YETMO

“The Terror of Not Talking”

How did we get to where many Americans equate the words Muslim and terrorist? And why is it that so many in Islam believe that the U.S. is the Great Satan and should be banished from the Middle East?

I just spoke to a Muslim acquaintance who recently explained Islam’s basic tenets to my Sunday School class. I wondered. Are relations between Americans and Muslims, especially in the Arab world, as bizarre as news reports indicate? He says yes.

He’s certain that Muslims believe that Americans equate Islam with terrorism. He insists that any real Muslim, however, would condemn the recent embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Fanaticism is not anyone’s mainstream religion. Just as virtually all Christians wouldn’t associate with the Ku Klux Klan, so, too, mainstream Muslims have no use for terrorism performed allegedly in the name of Islam. Fanatics, especially within the world’s major monotheistic religions, neither understand nor practice true doctrine.

This acquaintance is Egyptian and attends the Dar El-Hijrah (Home of Immigrants) mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. He says that President Clinton did what he had to do in bombing selected sites in Sudan and Afghanistan. He added that the Egyptian government, too, does what it has to do and has adopted a ‘take no prisoners’ policy in its ongoing battle with terrorists operating inside its borders.

But now matters get muddled. The story we get from the U.S. media isn’t as balanced as it should be which, I suppose, surprises about only three ultra-liberals living in New York’s Lower East Side. He acknowledges that there is deep Arab resentment toward the U.S. going back to the late 1940's when we helped partition Palestine and formed Israel, a refuge from the Holocaust.

Continuing American support of Israel, to the perceived virtual exclusion of the Palestinian perspective on Middle East issues, doesn’t help either. Our 110 percent backing of the Jewish State, my friend says, precludes the Palestinian minority’s small voice from being fully heard.

A Palestinian friend of his, who fortunately holds an Israeli passport, recently saw prison camps in Palestine where inmates were regularly threatened by dogs and held in less than friendly conditions. The point is not to depict this as rule or exception but rather to advise that we should always wonder whether we’re ever getting the full story.

How many times have we heard diplomats say that the sides held ‘full and frank talks?’ We need that now between us and the Arab (Muslim) world.

Granted, people aren’t very proficient with candor. We’re inclined to either pop a cork or avoid the essence of the issue altogether. President Clinton’s race debate is a good example. Most would likely agree that there was more heat than light in that much-needed enterprise where a breakthrough could improve greatly our country’s health and well-being.

We have our work cut out for us. We can either try to understand each other — we don’t have to agree — or just keep on keeping on.

Reasonable people can agree that the acts in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, were inhuman, barbarous and even a tad ironic. You see, Dar Es Salaam translates to Home of Peace.

We aren’t likely to see true peace if we, in the mainstream, prefer blindness, bias, and belligerence over talk.