Thursday, April 25, 2013

In solidarity (again)

     It would appear that only Islamophobic flashpoints bring me out of blogging retirement nowadays.
     So be it.
     The April 15th bombings at the Boston Marathon were an unambiguous tragedy.  As a marathon runner, and thus one for whom the finish line is as glorious a place as any, the massacre resonates with me on a uniquely personal level. But as a proud citizen of the planet Earth, I will not stand by idly while the Erik Rushes of the world call for Muslims to be slaughtered en masse and the Tom Brokaws blame the attack on an innate "Islamic rage."
     Muslims as a collective body can no more be held accountable for the behavior of a deranged individual or minority of individuals than the pacifists and free-thinkers of American can be held accountable for the carnage that the American hegemony has visited on the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and a vast and storied population of bloodied victims, from the villages of Vietnam to the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the genocidal near-elimination of North America’s indigenous people.  In fact, Muslims are less accountable, insofar as the atrocities of U.S. imperialism have always been carried out by individuals whom we have the capacity of extracting from office.
    I will make no move even to contextualize the murderous behavior of the Tsarnaev brothers, but I will fight – yes, to my last breath – to dismantle the crucible of fear and ignorance from which hate crimes are forged, either those by Islamist outliers or those who feel that lashing out at 23 percent of the world's population will somehow lead to peace. 
    The fight begins with speaking the truth.