Muslims must look inward and put a stop to many of our religious leaders who spend most of their sermons teaching hatred, intolerance and violent jihad. We should not be afraid to admit that as Muslims we have a problem with violent extremism. We should not be afraid to admit that so many of our religious leaders belong behind bars and not behind a pulpit.
Only moderate Muslims can challenge and defeat extremist Muslims. We can no longer afford to be silent. If we remain silent to the extremism within our community then we should not expect anyone to listen to us when we complain of stereotyping and discrimination by non-Muslims; we should not be surprised when the world treats all of us as terrorists; we should not be surprised when we are profiled at airports.
Simply put, not only do Muslims need to join the war against terror, we need to take the lead in this war.
As to apologizing, we will no longer wait for our religious leaders and “intellectuals” to do the right thing. Instead, we will start by apologizing for 9-11.
We are so sorry that 3000 people were murdered in our name. We will never forget the sight of people jumping from two of the highest buildings in the world hoping against hope that if they moved their arms fast enough that they may fly and survive a certain death from burning.
We are sorry for blaming 9-11 on a Jewish or right wing conspiracy.
We are so sorry for the murder of more than three hundred school children and adults in Russia.
We are so sorry for the murder of train passengers in Spain.
We are so sorry for all the victims of suicide bombings. We are so sorry for the beheadings, abductions, rapes, violent Jihad and all the atrocities committed by Muslims around the world.
We are so sorry for a religious education that raised killers rather than train people to do good in the world. We are sorry that we did not take the time to teach our children tolerance and respect for other people.
We are so sorry for not rising up against the dictators who have ruled the Muslim world for decades.
We are so sorry for allowing corruption to spread so fast and so deep in the Muslim world that many of our youth lost hope.
We are so sorry for allowing our religious leaders to relegate women to the status of forth class citizens at best and sub-humans at worse.
El_Profesor
Brazil
December 2003
SEP 10, 2004 12:51 PM