Quiet Racism
I read a very interesting article in The Nation yesterday. In it, Naomi Klein provides the case of Sayyid Qutb, viewed by many as the founder of the modern Islamic radicalism. How he came to be so outraged that he felt it necessary to kill others is what I found so interesting, and, important.
Qutb came to the United States in 1948 to attend college in Colorado, the same year that the Israel was recognized by the United Nations. He was deeply hurt by the suffering of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled by the new government, yet he saw no grief whatsoever in America. It wasn't that the American public wasn't aware - it was that the American public didn't care (is rhyming bad in a column?). Examples of the same lack of interest in the affairs of "brown people" is evident today, just as much so as in 1948. When four people were killed in a car crash in Avon last month, it recieved at least a week of intense coverage. The same day the crash occurred, over 900 Bangladeshis were killed in a train wreck, but that only warranted a small, single-paragraph note in the back of the paper. Furthermore, the media and American public obsesses over American dead in Iraq - around 1,850, with another 15,000 or so wounded - yet doesn't even bother to attempt to seriously count the number of Iraqi dead - at least 30,000 from direct war casualties, and over 100,000 from the disruption and destruction that overall has occurred.
After Qutb left the United States and returned to Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, an dissident group that the Egyptian government intensely feared. He was arrested and severly tortured, and this treatment further fueled his fury. The combination of his brutal treatment at the hands of his own government and the Western public which cared little for his or any other non-Westerner's suffering was what helped shape his ideology that has today resulted in the bloodiest struggle in the Western world since World War II.
The importance of this ties in to the "homegrown" terrorists that launched the recent attacks in London. Many in the mainstream media blame the problem on the willingness of the British to be so inclusive of immigrants, allowing large numbers into their country and pushing tolerance and multiculturalism. They blame young Muslims with not seeing a good thing when they have it, and instead running off on some violent fantasy. While intolerance on the part of the immigrants does play a role in the situation, the intolerance on the part of the native population is even more virulent. While racism exists in every society, and will be part of them for a very long time, if not forever, the most distressing aspect of this "silent racism" that motivates terrorists (the London bombers watched videos of American troops killing civilians in Iraq to get pumped up for their impending death) is undoubtedly the active support of causes that suppress the less fortunate, especially the Arabs.
One of President Bush's main arguments for the war in Iraq is that by fighting them over there, we will not have to fight them here. While this makes sense to the average white American, who couldn't care less about "over there," step back and look at the extreme callousness of the statement. What if Osama Bin Laden justified the attacks on September 11 with the same rationale - better to fight the infidels in America that in, say, Iraq? The truth of the matter is, the leader of the most powerful country on Earth is more than willing to sacrifice dozens of Iraqi lives for every American life he can save. The Lancet study that listed 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties was done 18 months after the war began, and now it is more like 30. Furthermore, in the intervening time, the city of Fallujah, once inhabited by 300,000 people, has been basically leveled to the ground, with witnesses drawing comparisons to postwar Germany in 1945. It would therefore be reasonable to estimate that at least 150,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq. Less than 3,000 Americans were killed in September 11 attacks - roughly a ratio of one American to fifty Iraqis. It is this callous brutality that drives terrorists forward, and if we stop, they will lose much of the rationale for their jihads and lose their recruiting pools that have been growing since April 2003.
Qutb came to the United States in 1948 to attend college in Colorado, the same year that the Israel was recognized by the United Nations. He was deeply hurt by the suffering of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled by the new government, yet he saw no grief whatsoever in America. It wasn't that the American public wasn't aware - it was that the American public didn't care (is rhyming bad in a column?). Examples of the same lack of interest in the affairs of "brown people" is evident today, just as much so as in 1948. When four people were killed in a car crash in Avon last month, it recieved at least a week of intense coverage. The same day the crash occurred, over 900 Bangladeshis were killed in a train wreck, but that only warranted a small, single-paragraph note in the back of the paper. Furthermore, the media and American public obsesses over American dead in Iraq - around 1,850, with another 15,000 or so wounded - yet doesn't even bother to attempt to seriously count the number of Iraqi dead - at least 30,000 from direct war casualties, and over 100,000 from the disruption and destruction that overall has occurred.
After Qutb left the United States and returned to Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, an dissident group that the Egyptian government intensely feared. He was arrested and severly tortured, and this treatment further fueled his fury. The combination of his brutal treatment at the hands of his own government and the Western public which cared little for his or any other non-Westerner's suffering was what helped shape his ideology that has today resulted in the bloodiest struggle in the Western world since World War II.
The importance of this ties in to the "homegrown" terrorists that launched the recent attacks in London. Many in the mainstream media blame the problem on the willingness of the British to be so inclusive of immigrants, allowing large numbers into their country and pushing tolerance and multiculturalism. They blame young Muslims with not seeing a good thing when they have it, and instead running off on some violent fantasy. While intolerance on the part of the immigrants does play a role in the situation, the intolerance on the part of the native population is even more virulent. While racism exists in every society, and will be part of them for a very long time, if not forever, the most distressing aspect of this "silent racism" that motivates terrorists (the London bombers watched videos of American troops killing civilians in Iraq to get pumped up for their impending death) is undoubtedly the active support of causes that suppress the less fortunate, especially the Arabs.
One of President Bush's main arguments for the war in Iraq is that by fighting them over there, we will not have to fight them here. While this makes sense to the average white American, who couldn't care less about "over there," step back and look at the extreme callousness of the statement. What if Osama Bin Laden justified the attacks on September 11 with the same rationale - better to fight the infidels in America that in, say, Iraq? The truth of the matter is, the leader of the most powerful country on Earth is more than willing to sacrifice dozens of Iraqi lives for every American life he can save. The Lancet study that listed 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties was done 18 months after the war began, and now it is more like 30. Furthermore, in the intervening time, the city of Fallujah, once inhabited by 300,000 people, has been basically leveled to the ground, with witnesses drawing comparisons to postwar Germany in 1945. It would therefore be reasonable to estimate that at least 150,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq. Less than 3,000 Americans were killed in September 11 attacks - roughly a ratio of one American to fifty Iraqis. It is this callous brutality that drives terrorists forward, and if we stop, they will lose much of the rationale for their jihads and lose their recruiting pools that have been growing since April 2003.
posted by Jimmy at 12:39 AM
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