Reprehensible terrorist attack on Muslims in NZ: A few home truths
The reprehensible ghastly terrorist attack by a self-described xenophobe racist on Muslims at their Juma prayers at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand (NZ), leaving 50 people dead and dozens of others injured, was unforgivably deplorable, to say the least. The youngest victim was three-year-old Mucaad Ibrahim who was shot dead; Naeem Rashid and his toddler son Talha were shot dead in the precinct of the mosque; Husne Ara Parvin, 44, died trying to save her wheelchair-bound husband of Bangladeshi origin Farid Uddin Ahmed. Asked if Farid forgave the perpetrator Tarrant, the 28-year-old suspect held in custody, said: “Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity.” That was generosity of spirit at its best.
Overflowing with genuine compassion, empathy and the milk of human kindness, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confronted an unanticipated a tragedy for her country —and won approbation for meeting the extremely difficult moment with a adroit capability.Very soon following the mosque massacres, Ardern was in Christchurch, wearing a headscarf in a poignant show of solidarity with victims’ families. The next day, in the capital Wellington, she put on the headscarf again and was seen in emotional embraces with members of the shellshocked Muslim community.
PM Jacinda Ardern told US President Donald Trump the best help he could provide in the wake of the Christchurch attack would be sympathy and love for Muslim communities. However, Trump in the past suggested that mosques and Muslims should be tracked; Muslims banned from the United States, and claimed that “Islam hates us.”
As a matter of fact in the inhospitable climate of deep-seated racial hatred, white supremacy and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the West, the Muslims — who have been objects of unendurable abhorrence, hostility, revulsion, sneer and all other depraved objectionable acts — are desperately trying to convince their Christian brethren that they too are humans like their non-Muslim Western counterparts.
But the grisly incident of 14 March was neither surprising nor unique: — in a terrorist attack and mass shooting on 29 January 2017 in the mosque at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, Canada, six worshippers were killed and nineteen others were injured; a British man, Darren Osborne, drove a van into Muslim worshippers outside Finsbury Park Mosque in June 2017, leaving one dead and injuring many more.
Adherents and critics alike agree that scholar, activist and intellectual Noam Chomsky’s ideas are foundational to any progressive discussion on contemporary politics, both in the United States and abroad. While Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis on the power of religion to organize and influence societies and movements, including violent uprisings. On the very big question of if at all religion is the central motivating factor in political tensions today, “Chomsky, unlike Huntington, does not believe that religion plays a fundamental role in politics”. For Chomsky’s concern is more with the abuse of power by the powerful than the beliefs of nations or peoples. Religious loyalties may continue to run deep, but its influence on political goals may still be somewhat ambiguous. [Vide chomsky.info/200704: On Religion and Politics; Noam Chomsky interviewed by Amina Chaudary; Islamica Magazine, Issue 19, April-May, 2007]
Chomsky is of the view that the U.S. also happens to be one of the most extreme fundamentalist countries in the world. He said, “We see this in the 1950s, which was a big period of religious revivalism. That’s how we get phrases like “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God.” The U.S. has always supported the most extreme fundamentalist Islamic movements and still does. The oldest and most valued ally of the U.S. in the Arab world is Saudi Arabia, which is also the most extremist fundamentalist state. By comparison, Iran looks like a free democratic society — but Saudi Arabia was doing its job. The enemy for most of this period has been secular nationalism. U.S.-Israeli relations, for example, really firmed up in 1967 when Israel performed a real service for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Namely, it smashed the main center of secular nationalism, (Gamal Abdul) Nasser’s Egypt, which was considered a threat and more or less at war with Saudi Arabia at the time. [Ibid]
As regards Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, one major reason for their popular support is that they provide social services. If you want to feed the poor child or a poor person living in the Cairo slums…”
The question which often confuses common people across the globe is who created the formidable and rather savage ISIS. Here is an answer — Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region. The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the U.S. would be in violation.” [Vide Garikai Chengu, research scholar at Harvard University; America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group, Global Research, September 2014.]
Looking back, some years ago partly pornographic, anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims, a spiteful, malicious, blatantly fabricated and historically as well as factually invalid movie about the Holy Prophet of Islam—a personage universally venerated by even great non-Muslim scholars like Thomas Carlyle (1795 –1881), George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) and many others —is simply an Islamophobic machination. It will be good for people seeking the truth to carefully read “The Historical Role of Islam: An Essay on Islamic Culture” written by the great philosopher and scholar comrade M N Roy, a close comrade of V I Lenin.
