Why Muslims protest

Muriel Gray wants to know why Muslims are so quick to demonstrate loudly against police action while staying relatively quiet about terrorist atrocities:

One cannot police effectively with political correctness. If young religious fanatics are the ones who blow us up, then young religious fanatics who have no intention of blowing anyone up will nevertheless continue to be of more interest to the police than young farmers from Fife.

So why do Muslims not take to the streets in furious demonstrations, not against the British police but against the psychotic killers that have made innocent Muslims the subject of police suspicion and non-Muslims afraid of their fellow citizens?

The bad answer would be that they don’t demonstrate because the core aim of the terrorists, that of bringing about an Islamic Britain, is one shared by a majority of Muslims, even moderates who might despise the suicide bombing route but nevertheless wish it to happen peacefully and without bloodshed. If this were true, and let’s hope it’s not, for the implications are uncomfortable, it might explain the deafening silence from the Muslim community concerning terrorism committed in their name. After all, there are countless Jewish groups who protest constantly, noisily and vigorously against the policies of Israel, which they not only despise on the behalf of Palestinians, but they also feel stoke up anti-Semitism and hatred. Where is the Islamic equivalent?

I had similar thoughts when I saw Mohammad Sidique Khan's video on TV again recently.  Attempting to justify his act of mass murder he said:

Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight.

How come Iraqis are his 'people'?  Khan was a Pakistani.  He had chosen to identify the Iraqis as his 'people' as part of his commitment to jihad.  However,  his rage was conveniently delayed until after the invasion of Iraq.  He clearly wasn't angry enough about the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of  'his people' by Saddam to attempt a suicide bombing in Iraq or against the Iraqi embassy.  Like most Islamists in the UK,  he was unconcerned by the mass murder of Muslims by other Muslims.

And that goes to the heart of it.  Muslim anger is fuelled by the actions of non-Muslims.  If Muslims murder people on the tube or bomb and gas other Muslims in the middle-east,  that is not deemed to be as bad as non-Muslims drawing cartoons of Mohammed, or non-Muslim police raiding a Muslim house or non-Muslim soldiers occupying a Muslim country.

Many Muslims deplored the actions of Khan and his accomplices but do not feel as angry as they do when non-Muslims attack 'their people'.  Sure, some Muslims protested against the 7 July attacks but the sort of mass demonstration that we saw earlier this week only happens when the villains are representatives of the British state and the victims are Muslims.

The crime, therefore,  is less important than who commits it. Any action by the filthy infidel against the followers of Mohammed is considered to be worse than anything that a Muslim could do.  It is this chauvinist view of the world that dampens Muslim anger against terrorism by 'their people'.  Next time there is a terrorist attack, don't expect to see over a thousand Muslims marching through a London suburb at a few days' notice.  Unless, of course, the attack is carried out by an unbeliever against a Muslim target!

Comments

[Joe90]

I agree with your pointing out the double standards involved, but is this not just part of universal human nature? My in-group never does anything wrong, only gets violent in retaliation etc etc.

[Rastaman]

Exactly right, Steve. Islam teaches intolerance for anyone not a believer. It teaches that any action that spreads Islam is acceptable. The only cure for this form of poison is to indoctrinate the world against it the same as we innoculate against disease, while we fight and destroy the worst of it. The place we should be fighting is Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. That's the source of the worst of the terrorism, Wahhabism, and is funded by the Saudis. BTW, there are strong signs that Saudi Arabia is running out of oil. The claimed reserves are lies, this is fact. Once the oil is gone, Saudi Arabia will no longer have the protection from its crimes that it has enjoyed for so long.

[BNP member]

"The crime, therefore, is less important than who commits it. "

Well, that is how British law works now too.

I aint saying i support it, quite the opposite, but its absolutely true.

[G. Tingey]

"The muslims" would do well to study what happened to Roman Catholics in both England and Scotland, between 1558 and about 1700 .....

[James G]

One thing becomes apparent about the nature of the concept of the "ummah" as an Arab nationalist construct: it may have liberated the Pakistani and Indian Muslims from one caste structure (which was part of the attraction for many that converted freely), but it has definitely dropped them into another, more international, one.

[bruce haddad]

Sorry to come so late to the argument, Joe90, your post gets it totally wrong. How many people in America protested the invasion of Iraq? How many in Britain protested it? Remember the huge "Not in my name" signs that people carried with them to protest the invasion? Where was the muslim equivalent over the june 7th bombings or 9/11?

Muslims get very upset when non-muslims kill muslims, but not very upset when muslims kill other muslims and even less upset (in many cases actually happy) when muslims kill non muslims. You want proof? Look at all the hatred directed towards Israelis and jews by muslims. When was the last time you saw or heard a muslim protest against the massacres in Darfur? Muslims in Darfur have killed more non muslim black africans in the space of 3 years than israelis have palestinians in the last 60.