Radicals vs. Moderates

There is a new front in the war on terror. It is now the front of Radicals vs. Moderates. The moderates will win.

For far too long, moderate muslims have stood by wringing their hands as one psychopath after another declares that he is going in the way of jihad (or at least his version of jihad). The voice of moderates is being drowned out by the screaming rants of what I call the fascist faction of Islam. Make no mistake, these fanatics can and do kill everyone and anyone who does not fit their narrow view of piety. In Iraq, Al Zarqawi targets Iraqis more than Americans; the London bombs had at least one go off in a predominantly Muslim area; there were Muslims in Beslan, Madrid and on 9/11.

New York, Beslan, Madrid, now London. These cities are part of a bigger problem and the
problem belongs to each and every single Muslim out there whether anyone wants to
admit it or not. The problem is extremism and it is time that all self-righteous “moderate” Muslims take ownership and clean house. It has become an embarrassment to speak of
religion. Before all of you fanatics and not-so-fanatics out there condemn me for being honest; think about it. How many of you absolutely cringe when religion, comes up. How many of you rush to explain that the extremists are not the norm and that most Muslims are in fact very
moderate. How many of you hear how much more hollow that explanation sounds when some new beheading happens or some new travesty occurs? How many of you who wear Hijab feel like you have to justify yourselves when in fact, you should never have to justify anything about how you choose to worship.

In reality, London is just the last in a long long spree of murder and mayhem perpetrated by people who justify their actions by perverting passages in the Holy Quran and who say they are doing jihad. Everyone who knows the true meaning of jihad knows that what they are doing is out and out murder, it is not jihad.

Any of us who purport to be true Muslims have an obligation to step up to the plate and fight against terrorism and against racism in all of its forms. As a journalist (who most people don’t realize is a journalist), I hear the old tired line “well, we have been dying for years and
no one cares” and the other “well, they are Muslim so we have to support them”.
Uh, no actually we don’t. The Islam that I believe in had a Prophet who treated his POW’s and hostages humanely until their release was secured, he most certainly did not behead them. The Islam I believe in preaches tolerance and love and does not kill children. More and more, there is no tolerance and there certainly is not any sense of love.

What perhaps all the moderate Muslims need tounderstand is that when a Synagogue gets hit, we are next on the list. When the Mosque gets hit, the Synagogue is usually next. In other words, the racists are definitely equal opportunity. They hate all of us equally. It is no longer just about “Jews” or “Arabs”; it is about open season on all ethnicities that don’t fit what their idea of the norm is. That is why instead of all this asinine arguing over issues that are light years away from being solved by politicians who really don’t want them solved; we should be making joint condemnation statements about any and all racist acts. In the case of terrorist attacks, let us be honest, for each and every hit that a terrorist makes, our lives get just a little bit harder over here in the West. Those who cheered when the planes hit the towers did not think about the human deaths involved, nor did they think about the long-term consequences of such barbarity. More importantly, they did not think about the hit that Islam just took. All they saw was that the mighty military power of the U.S. got a whopping black eye. Well, to be sure, the U.S. got a black eye but guess what, so did Islam. All of a sudden, a religion that many had thought was innocuous, nice and had only a few crazies became quite literally the most talked about, written about and spat on religion in the Western world. Whole hours were devoted to the dissection of what people call “Radical Islamism” with little to no differentiation made between moderates and fanatics. People who had long since been regarded as radical right-wingers, who were known to have massive prejudices about Arabs, were suddenly touted as “Radical Islamism Experts” and “Middle East Experts” and featured on everything from CNN to Fox news to clips and sound bites on our own local networks. What did we do you ask?
We of the moderates? We did nothing. Instead of standing up and loudly condemning the terrorist acts, instead of the leaders of our community and the board of the mosque sending our
condolences to the people of 9/11, we had a few community groups try their best to dispel the image we got saddled with. It was not enough then, and it certainly is not enough now.
We should be at war. We being those of us who are moderates. The war? Definitely an intellectual one. We must ask ourselves if we are truly willing to give Islam over to the extremists. If we are, then we should continue to let sleeping dogs lie and ignore the build up
of tensions that have been occurring between moderates and fanatics worldwide.