It seems as if the now-infamous Wespeak writer was correct. His point was lost on everybody, and his critics who wrote Wespeaks in last Tuesday’s issue of the Argus wrote largely against stereotyping, reminding all of us that not all Muslims are terrorists. Their comments were, to be blunt, obvious.
What no one did was to attack the author’s poor sense of history and logic. If he pretends that he is “judging someone based on knowledge of their actions,” he is certainly not judging them based on historical fact. I am no Mid-East scholar, but a brief survey of the history of the region will demonstrate clear instances of, for example, Zionist terrorist acts: such as the Irgun’s destruction of the King David Hotel, killing 91 people, and the same group’s massacre of 115 villagers in Dayr Yasin in 1948. In fact, the Irgun was the first group to have ever used a car bomb in recorded history. Groups such as these were savage and ruthless, but they were not bound by Islam. This simultaneously disproves the author’s ridiculous claim that the rest of the world nixed brutal behavior centuries ago and that Islam is what perverts many people to commit monstrous acts (He also ignores the more pragmatic reason for this “nixing” is that once governments develop more advanced weapons, car bombs become obsolete).
Furthermore, the author seems to have a warped sense of what a monster really is. He seems to have the impression that anyone from a man storming a Danish embassy with rocks to an airline hijacker is a monster. That is to say, in his mind, monsters use primarily primitive methods with which to carry out their aggression, and it is this—their primitiveness—that he looks upon to explain why they are vicious. The author seems to believe that a primitive act—strapping C4 to your chest and getting on a bus—is more savage than a more violent, sophisticated act, such as launching a Tomahawk cruise missile. Something, I will remind the reader, Muslims have never done to America. True, the first act may seem more visceral as the perpetrator is literally attached to his method of destruction, but the second is far more powerful. Physical detachment from extreme violence, it seems, mitigates the savagery of an act for our notorious Wespeak author. That is childish.
I also wish to remind the reader that the author about whom I am talking used the phrase “inhumane violence” in his most recent piece. For someone who praises himself for his “good use of alliteration” in his own writings, he clearly believes he has a strong command of the English language, meaning that he knew exactly what he meant when he discussed “inhumane violence.” He was, implicitly, suggesting that there exists some type of humane violence, a type of which Muslims apparently cannot understand (I doubt someone who has such incredible alliteration skills would commit the foolish act of being redundant and wrong). The author then proceeds to cite examples of ‘inhumane’ violence, all of which share the characteristic of rudimentary techniques and weaponry—from box cutters to a few pounds of cheap explosives. If only they had committed their acts via F-16s or tanks, it seems, would their acts have been humanely violent. This is, again, false. All violence is inhumane, not just those acts committed by crude means.
Additionally, what the Wespeak author failed to ask himself was why these acts are carried out in such manners. After all, aren’t monsters supposed to be absolutely menacing in their strengths and capabilities? These terrorist thugs of whom you speak are largely indigent. If they could attack within the realm of ‘humane violence’ with submarines and tanks, they would.
The author cited slavery as an example of Western savagery that some people use to justify terrorism. Sir, only a moron would espouse the argument you presented, and you were right to discredit it. You did, however, miss the point. The West commits brutal acts to this day, albeit perhaps in three-piece suits and official army gear, which may throw you off. Israel’s massive wall around many Palestinian communities is savage, cluster bombs are savage, torture is savage, Abu Ghraib is savage, Guantanamo is savage. These are the monstrous atrocities of which we speak. I urge you to look beyond the machetes and suicide vests and the twisted metal of an Israeli bus to see that a missile which destroys half a city block in Baghdad is violent and wicked as well.
To return to my comment at the beginning of this piece, however, our beloved Wespeak author was correct. The aid the United States government provides to many countries should not be forgotten. But neither should its acts of war, savagery, and aggression be dismissed as “mistakes.” To do such a thing would be to commit a primitive error.
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