I am old enough to remember the good days of air travel when people actually enjoyed the experience. Those were the days when people dressed for the occasion and looked forward to their journeys in those humble propeller aircrafts. Passengers didn’t have to endure any of today's inconveniences such as taking off their jackets, belts and shoes and go through security checks. That was before Muslims made their only contribution to aviation, which is aviation terrorism.
Nations around the globe take the credit for making the dream of flying a passenger aircraft possible. While the rest of the world was working hard to make air travel safer and more comfortable, the Muslims were working exactly in the opposite direction – to make it an annoying experience fraught with danger.
The Wright brothers successfully produced their biplane in a bicycle workshop. Over a century later, and despite the wealth they have, all of the 22 Arab countries cannot produce a single basic biplane. They made up for such an appalling failure by developing an interest in air terrorism. It is a disgrace that the Muslims’ contributions to air terrorism exceeds that of all other terrorist organisations put together. Muslims are credited for perfecting hijacking; smuggling bombs to the luggage compartment (or in a shoe ); using the plane and its load of innocent passengers as a guided missile, among other things. A couple of weeks ago, the Muslim ‘scientists’ of the Islamic State announced they successfully detonated a can of soda explosive devise, which they planted in a Russian jet, killing over two hundreds innocent passengers. The word ‘scientist’ above is used in its proper Islamic context because Muslims use the word to describe their clerics. In Islam, it is a principle that true science has nothing to do with physics and maths and all to do with reciting Quranic verses and hadiths.
All the above thoughts come to my mind whenever I join one of those long security queues at airports. I don’t complain about the security measures and no body should. If anything, we all would ask for more security if it means less chances of accidents. Sometimes I look at fellow passengers in the security queue and cannot help wondering: “who is more likely to carry out a terrorist attack, is it that young Muslim man at the back or that old white woman in the front?”. Then I suddenly remember that the above thought shouldn’t have come to my mind in the first place. Stereotyping is bad anyway, but stereotyping Muslims can work against me, being an Arab with a Muslim name.
I don’t know if it is a matter of luck, or a blessing from Allah, that muslims managed to inflict so much damage to the world and get away with it. The only religion that orders its followers to hate, terrorise and kill is called the religion pf peace. 9/11 was committed by Muslims and was celebrated by Muslims but no Muslims ever apologised for it. Of course, most of them don’t even believe that their brothers committed the atrocities. The conspiracies surrounding 9/11 were mostly Islamic inventions that were spread by the Muslims and believed by many others from all walks of life. However, Muslims remain the only group who never felt sad about the loss of lives involved. Instead of showing some kind of remorse, Muslims carried out over 27000 atrocities since that infamous day. With such a track record, is it unfair to subject Muslims to additional security?
If the equivalent of 9/11 happened to any country, at any time in history up to the last century, the course of action would have been very different. Even in WW2, a close eye was kept on those minorities who happened to have their origins in the enemy countries, in many cases they were rounded up. Terrorism is a dirty business and there is no way to deal with it without getting your hands dirty. It is unfair to stereotype Muslims but also unfair to subject all people to one standard of security measures, when there is evidence that a certain group is more likely to commit a terrorist act. In their screening programs, doctors select from the general population those groups who are likely to develop the disease. They have been doing this for years and with great success. When they screen patients for prostatic diseases they exclude those groups who are unlikely to develop the disease, like young men. Doctors learned the pattern of the disease and apply their knowledge in their practice.
The Arabs say “ to stop the wind blowing through a door, shut that door”. The theory is simple, straightforward and it works. We often apply this logical principle to manage our daily lives. If we discover that certain products, animals or people tend to inflict damages to our houses, we do not let any of the potential offenders in.
After 9/11, America had the opportunity to name and shame muslims and, I believe, it would have been considered by the Arabs as a natural course of action. After all, it is the kind of behaviour embedded in their political culture. After the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait terminated the contracts of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Palestinians and Jordanians because of political differences with their governments.
If Muslims were named and shamed after 9/11, the above number of 27000 terrorist attacks would have dropped dramatically. If it was made clear to Muslims that the West was angry, they would have acted differently. Even more so, if the West demonstrated their anger. If ordinary Muslims were made to feel that Islamic terrorism brought them shame, insecurity and made their lives difficult, they would have gone to the streets demanding their brothers to stop. The West’s lack of positive and assertive response encouraged the Muslims’ muted reaction towards Islamic terrorism. You do not expect Muslims to get the hint and behave properly as adults do, they need to be told.
When the terrorists commit an atrocity, they expect an Islamic public approval because they depend on, and seek, their public support. So far, they had all the Muslim support they needed. But if hundreds of thousands of ordinary Muslims go to the streets, the terrorists have no option but to listen.
I was off duty on that infamous Tuesday morning of 9/11. An Egyptian friend visited me, he was clearly shaken and desperate for assurance. He wanted to hear my views about what could happen to Muslims in the West. Loss of job and deportation were in his mind. I assured him that Muslims who have no connections to terrorism have nothing to fear in the UK, and may be in America, although its logical to expect some different treatment. He prayed to Allah that my optimistic views prove realistic and decided to stop going to the mosque and asked his wife to remove her hijab with immediate effect. In my mind I wondered “Did Muslims need a disaster like that to wake up and make a change?” Weeks later, I bumped into that same friend in the supermarket. His wife was with hijab and he looked well and confident, he took me aside and said “ it was a fantastic blow to America but unlikely the Muslims did it !”.
The Arabs and Muslims do not understand the West’s civilised language of politeness. Their minds are far from ready to associate the West with high qualities such as kindness or generosity. On hearing such words from the West, their minds automatically process them to something they can comprehend, such as “they cover evil intentions”. When America started bombing Afghanistan, they dropped food aids to help some tribes. The minds of those tribesmen couldn’t understand why infidel America cares about the civilians of its enemy. Their minds automatically converted the information to a more understandable one and came with the answer: “Don’t eat it, its not halal and probably poisoned! a plot to force Muslims to commit a sin!” Currently, the Middle Eastern Arabs do not believe that Europe is welcoming the immigrants on humanity grounds and would produce a long list of evil reasons behind the European actions.
The Arabs and Muslims respect power and resolve of any leadership, even their enemy’s. This is how Muslims’ leaders ruled throughout Islamic history. In the 1960s and 1970s, Israel’s power and resolve were proved beyond doubt and were respected by the ordinary Arabs. Israel’s defeat of three Arabs armies was a bitter experience to my generation of Arabs, but we respected the enemy and spoke highly of its capabilities. General Moshe Dayan represented to us the pinnacle of military leadership, we admired his genius even though we hated him deeply. We were stunned by the Entebee rescue mission even though we wished it failed. Back then, all of the dozen or so of Palestinian organisations were not much of a headache to Israel. Something happened to Israel in the following decades that transformed it to just another Western politically correct state. Today, the Arabs still hate Israel but have no respect to it, some even doubt it will survive another generation!
The West’s civilised and polite treatment to Muslims is interpreted as weakness that deserve contempt but not respect. The western women’s kisses and hugs to the incoming Muslim immigrants are interpreted as signs of sickness, total lack of morality and an overall corruption. European men are often compared to pigs because of their lack of interest in protecting their women and their countries.
Radical Muslims, unlike the moderate ones, have been honest with the West. They never concealed their hatred to their host countries and seized every opportunity to make their intentions clear- Islam must dominate the West. They repeated their call to conquer the West thousands of times in mosques, in the streets and in the media. They named Rome, Paris, London and New York in particular as cities that must fall to Islam. Their honesty highlights the security risk and the need to do something about it. The problem it is often difficult to make the distinction between a moderate Muslim and a radical one, especially that some moderate Muslims can turn to radical Islam overnight. Stereotyping religious Muslims for added security checks can add to the efficiency of security. It is not motivated by racism, but by security concerns. There are lives at risk and stretching security beyond its limits lead to its failure. Muslims can be of any race or colour but are known to be more vulnerable to Islamic radicalisation.
I think Muslims have been spoiled by the West, and believe being a little harsh on them can be beneficial to them and the rest of the society. It is not more cruel than forcing a patient to take his medicine. Decades of bending backwards to accommodate their endless demands didn’t help. A few decades ago, the Muslims living in the West didn’t ask for any special treatment and were happy, certainly happier than the Muslims of today. I think it is time for the West to depart from its lenient culture towards Muslims, and it is only for a good cause.
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