By Sabaa Saleem
Sunday, July 31, 2005; Page B03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/29/AR2005072901935.html
It is a sad mad world
Since I began working as an editor in The Post's foreign section a year ago,
I have come into the office every day hoping only one thing: Please do not let
there be another story about a bloody attack perpetrated by extremist Muslims.
Not in Iraq, Britain, Egypt, not anywhere.
I'm often disappointed.
Raised in the United States, I have felt fear in my heart as an American
treading the vicious new world we all inhabit in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks. As the daughter of Pakistani-Muslim parents, I have ached at seeing an
entire faith -- my faith -- often vilified because of the actions of a few.
The recent bombings in London and Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, came as punishing
one-two blows to me, pushing me to ask the question that I know many Muslims
ask: Why do young people who are supposed to be my brothers or sisters in faith
terrorize innocent civilians to make a point I can scarcely fathom?
Perhaps the reason I cannot find the answer to this question is that it is
rooted in the non-Muslim American reality, a reality that is categorically
rejected by extremist Muslims. This rejection incites an equally vehement
condemnation by Americans of the extremist worldview.
Thus, we have an impasse: Two realities sharply separated. No nuances, no gray
area.
Or is there?
Growing up in the United States, I have learned that we Americans stride across
the world's stage with an assured gait, a confidence born of the belief that we
act in the interest of freedom, democracy and an ineffable yet essential
goodness. The images that have pulsed through me since my youth are of an
ascendant America, an icon of liberty and hope.
These are the reasons my parents immigrated here, the reasons so many Muslims
have come here. Rooted in this reality, I reject everything extremists say,
every excuse they make, and I see only my reality and their misguided outlook.
But there is some inner voice nagging at me, reminding me that when I speak with
peaceful Muslims from America, Australia, England, Pakistan and Scotland, I
become aware of their reality, which conflicts on some very deep levels with my
own. With fresh eyes, I begin to see their point of view. And I realize that
their voices have been adopted and warped by Islamic radicals.
I feel that the concerns of moderate Muslims are legitimate when I read this:
According to two British organizations, at least 25,000 Iraqi civilians have
died so far in the war, more than one-third of them killed by U.S. troops and
their allies and more than 1,000 of them children. Killed in a war that the
Muslims I have spoken with found difficult to justify.
And when I read this: Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Bosnian
Serb forces in Srebrenica in July 1995, and callously tossed into mass graves in
the surrounding area. They were murdered with U.N. troops standing by, unable to
act. Murdered after the world had vowed that genocide would never taint Europe
again. And while some implicated in the atrocity have been tried, its two main
architects remain at large. (MORE)