Imam Rauf And The Narrative Of Muslim Victimization

From The American Thinker:

September 12, 2010


Imam Rauf and the Narrative of Muslim Victimization

Thomas Lifson



Joel Mowbray makes an important point about Imam Rauf in today's Washington Times. Beneath the fine-sounding rhetoric about interfaith dialogue and understanding lurks a strict adherence to the very same narrative that impels young men to strap explosives on their bodies and fly airplanes into buildings: that Islam is under attack, and must defend itself from the west. He writes:





In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Mr. Rauf could have been a beacon shining light to expose the Big Lie that the United States is the enemy of the Islamic world. Instead, he told "60 Minutes" that U.S. foreign policy was "an accessory to the crime."





Although it is undoubtedly true that the United States made many grave mistakes - most pointedly, the decision not to oppose actively Taliban rule in the late 1990s - Mr. Rauf had to know that the best path to combat terrorism would have been for him to squarely attack the false narrative of Islamic victimization.





So even as he officially condemned the Sept. 11 attacks, his words could easily have been seen as implying that the 19 terrorists were nonetheless acting in self-defense for the broader Muslim world. [...]





Openly violent rhetoric is understandably of great concern to law enforcement and news editors, but such statements arguably are not as dangerous as those that plant the seeds that could eventually lead a young Muslim to believe that his action is required in order to defend Islam from the United States.





Calls to arms merely command someone to find and use a gun. Convincing someone with a strong, familial kinship to his co-religionists that his fellow Muslims are being unjustly slaughtered, however, instills in the listener a desire to find his own gun and a reason to use it.





Mowbray is quite correct, I think, in drawing the line at the narrative of Muslim victimization. The Islamists always justify their aggression as defensive in nature. They must blow up children and bring down airliners to defend Islam -- either from perceived historical grievances (such as the Spaniards taking back their country from Muslim invaders, or the Crusaders and Israelis re-taking Jerusalem from Muslim invaders) or from the insults of infidels who refuse to concede that Islam is the only path of righteousness. On their planet, failure to submit to Islam is intolerable aggression, a position which leaves no room for compromise.





If we are to coexist, as those ubiquitous-in-Berkeley bumper stickers suggest, then we need Muslim clerics who tell their followers that Islam is one of many legitimate faiths, and that Islam is and has been an aggressor at least as much as it has been a victim. If one is offended at the thought of a Koran burning, a Muslim should be even more outraged at the dynamiting of the Buddhas by the Taliban and the burning of the American flag by Muslim demonstrators. If one demands tolerance of a Ground Zero mosque, one must demand tolerance for a Mecca synagogue. Why hasn't the Imam, whose travels have been paid for by the American taxpayer, telling the Saudis and other Muslim countries to lead by example when it comes to tolerance?



Hat tip: Ed Lasky

Posted at 09:13 AM