Canned Goods

My heart goes out to all Londoners today--particularly those who fell victim to today's terrorist attack in the Underground and on a doubledecker bus. Last time I was in London, I stayed near the King's Cross station and so I know how incredibly busy it is during rush hour. I'm simply amazed there weren't more fatalities; though any life lost, of course, is one too many.

According to this story in the Guardian, "within hours of the attacks 30,000 abusive and threatening e-mails were sent to the Muslim Council of Britain's website." Why? Because terrorism, sadly, has a mistaken identity. The assumption is that any person practicing the Muslim faith is a potential terrorist. And this assumption couldn't be further from the truth and is about as dangerous as an act of terrorism itself.

Ironically, I caught an episode of Morgan Spurlock's new show, 30 Days last night. The episode was about David Stacy, a white Christian from West Virginia who, knowing very little about the Muslim faith, chose to spend 30 days with a host family in the largest Muslim community in America, Dearborn, Michigan. Stacy spent the entire 30 days immersed in Muslim culture, including attending prayer five times a day, abstaining from alcohol, wearing traditional Muslim attire, growing a beard and learning the teachings of the Qur'an. This was all very hard for him because as a devout Christian, Stacy had a difficult time participating in prayer--largely because of his lack of understanding but also because he didn't want to betray "his" God; but I felt he really made an effort to try and learn and open his mind as much as he could. After 30 days, it seemed that, despite his returning to his own life--he might have come away with some enlightenment. At the very least, he learned that Muslims are peace-loving people who by no means live to wage Jihad against western civilization.

There was a point in the show, when Stacy went on an interview at a local radio station, where callers phoned with questions. Some asked whether he saw any "sleeper cells" in the community; others exclaimed that the Muslim community had yet to apologize about 9/11, to which, initially, Stacy agreed.

And that, my friends, is what I mean when I say that general assumptions about Muslims as terrorists must change.

During the show, an attorney for the Muslim community in Dearborn later confronted Stacy, explaining why the Muslim community had no reason to apologize about 9/11 or any other terrorist attacks and Stacy, I believe, finally got it by drawing this parallel: to say that Muslims have to apologize for 9/11 is like saying that Christians must apologize for Eric Robert Rudolph.

Does the name ring a bell for you? It didn't for me or my husband--and so, after looking up his name on Wikipedia, I learned that not only was he the person solely responsible for the bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics, he also bombed a gay and lesbian club in Atlanta as well as an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing one. It's been alleged that he was tied to the Christian Identity, who "asserts that the white Aryan race is God's chosen race and that whites comprise the ten lost tribes of Israel." Not only that but a "relatively new tenet gaining popularity among Christian Identity believers justifies the use of violence if it is perpetrated in order to punish violators of God's law, as found in the Bible and interpreted by Christian Identity ministers and adherents. This includes killing interracial couples, abortionists, prostitutes and homosexuals, burning pornography stores, and robbing banks and perpetrating frauds to undermine the 'usury system.'"

As someone who grew up learning Jesus's teachings, that doesn't sound very "Christian-like". And I'm certain that's how Muslims feel about militant Islamists.