Muslim Voices

I get tired of the borderline bigotry I read and hear in American media every day, and that's especially true of the electronic media. Sometimes the talking heads, particularly on Fox, but also occasionally even on "objective" channels like CNN, come close to characterizing all Muslims as terrorists (and it goes without saying that the United States and Israel are simply innocent victims). So partly because of that, and partly just because it's "fair and balanced," I'll refer everyone to this anti-al-Qaida editorial currently appearing on the Aljazeera site, and written by a young Muslim woman living in England and employed as a researcher at the University of London, Soumayya Ghannoushi.

Ms. Ghannoushi says in part: The terrible irony is that Muslims currently find themselves helplessly trapped between two fundamentalisms, between Bush's hammer and Bin Laden's anvil, hostages to an extreme right wing American administration, aggressively seeking to impose its expansionist and hegemonic will over the region at gunpoint, and to a cluster of violent, wild fringe groups, lacking in political experience or sound religious understanding.

Although the two claim to be combating each other, the reality is that they are working in unison, one providing the justifications the other desperately needs for its fanaticism, ferocity and savagery.

No wonder, it didn't take the neo-conservative world supremacists long to spot the immense opportunities 11 September handed them. Their puritanical missionary belief in being God's instruments on earth and grand imperial ambitions could now be realised through shameless emotional blackmail and bogus moral claims.

The whole thing is worth reading. I wish more people in this country were open to getting at least some of their information about Muslim views and intentions from Muslims, rather than just from maroons like Wolf Blitzer and Rush Limbaugh, and others I might name who can usually be found lurking in the environs of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.