Nursing a grievance, blinded by narcissism — such ordinary killers
[...] last weekend, Azzam Tamimi, of the Muslim Association of Britain, told a rally in London: “My heart bleeds, I condemn it, yes, but I did not make those boys angry. I did not send those bombs to Iraq. I do not keep people locked in Guantanamo Bay and I do not have anything to do with Abu Ghraib, except to denounce it. Politicians, see what you have done to this world.” It’s not me, it’s not us, it’s them. They keep doing bad things to us.
This was brilliantly, if somewhat inadvertently, expressed in The Guardian by Madeleine Bunting. She pointed out the Kashmiri links of most British Muslims, and added: “One of the things they brought with them was the perception of a long history of dispossession and marginalisation.” [...] “The more recent oppression and humiliation of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan would have resonated powerfully with these collective memories of Yorkshire Muslims . . .”
Note how the “more recent oppression” is supposed just to be a fact. And we know to whom it refers and to whom it doesn’t. The elected Government in Iraq, the Shia majority, the new fact of Kurdish rights in that country, don’t count. All these peoples are de-Muslimified for the purposes of victimology. And that happens because they simply don’t fit the narrative. The Sunnis of Iraq are imagined to be “us”, but the Shia and the Kurds aren’t. The bombed villagers of Afghanistan are “us”, the liberated women aren’t. The Kosovan Muslims aren’t, either, though you can bet they would have been had Nato not intervened to save them. As it is, they too have disappeared from Muslimhood.
6 comments:
It's the very inability to self-criticise that Bernard Lewis (arguably the leading Western scholar of Islam) identifies as the chief problem inhibiting progress in the Muslim world. Their reaction for centuries has not been to ask "how can we change / what did we do wrong?", but "who did this to us?".
See his book (an unputdownable must-must-must-read):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/075381675X/202-5497568-2755823
What Went Wrong?
Bernard Lewis
Really an excellent article by Aaronovitch.
One quote amongst many good ones:
It simply is not an accident — in psychological terms — that anything that conflicts with the Grievance is discounted, and anything that contributes to it is emphasised. Consider the narrative of Saddam. There were basically three options. One, do business with him. That equals propping up un-Islamic tyrants. Two, use sanctions against him. That equals murdering Muslim children. And three, topple him. Ditto plus. All options, bar none, are added to the Grievance.
In light of this article, (and recent events) I can't help wondering why we don't hear more from pro-war Muslims. I belive there are some. (Johann Hari always cites various surveys - I'll try to chase them down. In the meantime there's this http://www.fair.org/press-releases/iraq-democracy-polls.html
which although it shows a majority of Iraqis favouring a pull-out it at least demonstrates that there is a sizeable group who don't.)
Anyway, statistical digression aside, why is our press not giving more space to Muslim voices who supported the war? Is it really because there are none? Or am I just not reading the right papers?
Am also struggling to name a pro-war Muslim. The Baghdad Blogger?
Just to clarify, Wemb - my original comment wasn't intended to suggest there ARE none - it was to ask why we don't hear more from them? And again, it's not why aren't they saying more - it's why aren't they more widely reported on?
Posted on SL's behalf:
All right. Personally I think this is all bullshit. As we have seen time and time again it is OK for Muslims to kill and/or torture other Muslims (Iran/Iraq war, Taliban etc..) and people of other races (Darfur, 9/11, London, Madrid, Bali, the list goes on), but as soon as anyone who is not Muslim raises a hand towards them, it is anti-Islam and we are all infidels who need to be put to death.
All of this apologising is getting us nowhere fast and we are still being made to believe that it is our (the West's) fault for what is going on in the world ie. Terrorism. The Sunni's in Iraq want the US out, but the Shi'ites like Ali Al-Sistani and even Muqtada Al Sadr now, want them to stay and help keep what little control they still have. What would happen if the UK and the US moved out today? There would be bloodshed on a level never seen before in modern times. Is it such a bad thing that they went into Iraq in the first place? Were the people there living so well that they did not need help? Is it OK that Saddam killed more than 10,000 people (Kurds and Marsh Arabs) in a day without breaking a sweat?
The Majority of the 1 billion Muslims in the world are against this type of thing, but we don't hear from them. If the majority were supportive of what is going on in the world it would be much worse than it is now. The ones who support what is happening believe that 9/11 was a Mossad plot (even the parents of most of the terrorists involved, when interviewed, said that their kids would never do anything like that and were "forced" into it by the Mossad), that all Jews who worked in the Twin Towers were told to stay at home that day, that Arafat was an Israeli spy (I was told this by a member of the Dubai royal family, he kept a straight face the whole time).
Israel has shown that they will trade territory won in a defensive war for peace (Golan Heights, Sinai) and they have kept to their side of the deal. The Arab world has shown that they are only interested in using the Palestinian people as pawns as they continue to blame all of their troubles on the Jews. Arafat was offered 97% of the occupied territories and a capital in East Jerusalem, he did not even come back with a counter offer, he instigated the Intifada. Did this help his people? Only be getting them some good PR...
The Arab leaders are quite happy to be friends with Jews and do business with them: the biggest resort in Dubai is owned by the Kerzners - a well know Jewish SA family - and the new Atlantis resort being built there is owned by them as well, but they would never show this in public as their subjects must always believe that the Jews are the enemy.
You cannot negotiate with people like this and trying to explain their point of view to someone is like trying to explain why water flows upwards - it just can't be done. As much as I hate to admit it, G W is right. People may think of him as a cowboy, but even with his limited (with a C grade for your MBA at an average university in the US it MUST be limited) intelligence he is dealing with it in the right way.
Trying to address the grievances of these people is utterly ridiculous, they want more or less what the Crusaders wanted hundreds of years ago - for the rest of the world to adopt their religion, their customs and way of life. No-one would willing want to do this so they think it is their god given right to kill whoever does not agree with them. How do you deal with people like this? You sink to their level and kill them. They are not human beings with rational thought, who would rationally believe that by driving a truck laden with explosives into a group of kids - whose only crime was to be accepting candy from a US soldier - would lead them to heaven and virgins to cater to their every whim. This is insane!!!
These people make up statistics to complement their argument, re-write history to suit their needs and then still go and kill as many people as possible. They say that it is OK to kill innocents, even Muslim innocents, if it suits their needs. These people are all murderers and they hide behind their religion to gain sympathy from uneducated Arabs and poverty stricken, confused Muslims in other lands.
You cannot deal with these people on a rational basis!! Once this simple fact is taken into account and the world stops apologising for perceived or made up injustices that are the reasons for them doing what they do, we will be better equipped to deal with these sick lunatics.
Thanks, I've now had my say...
SL
Post a Comment