Who Are ‘They’? by Imam Zaid Shakir
To a large extent, “they” are simply a microcosmic mirror image of the extremist violence perpetrated by a hegemonic state dominated by elites that have reserved the right to use high-tech military machinery to systematically decimate countries, rip apart their social fabrics and directly or indirectly kill hundreds of thousands of people, as has happened in Iraq.
In that country, “they” might be the relative of someone who died of typhoid or diarrhea from drinking sewage-contaminated water because “we” thought it a noble stratagem of war to destroy that country’s sanitation system during the 1991 Desert Storm operation. “They” might be someone whose home was blown away during the “Shock and Awe” campaign that inaugurated the current war in March 2003. Maybe “they” know of Abeer Hamza al-Janabi, the 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was gang raped by a company of US Army soldiers, who then murdered her and her entire family, including her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, and burned their bodies to hide the evidence of their gruesome crime.
Perhaps “they” are from Afghanistan. Maybe the callousness “they” display toward life is a reflection of the callousness we displayed when we built the “Jihad” movement to repel the Soviet invaders of that land during the 1980s, and after accomplishing that mission callously walked away, leaving the country to endure almost a decade of murderous anarchy that culminated in the rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Perhaps the alienation “they” display is a pathetic parody of the Mujahideen “we” created.
Maybe “they” are rotting in a slum in Casablanca or Cairo, or festering in a classroom in Lagos or Lahore, and “they” have seen images from Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Gaza. When “their” anger is combined with the angst generated by globalized economic forces “they” cannot understand, forces that have marginalized and in some cases rendered irrelevant their lives and their religion, the two sources of meaning in the world “they” thought “they” had inherited from “their” forefathers, “they” are easy prey to skilled recruiters who promise “them” both meaning in this world, and a free pass to Paradise in the next by mindlessly striking out at what “they” are led to believe is the source of “their” misery.
“They” probably have never stopped to reflect on how violence is used by neofascist pundits and politicians to advance a climate of fear and misunderstanding that makes it more likely that even ordinarily well-meaning Americans will support policies that will lead to more bombing, maiming and murdering of Muslims—and eventually others—all around the globe. For this small minority, “their” obsession with Islam as a political ideology probably renders “them” totally oblivious to the religious message of Islam as a historical world religion that advances the sanctity of life, especially the life of innocent, noncombatant peoples, the refinement of the spirit and patient, dignified, principled resistance when confronted with the usurping vagaries of “their” fellow humans.
see also:
In These Times: Why Do They Want to Do Us Harm?
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
To a large extent, “they” are simply a microcosmic mirror image of the extremist violence perpetrated by a hegemonic state dominated by elites that have reserved the right to use high-tech military machinery to systematically decimate countries, rip apart their social fabrics and directly or indirectly kill hundreds of thousands of people, as has happened in Iraq.
In that country, “they” might be the relative of someone who died of typhoid or diarrhea from drinking sewage-contaminated water because “we” thought it a noble stratagem of war to destroy that country’s sanitation system during the 1991 Desert Storm operation. “They” might be someone whose home was blown away during the “Shock and Awe” campaign that inaugurated the current war in March 2003. Maybe “they” know of Abeer Hamza al-Janabi, the 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was gang raped by a company of US Army soldiers, who then murdered her and her entire family, including her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, and burned their bodies to hide the evidence of their gruesome crime.
Perhaps “they” are from Afghanistan. Maybe the callousness “they” display toward life is a reflection of the callousness we displayed when we built the “Jihad” movement to repel the Soviet invaders of that land during the 1980s, and after accomplishing that mission callously walked away, leaving the country to endure almost a decade of murderous anarchy that culminated in the rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Perhaps the alienation “they” display is a pathetic parody of the Mujahideen “we” created.
Maybe “they” are rotting in a slum in Casablanca or Cairo, or festering in a classroom in Lagos or Lahore, and “they” have seen images from Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Gaza. When “their” anger is combined with the angst generated by globalized economic forces “they” cannot understand, forces that have marginalized and in some cases rendered irrelevant their lives and their religion, the two sources of meaning in the world “they” thought “they” had inherited from “their” forefathers, “they” are easy prey to skilled recruiters who promise “them” both meaning in this world, and a free pass to Paradise in the next by mindlessly striking out at what “they” are led to believe is the source of “their” misery.
“They” probably have never stopped to reflect on how violence is used by neofascist pundits and politicians to advance a climate of fear and misunderstanding that makes it more likely that even ordinarily well-meaning Americans will support policies that will lead to more bombing, maiming and murdering of Muslims—and eventually others—all around the globe. For this small minority, “their” obsession with Islam as a political ideology probably renders “them” totally oblivious to the religious message of Islam as a historical world religion that advances the sanctity of life, especially the life of innocent, noncombatant peoples, the refinement of the spirit and patient, dignified, principled resistance when confronted with the usurping vagaries of “their” fellow humans.
see also:
In These Times: Why Do They Want to Do Us Harm?
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
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