Where
is the Muslim outrage?
By Jeff
Jacoby, Globe
Columnist | September 9, 2004
THEY ARE still burying the victims of the latest atrocity
committed, some believe, in the name of Islam -- the slaughter of
hundreds of children, teachers, and parents in an elementary
school in Beslan, Russia. And from Muslims the world over, as
usual, has come mostly silence.
There have been no public
demonstrations by Muslims anxious to make it clear how outraged
they are that anyone could commit such unspeakable deeds for their
version of Islam. There has been no anguished outcry by Islam's
leading imams and sheiks. Prominent Muslim organizations in the
West have not called press conferences to express their disgust.
Once again the world has witnessed a savage episode of Islamist
terror, and once again it strains to hear a convincing rejection
of the terrorists from those who should care most about Islam's
reputation.
That is not to say there has been
no criticism at all. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to assure him that
"this terrorist act . . . goes against religious teachings
and violates human and moral values." Syria's official news
agency decried the massacre as "a terrorist, cowardly
action." Sheik Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi of Al-Azhar University
in Cairo lambasted the murderers for "taking Islam as
cover" and said that "those who carry out the
kidnappings are criminals, not Muslims."
But these are boilerplate
denunciations, practically meaningless -- particularly when they
come from sources that sustain Islamist fanaticism (Saudi Arabia),
shelter and support terrorists (Syria), or defend suicide bombers
as praiseworthy "martyrs" (Tantawi). They condemn no
terrorists or terror organizations by name. They offer no help in
destroying the infrastructure that recruits, funds, and trains
them. And they contain no hint that the global scourge of
Islamofascist jihad is a cancer eating away at the Muslim world.
The Council on American-Islamic
Relations, which issues dozens of press releases every month, had
nothing to say about the bloodbath in Russia until I requested a
comment. The statement CAIR then issued doesn't even acknowledge
that the killers were Muslim:
"No words can describe the
horror and grief generated by the deaths of so many innocent
people at the hands of those who dishonor the cause they espouse.
We offer sincere condolences to the families of the victims and
call for a swift resolution to the conflict in that troubled
region." At least CAIR went through the motions of condemning
the butchery. Other voices preached a different message
altogether.
Ali Abdullah, an Islamic scholar
in Bahrain, announced that the bloodshed in Beslan "is the
work of the Israelis who want to tarnish the image of
Muslims." In London, Islamist cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed told
the Daily Telegraph: "If an Iraqi Muslim carried out an
attack like that in Britain, it would be justified because Britain
has carried out acts of terrorism in Iraq."
Fortunately, a few Muslim
commentators have denounced the evil being done in the name
of Islam, and have done so courageously and unambiguously. (The
Middle East Media Research Institute has compiled their reactions
at www.memri.org.) One in particular stands out: an extraordinary
column in the pan-Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat by Abdel Rahman
al-Rashed, the manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel.
"It is a certain fact that
not all Muslims are terrorists," he begins, "but it is
equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all
terrorists are Muslims.
"The hostage-takers of the
children in Beslan were Muslims. The hostage-takers and murderers
of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. . . .
The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against
buses, vehicles, schools, houses, and buildings all over the world
were Muslim. . . . Does all this tell us anything about ourselves,
our societies, and our culture?. . .
"We cannot tolerate in our
midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode
buses; we cannot accept them as related to us. . . . They are the
people who have smeared Islam and stained its image. We cannot
clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that
terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive
monopoly implemented by Muslim men and women." When it is no
longer astonishing to encounter such sentiments in the Muslim
world, we will know that the corner has been turned in the war
against Islamist terror.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company
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