My answer to What do you call a person who thinks all Muslims are terrorists just because of ISIS?
Answer by Vishu Menon:
That person is a terrorist of another kind. To promote his own brand of religious intolerance and extremism, he brands the prey the predator. Take a look at those buildings in the cities of Iraq and Syria that have been reduced to debris. They were not destroyed by the Islamic terrorist, but by the American and European airborne terrorists who have no business to be there. That’s not to say that Islamic terrorism does not exist or that it is not a terrible menace in a peaceful world.
The deaths caused due to Islamic terrorism in Bombay, London Underground, Paris and Brussels – even the 2001 September attacks – add up to a minuscule part of the loss of Muslim lives in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Though Boko Haram is supposed to target Christians, more Muslims die there than Christians (who are mostly confined to the Southern Nigeria).
That the Islamic State, which should sound an attractive name to an average religious Muslim, has not been able to gather up more than thirty thousand volunteers from 1.6 Billion or more Muslims , and that nearly all Muslim scholars decry the Islamic State and brand it un-Islamic should show that not every Muslim has a part in the Islamic terrorism; he would rather stay as far way from it as he could.
Yet the average Muslim survives by balancing on the tip of a double-edged sword. She is attacked, killed or raped by Islamic terrorists on the ground; she bears the brunt of the bombing by American crusaders and Saudi Arabia’s super-jihadi government from above. She tries to escape the deadly reality by running away to Europe, and gets caught up in the political tug-of war between nations on the continent if she, her children and relatives are not already drowned in the sea. Thus the worst victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims.
She goes in search of a job, a better life, or simply to see the sights of the glitzy America. Europe or the British Isles where the streets are supposed to be lined with gold. Her quest is for a normal life. Yet she gets blamed, pushed around, humiliated at airports and is always viewed with suspicion by her neighbours and the police. When subjected to such experiences incessantly, some of the Islamic youth tend to persuade themselves that the time had come to fight back by joining the forces that are their nemesis in the first place – the terrorists.
It’s a vicious circle which can only be broken by conscious understanding, making discrete but firm surveillance to weed out, counsel and de-indoctrinate the suspects without hurting the religious sentiments of the community. On the other hand if Islam does not wish to face complete isolation , the clerics, parents Islamic intellectuals and teachers should join hands with those who are trying sincerely to find the right solution by a realignment of inter-community communication and relationship.
Utterances like those of Donald Trump in America can only vitiate the situation; if he gets the authority to do what he says he would, it would be goodbye to world peace for a long time to come – if that time comes at all. This is also true of the current situation in India which houses nearly a fifth of the world population, a substantial part of it (13-14%) being Muslims. The spiteful laws such as those that are being revived, and the attitude of a section of the majority towards Muslims could generate terrorist thoughts among a few Muslim youths who have no other way to fight back. If you corner a cat, it would fight like a leopard.
One more point: The supposedly secular governments of the West should stop taking sides in the Sunni-Shia war that has gone on for 1400 years. Left alone, history shows that it subsides for quite a few years, but to erupt again at the slightest interference. So don’t interfere.
What do you call a person who thinks all Muslims are terrorists just because of ISIS?
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