Surprise: Poor American Muslims Are The Victims Of Orlando Terror

The New York Times is doing its best to soften the impact of the Orlando massacre on its true victims: the Muslims. The thinking may be that if Americans are encouraged to show empathy toward the poor beleaguered Muslims, . . . well there would be less tendency to profile Muslims as potential terrorists and more tolerance toward the Muslims already in the U.S. and the refugees surging toward its shores. Americans are being made wary of even thinking of the term, Islamic terror or Islamic extremism. They are told that when Muslims commit terrorist acts it has nothing to do with Islam. Period.

Sanders: Don't blame Islam for Orlando massacre https://t.co/4hfJyDlQ0l pic.twitter.com/D1XaWCJbvV

— The Hill (@thehill) June 14, 2016

We have it all here in the headline of a story that was published online earlier today, on June 18:

Orlando Killings Rob Young New York Muslims Of A Cherished Holiday Respite

You would think that it was Muslims who had been maimed and a collective cry of grief was piercing the air. You would think that the terrorist struck a knife in the heart of young Muslims instead of mowing down over 100 non-Muslims, killing 49 of them. Instead, the article bemoans a Ramadan holiday, ruined not because of grief, not because of a sense of shame, but because now young Muslims have to defend the good name of the “religion of peace”. Read this and sob in sympathy with the poor young Muslim who is victimized alongside – or instead of – the true victims.

“The joy of breaking a 16-hour fast with the first bite of a sweet date. The horror of hearing about the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida that left 49 dead. The drudgery of reviewing a year’s worth of earth sciences and trigonometry notes. The frustration of defending Islam — and the right to be in this country — after another terrorist attack carried out in the name of the Islamic State.”

Seventeen-year-old Muhammad says: “I just don’t get it.”

“Islam is all about peace. In Ramadan, we don’t even curse. You’re not supposed to do anything bad.”

He claimed that there are differences between Omar Mateen, the terrorist, and other Muslims.

Fifteen-year-old Salma was warned by her father to sit near the conductor on the subway in order to be safe.

“I’m just like any other 15-year-old here,” she said. “I want to hang out and chill. I don’t want to stress about feeling like I’m different because I’m Muslim.”

Muhammad says that when he woke up early Sunday morning to the news of the Orlando terror attack he prayed that it wasn’t a Muslim who committed the crime. He knows people tend to lump Islamic terrorists and Muslims together.

“If you can tell the difference between white people and K.K.K., you can at least differentiate between Muslims and ISIS,”

American Muslims – Time to do the American Thing

Sorry Salma and Muhammad. I am willing to believe that you both feel American. And I am prepared to accept that you do not agree with the terrorist acts carried out by Muslims in the United States and Europe and other parts of the world. Then let me make a suggestion, Salma and Muhammad. Do the American thing — demonstrate.

White people are differentiated from the K.K.K. because so many of them marched and demonstrated alongside blacks. They protested inequality, demanded civil rights for blacks and justice against the perpetrators of violence against them.

When we see tens, then hundreds, then thousands of Muslims demonstrating in front of mosques that preach hatred against “the infidel”, demanding that these Imams be charged with hate speech and tried in American courts of law, we might start differentiating between Muslims and ISIS.

The American thing to do, young Muslims, is to stop whining about how you are forced to defend Islam. The American thing to do is to demand that your president and other leaders speak the truth and admit there is a problem with some/most/all Imams preaching anti-Western extremism and some/most/all communities supporting radicalism (at least to a certain extent).

Audio of my interview for ABC Australia radio: why Islam today needs reform & why we must name Islamism #Orlando https://t.co/pKFvSmMAG9

— maajid nawaz (@MaajidNawaz) June 16, 2016

The American thing to do is to understand that what your non-Muslim peers see in the news in the U.S.A., Europe and the Middle East has led to their impression that Islam = Islamism. And your whining and saying “poor me, my Ramadan holiday has been ruined” isn’t going to change that impression one bit, nor should it.

The American thing to do is to stand up and be counted among those who protest against the extremists in your own communities. Perhaps join the Moslem Reform Movement. You afraid of a fatwa against you if you do that? I rest my case.