CRY ME A RIVER
With each passing year, I find myself less and less interested in, never mind sympathetic with, the concerns of people like Melody Moezzi:
I wasn’t surprised by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent statement about a “problem within Islam.”
It’s not as though I’ve never heard anything like it before. I hear it all the time.
Still, his words – in response to a recent attack in London that left a British soldier dead – made me wonder: How might the public have reacted in a different context, had Blair replaced the word “Islam” with “Christianity” or “Judaism”?
I’m guessing not well.
But Muslims are used to having their faith openly denigrated by public officials.
We’re used to people failing to distinguish between “Islam” and “a few Muslims.” And we’re used to being called terrorists despite the fact that the vast majority of terrorist acts on American and European soil have been carried out by non-Muslims.
But being accustomed to abuse doesn’t mean we bruise less. If anything, being beaten repeatedly in the same spot makes each successive blow all the more painful.
Today, I’m going to do something different. I’m not going to cite relevant verses from the Quran. I’m not going to quote scholars. I’m not going on the defensive.
Today, I’m tired. So tired that I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. Not because I seek pity or sympathy, but because I think people should understand. Because maybe if they really understood, they’d stop.
Today, I’m going to tell you what it feels like to live with hate and hostility directed at you on a daily basis.
On one level, you have to feel for Ms. Moezzi. It has to suck when people who claim to be of the same religion you are fly airplanes into large buildings or behead innocent people on the public street.
But Ms. Moezzi, a western Muslim, doesn’t get it and neither, for that matter, does former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Terrorist acts, in and of themselves, are not the reason why Ms. Moezzi has to allegedly deal with all that hostility. Contra Mr. Blair, the problem is not within Islam.
The problem is Islam.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits,” said God Incarnate. So I am considerably less interested in what Melody Moezzi tells me that Islam really is and much more interested in how Islam manifests itself when it can do whatever it likes.
And what I see appalls me. Name me a majority-Muslim country anywhere in the world where non-Muslims are anything other than hewers of wood, drawers of water or forced converts to the Islamic religion. Christians cannot set foot in Mecca or Medina in the Saudi entity; name the Christian counterparts of both places.
Tell you what, Melody. Go to Egypt and ask a Copt how wonderful the Islamic religion is.
Can Islam not ever change and become the peace-loving, tolerant religion that its adherents claim it is now? Of course it can. It’s just that despite the claims made for it by Melody Moezzi and other western Muslims, it hasn’t truly wanted to yet.
I wasn’t surprised by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent statement about a “problem within Islam.”
It’s not as though I’ve never heard anything like it before. I hear it all the time.
Still, his words – in response to a recent attack in London that left a British soldier dead – made me wonder: How might the public have reacted in a different context, had Blair replaced the word “Islam” with “Christianity” or “Judaism”?
I’m guessing not well.
But Muslims are used to having their faith openly denigrated by public officials.
We’re used to people failing to distinguish between “Islam” and “a few Muslims.” And we’re used to being called terrorists despite the fact that the vast majority of terrorist acts on American and European soil have been carried out by non-Muslims.
But being accustomed to abuse doesn’t mean we bruise less. If anything, being beaten repeatedly in the same spot makes each successive blow all the more painful.
Today, I’m going to do something different. I’m not going to cite relevant verses from the Quran. I’m not going to quote scholars. I’m not going on the defensive.
Today, I’m tired. So tired that I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. Not because I seek pity or sympathy, but because I think people should understand. Because maybe if they really understood, they’d stop.
Today, I’m going to tell you what it feels like to live with hate and hostility directed at you on a daily basis.
On one level, you have to feel for Ms. Moezzi. It has to suck when people who claim to be of the same religion you are fly airplanes into large buildings or behead innocent people on the public street.
But Ms. Moezzi, a western Muslim, doesn’t get it and neither, for that matter, does former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Terrorist acts, in and of themselves, are not the reason why Ms. Moezzi has to allegedly deal with all that hostility. Contra Mr. Blair, the problem is not within Islam.
The problem is Islam.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits,” said God Incarnate. So I am considerably less interested in what Melody Moezzi tells me that Islam really is and much more interested in how Islam manifests itself when it can do whatever it likes.
And what I see appalls me. Name me a majority-Muslim country anywhere in the world where non-Muslims are anything other than hewers of wood, drawers of water or forced converts to the Islamic religion. Christians cannot set foot in Mecca or Medina in the Saudi entity; name the Christian counterparts of both places.
Tell you what, Melody. Go to Egypt and ask a Copt how wonderful the Islamic religion is.
Can Islam not ever change and become the peace-loving, tolerant religion that its adherents claim it is now? Of course it can. It’s just that despite the claims made for it by Melody Moezzi and other western Muslims, it hasn’t truly wanted to yet.
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