Ahmed Rehab , a Muslim civil rights activist reports :
1. Newt Gingrich
wasted no time on FOX yesterday asking that "we should test EVERY person of a MUSLIM background."
wasted no time on FOX yesterday asking that "we should test EVERY person of a MUSLIM background."
Take very good note on who terrorism really benefits. Note who are the first to exploit our deepest tragedies and waste no time promoting their radical blanket agenda, while the rest of us are busy grieving. Note that he is not actually concerned with terrorism like the rest of us, note that he did not say "terrorists" or "suspected terrorists" or "radicals" but "EVERY MUSLIM." Note that THIS is what it is about for them. Note that My biggest argument against the use of "radical Islam" has been the ease by which the bait-and-switch happens and all of a sudden the "radical" is dropped and it is "Islam" and "every Muslim." People like Newt and Trump and FOX cry crocodile tears after every terrorist attack, because they see these attacks as assets to their worldview of the East/West divide, the great civilizational war, culture wars, etc. Insofar as that goes, they are the mirror image of ISIS, ideologically speaking. Both want and fantasize about the same thing.
2. Meanwhile, it is emerging that the perpetrator of the terrorist attack was a "lone wolf" who was described by neighbors as "depressed, aggressive, and unstable" after marital and financial problems. That he was "not religious" or "particularly religious" and didn't pray but that he "preferred girls and salsa." He had a criminal record with the police owing to violence including domestic violence. So it was with the Orlando perpetrator, lone wolves with deep-seeded personal problems who lashed out in terroristic fashion. The weapons cache reported in his truck emerged to be fake, save for his personal pistol. Similarly, the Molenbeek terrorists who committed the Paris attacks used to meet at a bar owned by one of them, where they smoked pot, drank alcohol and gambled. They all had a history of petty and violent crime.
3. The insistence that "Islam" is the Achilles heel in this phenomenon of terrorism, ISIS recruitment, or troubled lone wolves who seek to go out with fanfare, against the emerging data that point to the myriad of other problems, is therefore lazy, simplistic, and simply misguided. It only serves one purpose: to help "the other extremists" in the West (like Trump, Gingrich, etc.) to justify and legitimize their own fantasy of civilizational warfare and broad brush draconian measures based solely on religion or race. It is not about confusion or ignorance, and so we can no longer say the solution is merely clarification or education. This is calculated and so we must come to realize that what is needed is to repeatedly and unapologetically expose this form of treason of our cultural values, way of life, and ability to discern and understand phenomena around us.
4. The first to die yesterday in Nice's truck attack was Fatima Charrihi. "All I can say is she wore a veil and practised Islam in the proper way. A real Islam, not the terrorists' version," her son said. A dozen attacks took place against Muslims in 8 Muslim countries from Turkey to Afghanistan, over the last couple of weeks, killing over 250 Muslims in their holiest days of their holiest months, including by their holiest places (mosques). We warned that this "data" might quickly be forgotten once another terrorist attack happened in the West, the only kind that matters to some, and that the tendency to engage in selective data perception, and selective outrage while ignoring data which debunks the narrative will invariably be the tactic of choice by the likes of Newt and Trump. Well, not on our dead bodies.
5. No. This is not about defending Muslims or absolving Islam. Anyone with a single functioning brain cell can figure that out. This is about not being intimidated or shamed into a silent corner while we watch sleazy, ruthless, self-serving charlatans and polemicists play ping pong with our collective fates in the name of one exclusionary fictitious civilization or another. The secret ingredient they count on to succeed is mass fear and mass hysteria. It is what gives a lone loser so much power allowing nothing more than his ability to rent a truck to translate into the power to define and shape millions. It is what allows a washed up politician, or a cynical billionaire a shot at leading the greatest nation on earth, the birthplace of modern science, research and education.
#KeepYourEyeOnTheBall