Responsibilities of a civilised society

Free speech in West has been reduced to taking on an already marginalised and demonised Muslim minority

The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the recent shooting in Texas and warned of more such attacks to come. While it is not a verified claim, it does make life for most American Muslims a bit more difficult in their own country. They are now a more suspect community. More because they were already under suspicion since 9/11. Many innocent Muslims have already paid a heavy price for this suspicion and more would do the same if Muslims as a community are continued to be kept under the general surveillance radar in the US rather than treated as not guilty until proven as such. What is, however, not understandable is as to why youngsters raised in what is supposed to be the most civilised society seem to have adopted a path that is most uncivilised, to say the least. There must be something terribly wrong with a society which has the largest number of ranking universities, the largest number of Nobel Prize winners, largest number of intellectuals, largest number of affluent citizens, a society that is liberal and tolerant, to produce such deadly mindsets — that give rise to Islamophobes and Muslim extremists both. Civilised democracies create conditions that do not let such mindsets thrive.

Most Muslims the world over, including those who live in the US and Europe, do not subscribe to the ideology of the IS. In fact, they shun the ideology that thrives on naked terrorism. And that makes them even more direct targets of the extremists’ hatred. Consequently, this has led to a civil war-like situation in many Muslim countries. Armies in these countries, after having come under heavy suicide attacks and ambushes from these highly radicalised, violent groups, are now waging full-scale wars within their respective territories against elements subscribing to this distorted ideology. Most Muslim countries which are today confronted with the menace of terrorism are also those whose ruling elite had over decades, misused religion to perpetuate their stranglehold over their societies, keeping them in a perpetual state of destitution while the rulers themselves publicly enjoyed a lifestyle of royalty. This blatant contradiction was provocation enough for the poor and indigent and even educated and well-off citizens in these societies to be lured by the militant ideologies based on distorted interpretations of faith.

And by association, the US and European countries also went up on their hit list since the ruling elite in most of these Muslim countries were very close to the governments in these Western countries. In fact, the continuing oppression of Palestinians at the hands of successive Israeli governments, with encouragement from the US and the West with governments in oil-rich Muslim countries preferring to keep quiet rather than losing the friendship of these powerful countries, seemed to have deepened the alienation of these militants.

The use of a distorted version of jihad by the US to rout the Soviet Union in Afghanistan to avenge its own defeat in Vietnam was perhaps, the final straw on the back of the Arab camel. Therefore, we saw the rise of Osama bin Laden and consequently the 9/11 attacks. This is not to justify the acts of terror perpetrated by militants but only to list the probable causes of the mindset of these extremists and try at the same time to fathom the mindset of those in the civilised societies of the US and the West, who in the name of free speech do not mind hurting the religious sentiments of an already marginalised Muslim community living in the West. The Texas shooting shouldn’t confuse us about what the right to free speech should mean. Free speech is meaningful when it genuinely questions and challenges an unjust status quo or power structures. In the case of the event that was being held in Texas, as in other recent cases in the West, free speech has been reduced to taking on an already marginalised and demonised Muslim minority. It remains to be seen how the advanced societies of the West plan on stemming the rise of extremism, whether it is being perpetrated by Muslim extremists or Islamophobes.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2015.

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