cultures-are-equal(ly-bad) screeds.

Pretty close. It's one of those "we're all Americans so we're all guilty" bits of moral equivocation. A small child could tell the author that no, the people who did the shooting are guilty and the people who died are not, and that there's a difference.

85 posted on 12/03/2015 10:53:16 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Servant of the Cross

The devout muslim shooters went to a work meeting/CHRISTMAS Party. He was agitated at the party. He left and he and his devout muslim wife put on armour and got their weapons. They had a pipe bomb. The shooting was on the anniversary of a muslim recognition of the martyrdom of Mohammed’s godson. just like other incidents have come on their holidays.

Gun control will not stop this if some evil religious fanatic wants to shoot a place up. The president insists on letting more immigrants from islamic hellholes (somalia, yemen, syria) in the country and then gets upset about our guns when an islamic terrorist commits a horrible act. It’s time for blowback on Obama’s indifference to our security and not restraining innocent citizens from gun possession.


86 posted on 12/03/2015 10:54:29 AM PST by morphing libertarian
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Being an American citizen loyal to the Constitution is mutually exclusive to choosing to be a believer/follower of satan’s death cult known as islam.


87 posted on 12/03/2015 10:54:38 AM PST by newfreep (TRUMP/Cruz 2016 - "Evil succeeds when good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke)
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To: rockinqsranch

I have never understood why we post from Salon here at FR.

____________________________________________________

I agree. But it helps us normal and rational people understand who our enemies are. And what they think.

I love Free Republic. But if all we did was post sane conservative articles that we agreed with - we’d just be some Mutual Admiration Society.

I hate looking at filth and garbage. But it does exist and we must acknowledge it. As we scorn and pick it apart.


88 posted on 12/03/2015 10:55:04 AM PST by Responsibility2nd (With Great Freedom comes Great Responsibility)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Uh-hu, right, and I’m a chinese figher pilot.


89 posted on 12/03/2015 10:56:40 AM PST by factoryrat (We are the producers, the creators. Grow it, mine it, build it.)
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To: ilgipper

And his ‘wife’ is also potentially VERY interesting——http://shoebat.com/2015/12/03/88800/


90 posted on 12/03/2015 10:58:47 AM PST by yadent
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Just goes to prove that Islam is not compatible with America


91 posted on 12/03/2015 11:00:55 AM PST by brothers4thID ("We've had way too many Republicans whose #1 virtue is "I get along great with Democrats".")
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Steven needs to read Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then get back to us. If anybody knows Islam vs Everyone else, it is she. She has lived it.


92 posted on 12/03/2015 11:00:57 AM PST by publana (Beware the olive branch extended by a Dem for it disguises a clenched fist.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

There are many mohammedans where I live in western Washington and I’ve worked or interacted with more than a few of them. Virtually to a man they act like they are bipolar. In most things they are passive and polite. But just say the word “Jew” and you see the fire in their eyes glow hot as a spark. The terms “hair-trigger” and “short fuse” (with all that implies) come to mind. They have an ancestral hatred of Jews and it is drilled into them at an early age.

I’ve witnessed that short fuse ignition many times. I’ve triggered it in them several times myself. I guarantee that I could trigger this guy Salaita. No matter how reasonable and prosaic they appear - you trigger them and they become shrieking, snarling hyenas. When they go to their unhinged place there is no reasoning with them. It’s either get away from them or insist they get away from you. I’ve stood them down more than once and they always back down. I never turn my back on them, no matter how polite or cordial they appear.

But more often I make sure that I am not put in a position where I am at their “mercy”. As they say, “discretion is the better part of valor”. I choose not to be around them as much as humanly possible because I am keenly aware of what they can do - and their inclination to do it. When circumstances require me to be around them I try to control the environment as much as possible. And I’m always armed.

This klown insists that we afford him equal standing. If he is a citizen then he is a citizen. But he will NEVER be an American.


93 posted on 12/03/2015 11:01:46 AM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr
.... But he will NEVER be an American.

As a wolf will never be a dog.

94 posted on 12/03/2015 11:04:11 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: MeshugeMikey; Cincinatus' Wife; All
I think you've been hoodwinked by politicians and luminaries into hating Arabs and Muslims. This hatred is bad for Arabs and Muslims, of course, but it also does you little good. It might make you feel better about your place in the American racial hierarchy. It might alleviate your majoritarian anxieties. It might reaffirm the superiority of your faith. It might make patriotism easier to accept.

Ah, but there HAVE BEEN now 25,000+ Muslim crimes of violence and terrorism. Since 2001.

And I have heard of no such "weekly" threats to blacks, orientals, and Jews - Oh wait!

But his loving Muslims DO issue thousands of threats every week against the Jews. And the Christians.

95 posted on 12/03/2015 11:04:44 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

If he is a Moslem, then it is haram for him to consider himself American. Islam cannot be modified.


96 posted on 12/03/2015 11:07:09 AM PST by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE
The WaPo takes a stab at that angle.

Obama's inconsistent claim on the 'frequency' of mass shootings in the U.S. compared to other countries

97 posted on 12/03/2015 11:07:10 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
When her husband was served with legal separation papers, he was reached at an address in Karachi, Pakistan.

Ah yes, it had to be in there somewhere. More sweetness and light from the absolute worst nation in the world. Nothing good comes from Pakistan.

98 posted on 12/03/2015 11:08:49 AM PST by PGR88
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Salon just preachin` to their evil little cult.

Bet most (hopefully) realize what the USA is up against.


99 posted on 12/03/2015 11:09:06 AM PST by Harold Shea
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To: Excellence

http://spectator.org/articles/64837/jihad-inland-empire

“......Islamists make appeals to diversity and tolerance, adopting soft-focus language to disarm Americans emotionally, at least those who want to believe. They seek to suspend all critical thought about Islam, using free speech, so-called, to win the culture wars, with grave implications for national security. The American devotion to religious pluralism gives them a political wedge.

I have been tracking this cultural assault in U.S. elementary and high school textbooks for a decade or more. I remain puzzled and shocked that progressive Americans ardently fail to acknowledge Islam for what it is and what it seeks.

Keep in mind. Many Islamists reject freedom of speech and religion, thinking of non-Muslims as infidels without human rights. They openly subjugate women, excluding them from governance, worship or thought. They think homosexuals should perish. They by and large approve of terror and believe that apostates deserve to die.

Perhaps Islam is the religion of peace, and Ben Affleck and Gen. Casey will certainly assure us of that. Unfortunately, many dolts will listen to them.

But peace means submission to Islamic rule and Islamic law. The absence of sharia law is the absence of peace. With God on its side, Islam wages eternal global war against territories under non-Islamic rule. Until they cease to exist or submit to forces loyal to Allah and his Prophet, the holy struggle will endure. And so will the lethal, ghastly incidents being splashed across the news.”


100 posted on 12/03/2015 11:09:16 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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