THE EDITOR, Sir:
AFTER THE September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the air crash in Pennsylvania, sorrowful Muslim people around the world lined up to give blood for the victims in the United States. They lined up in Palestine, hoping for survivors who needed blood. Many in the US, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, feeling helpless otherwise, rushed to donation sites to give blood.
Non-Muslims continue to ask why are the Muslims silent about the attacks? The silence from the Muslim world is not a sign of approval of terrorists, but more of a reservation, trying carefully not to be misunderstood.
Rather than call for calm, and urge the citizens of the US not to equate the terrorist acts of a few deviant people with the religion of Islam, the reaction was to fly in rage against Muslims and Islam. Innocent Muslims, Hindus and anyone who looked Eastern were attacked and some killed without question. Some desperate people seized the opportunity and the climate of hate even to rewrite the holy book of Islam, The Qur'an, and called it 'The True Furqan'.
It was made available at no cost to anyone who wanted it.
All kinds of liberties are being taken against Islam and its people. Those who study the Qur'an and work to ensure that translations are approved for contextual accuracy have been laughed upon by those who have no reservations about slandering the religion.
To wage war against a people is one thing; to wage war against a religion is another. It has been reported, that the Baptist-Americans already have plans of going into post-war Iraq to convert the people from their evil religion to the more "peaceful" religion of Christianity. We assume that these people will be able to buy the peace idea once we've finished bombing their schools, their homes, their government facilities, their cultural heritage, their airports, and their mosques in the name of democracy and freedom and all for their own good. They may have the promise of food and water for their oil.
Whether justified or not, the war in Iraq is a war between Goliath and David. The only chance the Iraqis may have now is that God may be on their side.
I am, etc.
Concerned
Stop1998@ns.jamaicagleaner.com
Via Go-Jamaica
