-Palestinian Professor Cites the Real Motivation Behind Terrorism -The Muslim Faith
by Dr. D ~ June 23rd, 2014
The Western media and members of the American government continue to blame terrorism and Islamic extremism on poverty and ignorance and certainly they may be contributing factors for some. But the 9/11 terrorists were middle class professionals and others like Nidal Hasan and Ayman al-Zawahiri are highly educated doctors. Occasionally I drive by a beautiful mosque in a very nice middle-class neighborhood in San Diego where two of the 9/11 perpetrators lived and worshiped for a couple of years. So it probably will not be solved by doing away with poverty. Besides, some terrorists like Osama Bin laden was are actually wealthy.
Other ‘scholars’ claim that the rise of Islamic terrorism is the result of tyrannical regimes that offer very few freedoms to their citizens. Yet when Middle-Eastern and North African tyrants were over-thrown in the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ they were replaced through free ‘democratic’ elections with even more oppressive leaders installing radical sharia law.
The terrorist leaders themselves continue to claim that their real motivations come from their Muslim religion but educators, government officials, and media news jockeys refuse to go there for the sake of Islamophobia which is supposedly a problem in America. When it comes to terrorism, Islam continues to be the unnamed ‘elephant in the room’ particularly in the USA where diversity is a major PC cultural value.
From my perspective the truth is the real problem since it makes us all a bit uncomfortable to consider that the traditional teachings of a major world religion may be behind so mush of the strife, terrorism, and on-going wars in today’s world. Especially problematic for those of us who support freedom of religion and would like to extend it to American Muslims without it being a death sentence for our nation and our freedoms.
Nevertheless, here is a Palestinian professor from the Islamic University in Gaza who is aware of how the Western media would like to portray terrorism and yet he claims that it is the normal result of faithful adherence to the Muslim religion and not at all radical. From The Blaze:
…Dr. Subhi Al-Yazji … decried “biased media outlets” for promoting the brainwashing and poverty explanations for the terrorism phenomenon.
Al-Yazji referred to attacks against Israelis as “martyrdom operations” not terrorism.
“We must realize that the Islamic concept of sacrifice motivates many of our youth to carry out martyrdom operations,” said Al-Yazji. “Contrary to how they are portrayed by the West and some biased media outlets, which claim that they are youths of 18-20 years who have been brainwashed, most of the people who sacrificed their lives for the sake of Allah were engineers and had office jobs. They were all mature and rational.”
“Some people claim that they did this for the money. Take, for example, someone like brother Sa’d, who was an engineer, had an office job, owned a home and a car, and was married – what made him embark on Jihad? He believed that the Muslim faith requires us to make sacrifices.”
View Dr. Al-Yazii’s interview in the video above.
Response: The professor’s words will probably not change anyone’s mind or approach in the American government or media. They are far too committed to erroneous and far more comfortable and convenient explanations.
To admit that the problem may lie at the foundation of Islam presents us with a major dilemma of how Islam should be treated in America. Even though the vast majority of American Muslims are loyal citizens and moderate should American mosques be spied upon by government agents in order to prevent the rise of home-grown terrorism in this country? The current administration does not think so. But does the First Amendment really extend freedom to Muslim radicals to organize in are very midst?
One is tempted to support government supervision and yet it could provide a precedent that might backfire on conservative Christians. A future administration could consider ‘evangelicals’ to be the real enemy. *Top
June 23rd, 2014 at 8:55 am
And the professor’s words don’t change my mind either. The young people involved with radical Islam are young, and that should be a clue. They attached to radical ideals and find expression for that radicalism in Islam, for which there is a track record leading back decades. So, yes, the proximate cause is the religion, in the sense that it gives voice to the emotional needs of young people that largely drive these groups, led by those long ago radicalized. For some it is poverty, unemployment, and oppression that underpin the radicalism. For some it is a new tradition of resistance to oppressive governments, and it is no surprise that the topping of said government is followed by many, but not all, radicalized persons that connect the topping of the government with their radical position. Remember also that the koran, just was the bible, is filled with moral prescriptions that give solidity to a future oriented movement e.g sharia. There are 1.5 billion muslims, what percent are radical and terrorist?. and what about moderate muslim countries such as countries of the former USSR, Indonesia, and Turkey, not to mention American Muslims. It’s easy to dispute the claim that Islam per se is the exhortation for terrorism and repressive ideology. If one’s world view is offended by a false religion having many followers, then it becomes easy to turn the discussion to those aspects of Islam that are being used as a basis for terrorism and forced fundamentalism.
June 23rd, 2014 at 11:46 pm
Mark,
One thing for sure, different world views result in and produce different conclusions in regard to religion and the root causes of terrorism. It makes it really difficult for us in the West to really understand and properly weigh all of the contributing factors that go into the making of a terrorist.
June 24th, 2014 at 5:52 am
Thank You