When people are killed in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or some distant land, the media is often filled with opinions that suggest Muslims should act contrite. The carnage in Kenya was such a case. Since I have never been to Kenya or any of the cited countries I have never met a Taliban, an Al-Shabab or anyone else that considers it acceptable to murder innocent people.
During Apartheid as a Muslim of mixed race I often felt the need to apologize for being non-white and a Muslim. As a minority community it is not easy especially when your ancestors had no choice to begin with. Since centuries of slavery, colonialism and Apartheid ruined Muslims economically, socially and intellectually, all that survived, was religion. Even Islam was banned under Dutch occupation. Religious freedom only came with British rule. Thus, unfair blame and a notion of not really belonging, results in a reflex defence mechanism that kicks in to defend religion and culture. Ironically, since Afrikaners are generally blamed for Apartheid, the newer generation can relate to this stigma. While most Muslims condemn every act of violence, others covertly celebrate mayhem.
How the behaviour of a few people can bring an entire religion into disrepute is intriguing.
A cynical response would be to inform the critics that Adolf Hitler and his Generals were practicing Protestants and Catholics. Together they murdered 40 million people. For decades the Vatican Bank and its association with the Italian Mafia has remained an open secret. Media reports suggest that the Vatican ordered Irelands Bishops not to report paedophile priests. The 14 000 kids molested and abused by Catholic priest in Ireland, and the thousands of other children worldwide remain unresolved? No logical person would consider blaming the Bible or Christianity for these actions.
A few years ago, one American Jew, Bernard Madoff stole $65 Billion ruining many companies. This caused his son and many others to commit suicide. Some suggest that this preliminary theft might have sparked the existing global economic crises. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef a kingmaker in Israeli politics and a leader of Sephardic Jews often stated that “God put gentiles [non-Jews] on earth to serve Jews” This Rabbi once made a public prayer that God must wipe out all Palestinians with a plague. In 2009 the Swedish media reported that Israeli soldier often stole organs from dead Palestinians.
Recently in what was described as the biggest wildlife crime prosecuted under the Lacey Act, a South African Jew was fined $29 million in favour of SA and $13, 3 million for the USA for smuggling tons of illegally harvested lobster. This single Jew almost destroyed an entire ecosystem. The Randlords who were mostly Jews, turned blacks into slaves and relocated huge quantities of local wealth to London in the 1890’s. No person in their right mind would blame the Torah or Judaism for these actions.
Do secularists, materialists and communists accept blame that Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Chairman Mao Zedong among themselves murdered about 100 million people?
When the Quran and Islam clearly state that no innocent person, tree, building and animals are to be harmed during any conflict, why are local Muslims blamed for the behaviour of a few people. Insane people, even when they claim to be Muslims are not the burden of this community. Like the Taliban that was spawned by the CIA and Hamas that was instigated by Mossad, they are the responsibility of those who germinated them.
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress