Ill society cannot defeat enemy
By: Mohamed Sherif Kamel
We are still in the first
shock of what has happened on Tuesday September 11th, 2001 in NY
and Washington, we still cannot be sure if that was a science fiction
movie or if it was reality. This date is the beginning of a new
era, a date where a line will be forever drawn between what we were
before and what we will become after September11th, 2001.
Our heart is going out
to those who lost their peace, to those who lost their lives, to
those who lost close family members and friends. Our heart is going
out to those who lost a father, a mother or a child and we offer
our prayers to those who died and to those who survived this terrible
attack.
We are the first to feel
this pain, because we have been living with it for a number of years,
we have been suffering throughout modern history from lack of peace,
from injustice and unfairness. Those who have relatives in any place
across the ocean would know more about what this terror means, which
in no way minimize our pain of this horrific attack, but it is simply
to underline our understanding of this pain.
This attack showed the
face of every body not as per the media, but as per the people practicing
in the street. We the Muslim citizen have been treated for a long
time unfairly by the media, and many of the media remains to date
committed to the racist behavior toward the Muslim and Arab communities
while neglecting the fact that we are citizens of this land with
full citizenship's rights and obligations.
When a society is proud
of being civilized, many of its media outlet spread hate and some
of the population practice this hate, that means this society is
ill and could not defeat any enemies, this society can only create
enemies. We never point our fingers to the majority of society whom
are Catholic in every attack on the protestant in Northern Ireland
and vise versa. Likewise, we never point our fingers to every Jew
in our society for every single attack against our grass roots families
in each Arabic country especially Palestine. Why finger point us
when an attack has occurred even before having any evidence, is
this real? Is this another Oklahoma? Is this because we are not
white or Catholic that we have to be treated as foreigners?
We have been treated unfairly
over the years and even more so in this grieving attack. Our point
of view is never presented and all of us are considered as suspects
even from some of our close neighbors, that is, classmates, colleagues
and co-workers. Not only are our feelings never presented but sometimes
we are presented as the enemy of civilized society. What humiliation
this is!
That is why the Muslim
community of Montreal has decided to publish this special edition
of our community paper and we hope that this edition could act as
a walkup call, to all of us to be ready to defeat our enemy, whom
will never be defeated unless we defeat the one that is living inside
us.
From day one, all and any
Arabic name on the plane has been considered as suspect, that is
as if there is no single person carrying an Arabic name could travel
for any reason but hijacking a plane, and when people from other
origins were questioned, there is no mention about it in the media.
Let us be clear, under
no circumstances would we support the attack against NY and Washington
on September 11th, 2001, and under no circumstances would we support
any act of terror against any innocent civilians..
All of us saw this horrific
attack, we witnessed many of the reports from the media around the
world covering the events in NY, but did we try to see with fairness
what is going in the world around us? If we ask ourselves this question
fairly and with an open mind, the answer is supposed to be no! The
simplest answer for this question is because every single one of
us usually likes to see what happened from his perspective and that
is why the world is full of Wars, hate and crimes.
When there is a crime, someone is directly benefiting from such
a crime. Also the precision of this horrific act point out to a
highly sophisticated and resourceful mastermind that even the direct
tools used to implement this evil plan may be unaware of.
Arabs and Muslims cannot benefit from such an act and do not have
the resources and sophistication needed for its planning and implementation.
To scapegoat the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Muslims as an easy
target will not solve the problem even if some or all of the direct
perpetrators were Arabs or Muslims. No one in the North American
media mentioned anything of what has been reported in other media
concerning other possible scenarios that may exclude Arabs or Muslims.
We all will benefit from
this war against terrorism and injustice- we know injustice is not
part of the banner of Mr. Bush- but we should understand that there
is no way we can end the terrorism without applying justice. That
is why Great Britain has not been able so far to stop the hostility
in Northern Ireland or uproot the Irish Republican Army in 30 years.
All of us here and abroad
are ready to defend the right of life and the way to live, we are
ready to be part of this long struggle, but a long struggle against
a real enemyTo build a real globally safe society, we have to build
it with fairness politically and economically and we have to bring
to justice all who did or will terrorize any people.
Ill society cannot defeat
enemy, ill society only can create enemies
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