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Aswad -> RE: Another Domestic Terrorist (7/29/2011 7:49:57 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: HannahLynHeather
quote:
Naser Jason Abdo you know, if i was a peaceful mind-my-fucking-business muslim in america, i would be so fucking pissed off at these assholes! [:D]
That has been the general sentiment among muslims in Norway.
Now I'm going to share a little something that I considered keeping to myself.
Parents of teenage kids may want to stop reading here.
In the aftermath of the attacks, people obviously had a lot of questions they couldn't answer themselves. Trauma teams were dealing with the victims, trauma experts were responding to questions in the media, and individuals like myself tried to offer solace and answers to people having difficulties in our immediate surroundings. In the course of this, most of the questions were as you would expect.
Now, I'm used to being the guy that holds people and makes them feel safe as they cry, the shoulder to lean on or the sympathetic ear. I'm used to keeping my careful detachment without distancing myself too much to empathize, to answering difficult questions in honest but consoling ways, to hearing people open up about things that are sometimes even difficult to hear. And, generally, I don't see or hear anything that makes it too difficult to maintain my composure, except when it concerns the people that are too close to my heart to keep any distance to (not in the sense of being impossible, but in the sense that I don't want to stop feeling intensely about the people I care about).
This time, life had a curveball in store.
I'm going to very roughly translate a question by a young muslim girl.
"Hello. I'm a 13 year old Norwegian Muslim, and I feel that this is all my fault. He says he killed all those kids because I'm here. Should I leave the country to protect other Norwegian children in the future? That's what I feel I should do. Regards, (name omitted)."
Imagine, being a teenager again in this day and age, and having such an event occur in your immediate surroundings, in a country where even armed robbery gets on the national news. Then imagine, if you can, blaming yourself for what at the time was believed to be about a hundred deaths- the youngest 5 years old- and an equivalent number so grievously injured that the firearms injuries unit was shocked to see it, let alone treat it.
Terrorism doesn't have race, creed, ethnicity or nationality. And it is rarely representative of the bulk of the people its instruments claim to represent. Some will obviously support or defend it, just as some people worldwide (including back here at home) have supported the actions of the man who perpetrated these crimes. There are always some who defend any action that the rest of us find revolting. Mostly these are people who lack either the imagination to comprehend the impact of what they defend, or the empathy to relate to it, or people who are so convinced that they are right and so full of anger and hatred that they will condone anything. Whether the acts are done by a small group, or a large government, changes little in this regard.
Most Muslims are well adjusted people with their heart in the right place. Most football fans aren't hooligans. Most patriots aren't klansfolk. Most socialists aren't RZ-like. Most sadists aren't killers. Most soldiers aren't warmongerers. Most drug users aren't cartel supporter. Most Christians aren't crusaders. And so on, and so forth.
I am aware of some groups that stand out. Indeed, to the point where action should be taken.
But even in those groups, the subgroups that cause a problem are small. Norwegian criminal and employment statistics show that three countries have regions where the people are problematic. The percentage of the population from those regions of those countries that is a problem is just shy of 25% among the largest group, and if I remember the diasporal demographics correctly, we're about the only country in the west to take them in in any significant number. Now, that's a minority inside a minority inside a minority inside a minority. It's sufficient to warrant revoking the right to stay when felonies are committed by that tiny group, provided the felony occurs prior to permanent citizenship. But it's not sufficient to generalize these issues onto a larger group. Certainly not whole countries.
I don't want anyone to feel like that girl, except the ones that are responsible.
And with regard to groups, I still subscribe to the presumption of innocence.
After the attacks, there were a few lynchings of Muslims in Oslo. And in the middle of grieving over an attack on a city that is as much theirs as anyone else's, before the identity of the attacker was found, they had to contend with fear of reprisals, and with being royally pissed off at being stabbed in the back by people claiming to speak for them.
Bears thinking about.
Health,
al-Aswad.
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