The recent news about two men butchering and beheading a British citizen in the middle of a street in London proved to be a shocker to many. What compounded the shock was that the victim was a soldier in the British army and that it was because of this that he was targeted specifically. Such a killing in the middle of a street is certainly a crime but would be less shocking if the motive had been robbery or was gang related. But the Woolwich incident, in which the two men committed the strange crime with one of them using a meat cleaver to slaughter the innocent man in the middle of the street in front of many people, was not that. They took their time to kill the man and then posed for cameras, and in the frenzied, crazed state made some political statements and asked passersby to film him while making the statements. Though many may regard them to be crazy or mentally disturbed for committing such a crime, many others would not consider them as such for they were lucid enough to make statements. The two men did the unthinkable by talking about retaliation to what was happening to what they described, as “the innocent people back in Iraq.” I do not see the connection here. Why should an innocent man be murdered over something that is happening tens of thousands of miles away. The fact that the two killers claimed that they killed the soldier in the name of Islam added to the growing Islamaphobia in the West. Their actions are repugnant to any religion, for no religion asks people to attack the innocents. But since they were new converts, the media was quick to dub them “Muslim terrorists.” I condemn the act but I also am chary of the repeated association of terror with Islam. The same was the case with the Boston bombing. Since the attackers were originally Chechens, we have seen how the media started to talk about Muslim terror groups despite it being the actions of brainwashed, crazed individuals. The action of killing innocent people and terrorizing a whole nation has nothing to do with Islam, yet it was always connected. First of all I will say this and I am sure that hundreds have written and said this before me that Islam has nothing to do with such barbaric crimes. Since when has Islam encouraged the murder of the innocents? Even if people did it under the name of Islam, people and media should be educated about Islam, the religion of peace, and it has never encouraged such acts. Such acts will only encourage Islamophopia. Such acts will instigate right-wing media channels to sow hatred among people toward a productive Muslim society that lives abroad. With media instigating hatred with the repeated use of the word “Muslim terrorists” while screening or writing about such incidents, there will be a negative reaction and more innocent people will fall victim to the backlash of such incidents. I lived in the USA during the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and during the 9/11 attacks. I cannot describe the horror I lived through after 9/11 and how people were suspicious toward anyone with Middle Eastern background. After the Oklahoma City bombing and after the government arrested a Jordanian suspect, at first everybody around me was giving me dirty looks or shunned me at the train station or on the street. Luckily I did not witness any attack on me or people I knew, except some people calling me names behind my back or on occasions to my face on the streets. Those were harrowing periods. But there were other Americans during those periods who did not implicate us with collective guilt. I can imagine what the Muslim community abroad underwent after 9/11. Many people were targeted because of the magnitude of the attack. The media painted anyone from any Middle Eastern country as a terrorist. Many Muslims migrated to the West in search of a better life and a bright future for their children. These people have contributed a lot to the development of the countries they had migrated to and managed to become part of the society. They have also abided by the laws of the country. The same is the case for British Muslims who are in a large number and have over the years contributed a lot to the development and the social life of Britain. Such incident, if it was triggered by an individual but attached to a group, will affect the vast majority of Muslims living there. Two mosques have already been attacked in retaliation to that crime. Media should stop instigating hatred toward minority groups by linking such incidents to a particular religion. Irresponsible media reporting will not help; instead they will only divide the country and its people. They should understand that Islam never encouraged violence and therefore even if someone shouted in the name of Islam after a wrongdoing, they should not link it to the religion. Islam has been and will always be a religion of peace. What I cannot understand in the West is that the governments over there allow fanatic groups, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, to hold gatherings and spread their message of hate under the freedom of speech act. In my opinion, there is no freedom of speech if someone is encouraging violence toward others. The same goes for extremist groups in the West who speak under the name of Islam. It is time that the governments in the West take a tough stand against it in protection of the true meaning of Islam.
