After the senseless attacks in Turkey, i have been waiting for the usual suspects to issue their strong condemnations: either through the mainstream media or on their own social media platforms. Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, i am still waiting.
I really wonder whether these people realize how this looks: are you really saying that the lives of non-White people don’t matter? Or is it Muslim lives specifically that have less or no value?
Do they have to issue condemnations and express public sadness when attacks occur in the West, because they need to ‘prove’ to others that they are ‘moderate’ Muslims, and such a need is not present when the victims are Muslims themselves?
More importantly, this is a good time to discuss the real motivations, issues and complexities surrounding terrorism. Since the victims are not white, talking about the causes of terrorism would definitely not attract the criticism we are familiar with, otherwise: that doing so would be ‘cheapening the lives of the victims’.
So we should not miss this opportunity. Yes, religious extremism is a problem. But let’s not be lazy and reduce the issue to ‘whoever does not wish Merry Christmas is an extremist’, and instead, deal with the issues of grievances about foreign policy, discrimination, lack of trust in authority (political and religious), the occupation of Iraq (which happened almost exactly 13 years ago to this day), the military-industrial complex, socio-economic disenfranchisement, and have an honest conversation about these matters. If we are really interested in solving the problem.
But if we are just interested in scoring points with others or in ‘proving’ ourselves, sure, let’s just continue to ‘condemn’ terrorism (selectively), blame religious extremism, and then lament when the problem still exists: basically, do the same things and then express surprise or outrage when the outcome is not different.
Source: Walid J Abdullah
