It is encouraging to hear Muslims speaking out to condemn terrorism, and to acknowledge that it is mostly Muslims who are committing it. This from Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel.
We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own.We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image.
We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.
We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges.
(via LGF)
UPDATE 9/6: On the other hand, there are still plenty of people like this.
Posted by dan at September 6, 2004 12:10 AM