So Ted Cruz wants our country to admit only Syrian Christian refugees, Donald Trump and Ben Carson think we need to monitor or close Mosques here in the U.S. and force Muslims to register, and John Kasich wants to create a federal agency to promote Judeo-Christian values.
What is wrong with this picture?
Well, a lot of things, but here’s a big one. All of them are convoluting terrorism and religion.
They are doing so because they do not understand something they should already know: Terrorism has no religion.
This is something Nausheena Hussein, deputy director of the Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said recently when he condemned the Paris terrorists. I think he identified a fundamental truth all Americans need to hear, indeed, all non-Muslims.
So let me repeat it again: Terrorism has no religion.
Never mind that the name ISIS stands for Islamic State in Syria (and Iraq). ISIS leaders may claim to be acting in the name of God, or establishing a modern caliphate, but they are liars.
ISIS has no conscience, no morals, no principles, is led by cowards who use hidden bombs and surprise attacks to kill indiscriminately to put fear in others.
No person or group that acts that way is religious no matter what they say about themselves.
But their false claims do matter to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, and they are saying so. Immediately after the Paris attacks Muslim youth all over the world posted and tweeted the phrase: “Not In My Name.” In addition, major Muslim leaders and groups here and in Europe have also condemned ISIS.
Our role can be to lend whatever support we can to them. What we should not do is to try to tell them how they should respond, what they should be saying, or insist that ISIS does represent Mohammed’s teachings.
Just as Muslims cannot and should not tell Christians or Jews that extremists among them do in fact represent the teachings of Jesus or Moses, non-Muslims should stop saying this about ISIS and the teachings of the Qur’an.
Religion doesn’t make people terrorists. False religion might, but not real religion. Terrorists are terrorists.
The irony is that ISIS wants Americans to believe they are true Muslims because they want us to fear all Muslims, making it more likely we will do the very things Republican presidential candidates say we should do.
That would hand them the kind of anti-Western propaganda money could not buy. We should not allow this to happen.
So the next time you hear someone go off on Muslims because of ISIS, you might remind them of what Barry Goldwater, a true conservative of another generation, said about the uproar over gays in the military, “It’s not nothing, but it’s damn close to it.”
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Well said Jan. Extreme responses to extreme groups will only cause greater problems.
Let’s hope most Americans realize that, Wilbur. Thanks.
I certainly agree, Jan. The circular logic (and blind spots) of the reactionary folk amazes me.
Me, too. Thanks, Rollie.
I agree that terrorism has no religion and is not a religion in any sense. Terrorism is a tactic currently being used by a very radical segment (ISIS) of a religion (Islam) in an attempt to achieve that segment’s goal of a world wide caliphate. It is very easy & tempting to paint all of Islam with a wide brush of terrorism, but I do not think that is valid. I think we are seeing a lot of that kind of painting being done in America today, especially by various politicians and political candidates. I do think that Islam is a very expansionist religion which thinks the whole world should be Muslim. I totally oppose that idea. It appears to me that ISIS is a bunch of Muslims (and Muslim converts) that have let radicalism overtake them. I also think that ISIS has become a serious problem for the world and that the only way that problem can really be solved is from within Islam. It cannot be solved by bombing them back to the Stone Age, which has been suggested by some.
Can or will that problem be solved from within Islam? I don’t know.
Wally, my point is different from the one you make. ISIS requires a military response. From my perspective the only thing the Muslim world can do is to name ISIS for what it is, a phony, bogus group claiming to be Muslim, but isn’t. I could say the same thing about the KKK. It’s not Christian, but claims to be. So did Timothy McVey. Nothing Christianity can do about either except to reject their religious claims. Moreover, Islam is not more expansionist than is Christianity that says it must go into all the world making disciples of all nations (the Great Commission).
“Islam is not more expansionist than is Christianity that says it must go into all the world making disciples of all nations (the Great Commission).” The point you make in this quote is rarely, if ever, acknowledged by those Christians that lambast Islam. Funny how blind some folks are when it comes to their biases.
As you know, Rollie, that “blindness” is epidemic within the Christian community, as I suspect it is within Islam, because both traditions are rooted in an historic conviction that their way is the only way. Peace will be possible between them only when both address this fundamental problem.