By: Jane Stillwater
Back in approximately 1528, when the very first black man was snatched from a village in Africa and shoved onto a slave ship, somehow a ball got rolling that has consequences even down to this day. That single act of brutality began a long, slow process that eventually resulted in the proliferation of violence and crime in America’s inner cities four centuries later.
Cruelty always gets the ball rolling, gets the party started — but in a bad way.
So. What cruelties, exactly, got the Islamic terrorist ball rolling? Was it when Mohammad (PBUH) wrote the Qu’ran? And if it was, then why aren’t most American Muslims terrorists now too? And why don’t their teenagers run in violent gangs like so many Christian teenagers here do? Dearborn, in Michigan, for instance, has a very large Muslim population and the largest mosque in America. So why aren’t the Muslims of Dearborn all terrorists? Obviously it’s not their religion per se that is turning Muslims into terrorists. So it must be something else.
“But what could it be?” you might ask. I think you could get an answer to that question from any competent psychologist since Freud. Terrorists aren’t shaped by their religion. And terrorist aren’t just born that way either. Terrorists are created by their childhood experiences. Terrorists are created by cruelty.
Take Afghanistan for instance — a country that’s known for its terrorists. Those terrorists didn’t just suddenly spring full-grown from the head of Zeus. No, they were systematically created by centuries of systematic cruelty.
First the Brits brutally invaded Afghanistan. Then the Russians brutally invaded Afghanistan. Then the Americans brutally invaded Afghanistan. Brutality. Cruelty. Injustice. And now we wonder why that poor country is overrun with terrorists? Duh.
And then there’s Iraq. The Brits systematically destroyed democracy in Iraq. And Americans gave Iraq three gifts that kept on giving: Saddam Hussein, Shock and Awe and Abu Ghraib. In Iraq, Brits, Americans and their European allies created a Frankenstein monster — step by step, day by day.
And during approximately the last 90 years, Palestine has been systematically invaded by various forms of Europeans — not to mention the Crusades. Whether it was Lord Balfour, King Richard or David Ben Gurion who invaded the Holy Land, these Europeans have all worked really hard to create Frankenstein monsters in Palestine too — and America to this day still keeps footing these invaders’ bills.
Sure, a few Palestinians have hijacked some airplanes in protest — but Europeans and Americans have hijacked their entire region.
And remember how British Petroleum and the CIA worked in tandem to violently destroy democracy in Iran and to replace it with the West’s own bloody Shah, king of torture?
Face it, guys. The whole Middle East has been under the jackboots of American and European colonialism, imperialism and cruelty for a long, long, long time. And, keeping that thought in mind, you might also consider the suggestion that perhaps we are looking at Islamic terrorists from the wrong perspective. Perhaps if it hadn’t been for the calming and civilizing influences of Islam, all these Frankenstein monsters that the West has cheerfully created in the Middle East might have turned out even worse.
Consider what happened when Europe and America unleashed their cruelty on the Congo, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. At least the Middle East didn’t turn out as badly as all that. Maybe Islam actually helped give Muslims something hopeful to cling to in the face of all that Shock and Awe.
As you may have already noticed unless you’re brain-dead or watch Fox News, the military-corporatist structure that brought us Rwanda, Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib is still in the driver’s seat in Washington now and still happily doing all its usual cruel nasty stuff. Which can only make me wonder — as our democracy dies and so does our economy — what kind of Frankenstein monsters are they happily creating here at home too?
The million dollar question that won’t get you two cents is, exactly what is the justification for all this cruelty? Apparently the justification is greed. Geez Louise! Just how many extra yachts do you guys need? Is it true that Dick Cheney is the world’s first trillionaire? And has all this endless supply of big bucks flowing seamlessly into his coffers from faulty oil platforms and endless wars made HIM happy? Yeah right.
I am assuming that you do know that the oil spill in the Gulf could be worse than anything even the most fiendish terrorists could ever have done to us, right?
I just read somewhere that there are billions of teeny-tiny little crustaceans in our oceans and they are using all that excess carbon dioxide in sea water (which would otherwise be harmful to us) to build their sweet little teeny-tiny shells. And if they didn’t build these shells, there would be too much carbon dioxide in the oceans, it would be released into the air and we would all die. So if the oil spill kills off all these cute little guys in the same way that it is now killing off dolphins and turtles, we will be doomed.
To quote Wilbur the talking pig, “I don’t wanna die!”
And speaking of pigs at county fairs, me and my family are going off to the Alameda County Fair next Wednesday. Joe and Ashley are going to buy me a chicken — to eat all the snails in my postage-stamp-sized yard so that I can plant a victory garden. I’ll let you know how that goes.
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Please sign my petition to create a Constitutional amendment to stop lobbyists from buying our country: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/constitutional-amendment-to-stop-lobbyists
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“Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!”
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Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds.
L. A. Breaux
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ami'el Sugat. Ami'el Sugat said: Subversify: Islamic Terrorists: Creating a Frankenstein Monster: By: Jane Stillwater – Terrorists… http://bit.ly/9aUswk #subversify #GSB […]
While I agree with you assessment that Western imperialism is largely responsible for the influx of potential “terrorist” recruits that reside in the Middle East today, I think that you underestimate the role of political and religious in the process of creating the violent psychopaths – for such institutions give structure to people caught up in an uncertain existence, one that gives them a false hope of some kind of “new world” if only they are willing to give up their lives for it (transforming the disaffected persons into weapons for the social elite to exploit). Furthermore, such ideologies provide a ready-made justification for actions that would otherwise be considered the epitomy of madness: that acts of extreme violence against non-combatants are acceptable because they are done for some sort of “higher purpose” (i.e “god” or “the revolution” commands it to be done).
While I’ll admit that Western cruelties got the proverbial ball rolling, the radical clergy, warlords and various members of the political class *keep* that ball rolling to exploit those who are disillusioned with reality by filling their heads with vain promises to deceive them into doing their bidding.
Jane —
Good article. Damn. Good. Article.
Recently I tried to have a discussion with a young lady of Hebrew ancestry who was dating a senior military officer. She lives in D.C. It’s obvious she drank the Kool-Aid at a young age; the very notion of our military being owned by the Fundies and ultraRight as it is, and our government actually supporting the subjugation of an entire race for sixty years is, sadly, quite beyond her reasoning.
Most Americans look at things in black and white, largely based on our isolation from the rest of the world. I’ve heard a lot of people weigh-in on the ’causes’ of 9/11, from straight-up anti-American meanness to a vast ‘false-flag’ conspiracy theory, and a lot of things in between.
I have seen two pundits actually quote the ‘terrorists’, who’ve told us the reasons why they attacked us: (1) Sixty years of support for a racist regime in Jerusalem, and (2) continued American military presence in the region.
Very, very few people have the courage to say, “Go look in the mirror!”
I’m glad you’re one of them.
-W
Christopher I respectfully disagree. There are insane clown posses in every religion. Islam is one of the calmer ones. Imagine a beat down country under the thumb of the Vatican…wait! That actually happened. Hindus have gone ape shit as have Buddhists, there is no corner on the market of crazy mixed with religion. Religion however does sometimes calm the beast much like music, allowing for a rest here and there and one hopes reason from time to time.
That is not to say at all that unscrupulous people won’t use it to their advantage. No not at all. However it could also be a tool for reminding people how they should act. This, even if it’s for a short moment provides a breather.
I think Jane gets to the crux of the matter here however, it’s not about the religious background of a group, it’s about the treatment, generational, centuries of it. And I agree with her, we need to be concerned about what’s going on here in the States in places like Long Beach, CA, or Flint Michigan and places like Australia the land of the great Firewall and Greece which has been on fire for almost a year due to rioting.
I am of the opinion that we need to be tending to the “developed world” these places are much more combustable and on the edge with more resources than these small-ish theocracy driven countries that we have been told to fear.
Wow…just wow.
Chauvanism and bigotry masquerading as anti-Imperialism. Yes, no American Muslim would be in a gang…and if he were in a gang, he is not a true American Muslim. (Read: No true Scotsman fallacy.)
@grainnerhuad,
1. I never implied that any one faith (be it religious or secular) was any more prone to violence than another – the Muslim is just as capable of waging some misguided violent campaign for the “greater good” as the Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Scientologist, Leftist, Right-winger or any other religious, political or social ideology out there. What I was saying is that faith in the cause (in the case of the Middle East, the populist causes du jour would be the Pan-Arabists, tribalists and Sharia Muslim fanatics) gives a direction and focus to violent tendencies that would otherwise not be there.
2. I often hear this idea that faith in a cause (religious or secular) has all these benefits like making them more “moral” people and give them “happier” lives and whatnot – yet I’ve never seen so much as a shred of anecdotal evidence to suggest that there’s any truth to the argument. If anything, religion just tends to bring out the most extreme behaviors in people: those who have a predisposition for seeking social acceptance redouble their efforts to gain said acceptance (most often turning them into stereotypical “goody two-shoes” types), those who have a predisposition for manipulation find a tool to better serve their purposes and those with hateful, violent streaks just become even more hateful and violent now that they have an excuse to justify their tendencies in the eyes of society.
Right on– notice that these “muslim extremists” didn’t attack Sweden, Finland, or Switzerland for their freedoms.
This terrorism is a response to a cruel and greedy foreign policy. While their resistance ideology manifests itself as a form of violent religious extremism, the religion isn’t the driving factor. The politics is.
Excellent article. We do need to recognize that there are “Christian” terrorists, “Muslim” terrorists, “Buddhist” terrorists, “Hindu” terrorists, “Jewish” terrorists, and other evil people purporting to belong to any religion. We also need to recognize that it mostly is the wars in the Middle East that are creating the terrorists. In order to get terrorism, there are only a few factors that need to come together. Poverty, oppression, and a lack of viable opportunities. If we want to avoid terrorism, we need to prevent this convergence.