Saturday, July 16, 2005

Reasons behind London Bombings

The New York Times as linked above deals with the feelings/thoughts of some of the British Muslims who knew the four bombers. It then goes on to talk about the Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Some of the statements made we've heard before:

At Beeston's Cross Flats Park, in the center of this now embattled town, Sanjay Dutt and his friends grappled Friday with why their friend Kakey, better known to the world as Shehzad Tanweer, had decided to become a suicide bomber.

"He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it," Mr. Dutt, 22, said. "Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?"

"It's a double standard, that's why," answered a friend, who called himself Shahroukh, also 22, wearing a baseball cap and basketball jersey, sitting nearby. "I don't approve of what he did, but I understand it. You get driven to something like this, it doesn't just happen."

They say they are weary of liberal Muslim leaders and British politicians who promise changes. They see them backing policies against the Muslim world in general, from Iraq to the Middle East to Afghanistan, and promising relief from economic distress and discrimination. Still, Britain's Muslims have languished near the bottom of society since their influx here in the 1950's.

What I'll never understand is what is supposed to be the end result of suicide bombings? How does blowing yourself up along with as many people as you can manage to take with you end up making the world a better place for Muslims? It seems it has the opposite effect. Unless they believe if they continue to do this and Muslims are hated and pushed to the point they will all join together and fight back. I realize it's supposed to somehow make the US and England leave Iraq, but again, that doesn't seem to end up being the response to bombings either. All it does is create more hatred against Islam.

Yesterday I was listening to WSPD, Denny was off for the day and Fred took over, normally I really enjoy it when Fred subs for Denny. I ended up turning the station in digust, it was endless misinformation about the Quran, encouraging and supporting even more hatred against Muslims, slamming their religion as a whole, perpetuating myths and the whole we here in the US are so much better than you are type bs. What upset Fred so much that he had his muslim hate fest going on? An islamic lobbying group created a public service ad that basically was trying to send the message that these types of extremists don't represent their religion and they don't support that type of action.

Hating people never solved anything, shouldn't we have learned that?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree. The far right has taken over AM radio. They also make it a point to flirt with hate-mongering toward the Muslim communities in th US.

Whatever sells ads, I guess. It's easier to promote anti-Muslim bigotry than to engage in intelligent debate about the issues.

Unknown said...

I was surprised it came from Fred, from any of the the rest of the local or national hosts on WSPD it's almost come to be expected.

I'm listening less and less, to WSPD, however, 94.5? Awesome musical walk down memory lane and it is more fun to sing along than to talk to the radio..

:-)

historymike said...

Except when they get on a Lynyrd Skynyrd binge.

Don't get me wrong, my brother was the world's biggest Skynyrd fan in the world, so I grew up with Ronnie Van Zandt's mournful howl. I also think that the anti-gun song "Saturday Night Special" was a pretty gutsy song for a Southern rock band to put out.

But gawd, enough already! Skynyrd was not that good. They got immortalized after the plane crash, and people forget that they put out a lot of ho-hum music in a formula that was getting stale.

Scott G said...

I hate the dininformation on the Qu'ran from both sides. I have read 2 diiferent translations of it and don't remember either one of them approving of violence against civilians. If I remember right, they are not supposed to damage any buildings or structures. I wish more people would read the book instead of getting their information from TV and radio.

And while they are at it, they should probably read the Bible too.

Unknown said...

Quran

That's the source I use most often for the Quran....

There are parts that contain violence yet no less than can be found in the Bible.

Problem with the Quran is the same as what happens with the Bible, people making tiny selections rather than keeping it in the context of the chapter.