Posted on 11/11/2001 6:08:05 PM PST by NorthernRight
I read an article this week that so disturbed me -- though enlightened me at the same time -- I thought I would share it. It is a piece written by Dennis Wagner of the Arizona Republic and was titled: "Muslims torn between love of Islam and America." It is a deceptive title since nowhere in it was there any indication that these so-called Americans loved America at all.
It started out quoting Moayaad Hamad, who was wearing a striped Polo shirt, Nikes and was donning a cellphone strapped to his 501 Levis. This is what he had to say about his adopted country.
"It's getting to the point where I hate being here, even though I'm a citizen," said the 22-year-old structural engineer from Phoenix. "I don't think many (Muslims) are willing to say this because they are afraid to say it ... The Qu'ran doesn't justify taking out the World Trade Center, but Islam means not just peace, but freedom. You have to defend yourself."
It's the "but," that really gets me there. What, pray tell, is anyone defending themselves against by slamming commercial jet liners into the World Trade Center. But that's not what really troubled me.
The same article goes on to interview Ihsan Saadeddin, spokesman for the Phoenix Islamic Community Center, who is described as having a beautiful suburban home with a child's painting of an American flag on the front door.
"I love the Constitution of America. I love the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech," Saadeddin said. Yet, says the article, he also believes "the ideal system is a male-controlled Islamic state," and he acknowledges discomfort with free speech that criticizes Islam.
Maybe it's because I'm a woman and women -- let's be perfectly frank -- don't fare too well in countries that describe themselves as following Islamic law. What's maddening is this fellow would like to have it both ways.
He currently "loves" the freedom of religion and speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution because it allows him to practise his beliefs and say what he wants.
But, let's not beat around the bush here. If he and most of his fellow believers had his way, he would tear up the very foundation that gives him his rights in order for him to impose his views on his fellow Americans and me.
As one Christian pastor who is familiar with Muslim countries wrote in an email recently: "Islam advocates and pleads for tolerance wherever it is in the minority; it advocates, implements and practices suppression and violence wherever it is in the majority."
I know this column will anger many Muslims, but before you write me to complain, finish this little exercise: Name one country that follows Islamic law that can be said to be free and just and that has more people immigrating to it than want to emigrate from it?
You won't be able to because not one exists.
For the most part, Muslims want to move to the West. The Qu'ran very clearly calls on its believers to "fight and slay the pagans (infidels) wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war." Qu'ran, Sura 9:5.
It is probable that the vast majority of North American Muslims do not think that non-Muslims must be slain. But if not in body, certainly in spirit. Though the body will do in certain circumstances.
Saadeddin, the fellow who says he loves the constitution, when asked to comment on the Palestinian who straps a bomb to his body and blows up a pizzeria full of women and children, views that as justified.
"If someone fights to gain his freedom, that's not terrorism," he said. "I don't even call them suicide attacks there. I call them martyrs."
The Levis-wearing engineer, Hamad, said: "I don't see anything necessarily wrong with the bombing of the (USS) Cole," referring to the attack in Yemen last year that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
This fellow is an American?
Elisabetta Burba, an Italian journalist, reported for the Wall Street Journal from Beirut that she saw well-heeled professionals cheering in the streets following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The cafe's sophisticated clientele was celebrating, laughing, cheering and making jokes, as waiters served hamburgers and Diet Pepsi. Nobody looked shocked or moved. They were excited, very excited," she wrote.
She was told that 90% of the Arab world believes that America got what it deserved.
"An exaggeration?" she asks. "Rather an understatement."
Until recently I believed that seething anger towards the West existed only in far flung places of the world. But of late -- and I have much more evidence -- I'm starting to fear that many people who live in North America secretly feel the same way.
It troubles me and here's why.
I know that I would be executed post-haste in virtually any Islamic country for doing just what I have done here, write some facts and some opinion that the rulers don't like.
On this Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day) most of us will reflect on the high cost of freedom.
Those angry men I have quoted here have exercised that hard-won freedom.
We will have dropped the torch thrown to us by the failing hands of our veterans if we refuse to listen -- and hear -- their frightening message.
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