Post by Islamic Revival on May 26, 2005 12:08:01 GMT -5
Why Do Americans Hate Muslims?
Reem Al-Faisal, Arab News
www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=64357&d=26&m=5&y=2005
A few weeks ago an American I met at a friends house asked a much repeated query, “Why do you the Muslims hate the Americans?” To which I answered in the same way as all the preceding instances in which this question was posed to me: “We don’t hate the Americans, we might disagree with a certain US policy and dislike recent American actions in the Muslim world but we surely don’t hate the American people.”<br>
The American who interrogated me was clearly not convinced with my answer and secretly I wasn’t either. The truth is that at present the Muslims hate America and now, they hate not only its policymakers but most of the American people since they have proven recently without a shadow of doubt that they agree with their elite by voting back into office, by a comfortable majority, the Bush administration inspite of it’s obvious record of lies and abuse of power. The Americans can never claim from now on that they didn’t know that there where no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They can’t claim that they didn’t know torture wasn’t widespread in American prisons, from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, and the thousands of other secret detention centers. They surely can’t claim not to know of this entire episode in which thousands have lost their lives and much more have seen their homes and lands destroyed as a result of the American military and its leaders who don’t hesitate in using the massive destructive power of the US on defenseless civilians.
My American friend was right, we do hate them now, but he never asked himself the question “Why?” Why should a people living on the other side of the planet feel any sort of emotion toward the Americans, be it hate or love? Does anyone ever ask if the Muslims hate the Chileans or love the Chinese or dislike the Uruguayans? No, we are forever asked to express some sort of intense emotion toward the Americans. So, I have to admit finally, after decades of relations with the US, that they have convinced us that we should feel something and that our feelings have been boiled down today to pure hate. And why not? What have we as a people seen from the US in the past half century but an absence of respect for Muslim life, culture or religion, contempt and disregard for our rights and finally murder and torture from Afghanistan to Iraq.
The US has further driven us to dislike America with its blind support for a colonialist power such as Israel, in fact the only one left in the region. Whenever we have tried in the past to help alleviate the plight of the Palestinians we only got vetoed by the US at the UN Security Council followed by the free flow of arms and money to kill our fellow compatriots from Palestine to Lebanon. And whenever we Arabs try to get arms to defend ourselves against one of the strongest armies in the world, which has never hesitated in using its destructive power with impunity against us, we are blocked by America from acquiring the means by which we could defend ourselves.
We have watched America attack us, destroy us, impose embargoes against our nations and then conquer our lands, imprison our people and generally deal with us as though we are savage animals whereby every single law be it international or even American is totally disregarded when it concerns the rights of Arab and Muslim individuals. Then they ask us why we hate them? Tell me why do you hate us? What terrible crime have the Muslims committed against you in the past to deserve your interminable enmity? What have we done to see you rampage through our lands destroying and killing, then claiming obscenely that it was worth it for the sake of liberty and democracy?
Is it worth it for the million and a half Iraqis murdered in the embargo or the thousands of Afghans killed by your ever so “smart” bombs? Or should we ask the Iraqis of today, whom you’ve killed by the thousands? Was all this death and destruction worth it for them? Did you ever bother to ask their opinion before you played God with the lives and destinies of this nation?
Finally, you take aim at our religion by humiliating our beliefs. You abuse our book, use our convictions to torture us and degrade us, disregarding your own laws and religion which is as noble as ours and to which torture and humiliation is anathema.
What were you thinking when you threw the Qur’an in the toilet or when you used religion as a means of torture? I fail to see the efficacy of such actions in the so-called war on terror. These methods only point to a deep sickness in your society to which it will take decades for us and the rest of the world to understand its cause and to measure its destructive results. No, the question which someday will have to be answered is why, why do you the Americans hate us the Muslims so much?
— Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer and writer based in Jeddah.
Reem Al-Faisal, Arab News
www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=64357&d=26&m=5&y=2005
A few weeks ago an American I met at a friends house asked a much repeated query, “Why do you the Muslims hate the Americans?” To which I answered in the same way as all the preceding instances in which this question was posed to me: “We don’t hate the Americans, we might disagree with a certain US policy and dislike recent American actions in the Muslim world but we surely don’t hate the American people.”<br>
The American who interrogated me was clearly not convinced with my answer and secretly I wasn’t either. The truth is that at present the Muslims hate America and now, they hate not only its policymakers but most of the American people since they have proven recently without a shadow of doubt that they agree with their elite by voting back into office, by a comfortable majority, the Bush administration inspite of it’s obvious record of lies and abuse of power. The Americans can never claim from now on that they didn’t know that there where no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They can’t claim that they didn’t know torture wasn’t widespread in American prisons, from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, and the thousands of other secret detention centers. They surely can’t claim not to know of this entire episode in which thousands have lost their lives and much more have seen their homes and lands destroyed as a result of the American military and its leaders who don’t hesitate in using the massive destructive power of the US on defenseless civilians.
My American friend was right, we do hate them now, but he never asked himself the question “Why?” Why should a people living on the other side of the planet feel any sort of emotion toward the Americans, be it hate or love? Does anyone ever ask if the Muslims hate the Chileans or love the Chinese or dislike the Uruguayans? No, we are forever asked to express some sort of intense emotion toward the Americans. So, I have to admit finally, after decades of relations with the US, that they have convinced us that we should feel something and that our feelings have been boiled down today to pure hate. And why not? What have we as a people seen from the US in the past half century but an absence of respect for Muslim life, culture or religion, contempt and disregard for our rights and finally murder and torture from Afghanistan to Iraq.
The US has further driven us to dislike America with its blind support for a colonialist power such as Israel, in fact the only one left in the region. Whenever we have tried in the past to help alleviate the plight of the Palestinians we only got vetoed by the US at the UN Security Council followed by the free flow of arms and money to kill our fellow compatriots from Palestine to Lebanon. And whenever we Arabs try to get arms to defend ourselves against one of the strongest armies in the world, which has never hesitated in using its destructive power with impunity against us, we are blocked by America from acquiring the means by which we could defend ourselves.
We have watched America attack us, destroy us, impose embargoes against our nations and then conquer our lands, imprison our people and generally deal with us as though we are savage animals whereby every single law be it international or even American is totally disregarded when it concerns the rights of Arab and Muslim individuals. Then they ask us why we hate them? Tell me why do you hate us? What terrible crime have the Muslims committed against you in the past to deserve your interminable enmity? What have we done to see you rampage through our lands destroying and killing, then claiming obscenely that it was worth it for the sake of liberty and democracy?
Is it worth it for the million and a half Iraqis murdered in the embargo or the thousands of Afghans killed by your ever so “smart” bombs? Or should we ask the Iraqis of today, whom you’ve killed by the thousands? Was all this death and destruction worth it for them? Did you ever bother to ask their opinion before you played God with the lives and destinies of this nation?
Finally, you take aim at our religion by humiliating our beliefs. You abuse our book, use our convictions to torture us and degrade us, disregarding your own laws and religion which is as noble as ours and to which torture and humiliation is anathema.
What were you thinking when you threw the Qur’an in the toilet or when you used religion as a means of torture? I fail to see the efficacy of such actions in the so-called war on terror. These methods only point to a deep sickness in your society to which it will take decades for us and the rest of the world to understand its cause and to measure its destructive results. No, the question which someday will have to be answered is why, why do you the Americans hate us the Muslims so much?
— Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer and writer based in Jeddah.