We have received reports of hate crimes against the American Masjid Darul Quran Mosque in Long Island, New York. We call upon a rejection of such vandalism and hatred against mosques or any houses of worship anywhere in the world. Apparently a group of vandals spray painted statements on the mosque, and then draped toilet paper over the imam’s house. The vandalism stated “The War Will Rise,” “RIP US Ambassador,” among other statements.
What is even more troubling are the comments made by readers on the NYC CBS local news web site by twisted individuals calling for the mosque to be “burned down,” calling Muslims “venom,” and other hateful comments. This demonstrates the depth of the HATE that we must continue to challenge every day. We challenge and reject such views of hate as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and all faiths, all races, all nationalities, and all identity groups.
We must urge all to Choose Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.
NYC Long Beach Mosque: Hate Crime Graffiti at Mosque Stating "War Will Rise"
NYC CBS news has reported:
“A message of hate was spray-painted on a Suffolk County mosque and now police are searching for the vandals. The angry words on the Bay Shore mosque threatened a rising war. It’s believed that someone came over the fence and vandalized the building, police said. The imam at Masjid Darul Quran Mosque showed CBS 2′s Lou Young the now white-washed spots where the messages were found. A pair of spray-painted statements that were written apparently referred to the overseas violence against U.S. embassies and consulates by Muslim extremists. They appeared along with an ominous reference to rising war, but the messages were directed against neighbors worshiping peacefully. Police called it a hate crime. “This is an attack on the community here in Suffolk County. It tears at the fabric of our community,’ said Suffolk County Police Lt. Stephen Hernandez, The overseas violence was condemned repeatedly from the pulpit at the Long Island mosque and the U.S. Libyan ambassador was mourned the very day he died. So the words especially hurt and the worshipers said they are worried it might not be an isolated incident. ‘There are things happening all over the country. It is troubling to see this happening in America. The America that I love so much,’ said worshiper Mohammed Zainul. The hurtful graffiti was painted last week. Friday morning someone came in the other side of the property to drape toilet paper over the imam’s house. Members of the mosque said they believe the actions are part of a pattern. “I feel scared they might hurt my brothers and all that,” worshiper Mohammed Laiqat said. ‘I’m definitely worried about this.’ In 20 years of worship in the community, the worshipers said they have never before felt unsafe or targeted.”
In addition, note that Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
“The Masjid Darul Quran, Bay shore, NY has very strongly condemned the killing of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, and his staff, and unequivocally condemned the attack on the US Embassies in Cairo and Yemen which came in the aftermath of bigoted video film in which the beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was depicted in a profane manner. Although we condemn production of such hateful video and yet believe that this video could never be an excuse to commit any acts of violence whatsoever. The Prophet (peace be upon him) is loved and respected by millions of people across the world, and no one can dilute or erase his love from our hearts. No one should fall into the trap of those who wish to promote terror and violence. The Prophet (peace be upon him) should be our example in everything we do, and even though he was attacked and insulted many times throughout his life, he always reacted with compassion and forgiveness, never with revenge or violence. To engage in such violence and senseless killing is to truly defile his legacy. We extend our deepest condolences to the families of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the other three American personnel at this tragic time. We also condemn graffiti on the outer walls of the MDQ by some unknown people and ask the authorities to take serious action against such elements.”
My brothers and sisters in humanity were shamed once again as repeated attacks took place in Pakistan over this past week. When we stand for human rights and human dignity, we must never defend human rights and dignity with human wrongs. However, extremists continue to commit such human wrongs over the calls for dignity, rights, and peace by others. It is the shared role of Christians, Muslims, people of all faiths, and all of our brothers and sisters, to stand together in unity to Choose Love, Not Hate – Embrace Dignity, End Violence.
As Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) posted this week, there has been a renewed efforts by American anti-Islam extremists who seek to continue to cause agitation, we also have been informed of violence again in Pakistan targeting Pakistan Christians as a result of the anti-Islam extremist film “Innocence of the Muslims.”
On September 28 in Pakistan, Pakistan DAWN reported solidarity between Pakistan Christians and Muslims in support of human rights and dignity. DAWN reported Pakistan Christians fasting in solidarity with Muslims condemning the anti-Islam film by anti-Islam extremist Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (aka Mark Basseley Youssef). DAWN reported: “Chairman Khyber Agency Christian Community Arshad Masih told Dawn that some two hundred families living in Landi Kotal and Jamrud observed the fasting on Friday and kept themselves refrained from all types of eating and drinking. Arshad Masih said that Christian community throughout Pakistan was fully behind Muslims and understood the pain and agony they were passing through after the making of sacrilege film by a lunatic.”
Pakistan Christians were also struggling with the consequences of mob attacks incited by the anti-Islam film:
— On Thursday, September 27, a protestant bishop was attacked in Lahore. Italian news reported that “protestant bishop Naeem Samuel of the Trinity Evangelical Church Prayer, was attacked yesterday as he was leaving church in Youhanaabad, a suburb of Lahore (Punjab province), where about 10,000 Christian families live.”
Bishop Naeem Samuel (Photo: Facebook)
— On September 21, in Mardan, St. Paul’s Sarhadi Lutheran Church was attacked and fire-bombed by a mob angry about the anti-Islam film. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari declared the actions “un-Islamic and condemnable act.” Canadian press reported that “According to reports from Christians in Mardan, the mob attacked and set on fire the church, St Paul’s high school, a library, a computer laboratory and houses of four clergymen, including Bishop Peter Majeed. The mob also damaged and torched movable property, including a car and three motorcycles. Zeeshan Chand, the 17-year-old son of a pastor, was beaten by the mob and had to be hospitalized in Mardan.” Another report states that highly flammable chemical bombs were thrown at the church. Dawn also reported that “They ransacked furniture and equipment in the offices of mobile phone companies, a courier firm and the Mardan postgraduate college.” DAWN reported that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti Rs30 million for the church’s repair/reconstruction.
St Paul's Sarhadi Lutheran Church in Mardan - after Mob's Firebomb Attack
I am asking my friends to see if there are any charities that we can donations to help rebuild the lives of the Christians in the recent mob attacks. I will update this report as I get further information.
The cycle of violence and hate, hate and violence must end. We must do everything we can do to stop it.
Let us all support the end of violence and hate in Pakistan, in America, and everywhere in the world.
Our goal as brothers and sisters in humanity must be to reject these continuing acts of violence against any of fellow human beings of any faith. I urge my Muslim brothers and sisters to publicly continue to voice their condemnation of this. I urge my Christian brothers and sisters to also publicly continue to voice their condemnation of the attacks on religious dignity and respect toward the Islamic faith.
We can and we will have different views in our lives. But we must share the common bonds of human rights, human dignity, human safety, and human life to live in a cohesive society.
Choose Love, Not Hate – Embrace Dignity, End Violence
Our human civilization faces the great challenge of seeking to defend our inherent human rights, dignity, respect, safety, and lives for our brothers and sisters in humanity. We must defend these rights, lives, and dignity from those extremists who do not respect these universal human rights. But to do this, we must never use the words, the tactics, the hate, and God forbid the violence of such anti-human rights extremists. In defending human rights, we must not commit human wrongs. This is why it is so important to Choose Love, Not Hate as a compass of decency and dignity in our vital but difficult task.
As we reported after September 11, 2012, there are those who created a short YouTube video called “Innocence of the Muslims,” which ostensibly was initially to address abuses against Christians, but which was nothing less than a vitriolic screed against Islam. As we have seen very often from the anti-Islam movement, we have seen those who claim they seek to be concerned about human rights, but do so by committing human wrongs. The response by too many extremists in Muslim-majority nations mirrored this. There were extremists committing violence in Muslim-majority countries, killing the ambassador to Libya and others, and whose extremist violence resulted mostly in the deaths of fellow Muslims. We saw once again, those who claimed to be seeking the human right of dignity, committing human wrongs.
Since that shared disgrace, there are some in the Anti-Islam and in the Bin Ladenist camps who are intent on continuing to stir about more human wrongs to keep people agitated and fighting against one another. Pamela Geller, leader of the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) movement held a meeting in NYC on September 11, where some speakers spoke against Islam and the Qur’an, while violence was raging in Muslim-majority nations over the absurd anti-Islam YouTube video, and while Americans and others were being killed. But this wasn’t enough for Ms. Geller, who also leads another name for the SIOA/SION group called the “American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI).” She then decided to promote a series of poster in the NYC, Washington DC, and San Francisco public transit systems calling people “savages.” The complete ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Violent Extemism.” Ms. Geller knew very well this would promote controversy, which is really all that she wants to accomplish. I urge her and members of the anti-Islam movement – reconsider your views. Remember hate attracts hate.
The Anti-Islam movement remains determined, probably not unlike the Bin Ladenist movement, to seek to continue to keep people agitated and angry. This is what both sides count on. Today, on the FrontPage Mag website, we see articles condemning Egyptian human rights activist Mona Eltahawy and an another article stating that “extremism” is actually “Islam.” There are those detemined to pursue their views by promoting human wrongs. No doubt some hope to be the next Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, so that they can claim the “accomplishment” of having incensed Muslim-majority nations with some film or article. But this continued path of incitement and agitation accomplishes only one thing – it works to prevent progress in human rights around the world.
The idea to create the Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) group in late 2008 was to have a consistent focus on our universal human rights for all identity groups, all religions and consciences, all races, all sexes, all ethnic groups, and all people. What I found disturbing was a consistent unwillingness to challenge certain supremacist and extremist groups. One was sexist and especially misogynist groups and individuals. One was the resurgent racial supremacist groups. Another was a religious extremist view from some groups. Others involved totalitarian groups, such as Communist Party, which has oppressed people in China, Vietnam, North Korea, and other parts of the world.
But our goal with R.E.A.L. was never to be about the oppressors, but to focus on what we BELIEVE in – our universal human rights for all people – and our goal to urge our fellow citizens to be responsible for equality and liberty.
R.E.A.L.’s first public event was in March 2009, I was standing with fellow volunteers in front of the Capitol building in Washington DC. It was a cool, but sunny day. It was our celebration of International Women’s Day. Our goal in working for human freedom started with our support for half of humanity, our human sisters, mothers, daughters, granddaughters, and grandmothers. They deserve a voice of respect, of dignity, of compassion, and of defense – everywhere. But as we got started for our International Women’s Day event, we were confronted once again by an institutionalized misogyny willing to suppress and even murder women. In Chechnya, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov had ordered seven young women to be murdered in the street, their bodies dumped by the roadside, because they had “loose morals.” Ramzan Kadyrov emerged from Friday afternoon prayers in a Chechen mosque and told the press that these women “deserved to die.” We said that we would stand by our Muslim sisters and defend their right to freedom, universal human rights, safety, and life. We urged the public to work to help protect our Muslim sisters being abused by extremists not only in Chechnya, but also around the world, including in the United States of America.
This was and remains a very REAL human rights issue. R.E.A.L.’s protest was one of the only public voices to speak out on this. Muslim women’s lives, women’s lives, and ANY ONE of our human sisters and brothers’ lives – are not cheap. The idea that their Universal Human Rights could simply be taken and crushed like an insect by institutionalized groups promoting extremism and supremacism was, is, and will continue to be an offense to every human being.
I felt that it was not enough to simply label Ramzan Kadyrov as a “criminal” or a “thug.” I urged my fellow human beings who were Muslims to challenge Ramzan Kadyrov’s extremist views and to publicly denounce his supremacist interpretation of Islam that believed that people deserved to die because if they didn’t follow his religious views.
I compared the example to the need of white Americans to speak out against the Ku Klux Klan, and do more than simply label them as “criminals” and “thugs,” but to reject, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it the “white supremacy” view that some white Americans had that believed they had superior rights over others simply because of their white race. I argued that in fact, this did work in America, by not only rejecting the criminal actions of the KKK and others, but also rejecting the supremacist ideas that gave the KKK the argument that they had superior rights over other people. My interest in making this argument was to promote human rights for Muslims and to help them argue against supremacists who sought to redefine Islam along extremist terms. But let me be clear about this. When I urged Muslims to reject the “extremism” of Ramzan Kadyrov, Osama Bin Laden, and other extremists, I was never attacking the religion of Islam, as the anti-Islam groups and activists seek to do. I was arguing for Muslims to reject the perversion of Islam that such criminals were using to justify their acts, just like the KKK used a perversion of their racial identity to justify their criminal behavior. My argument was that it is important to undermine the ideas, as well as to reject the violent activity of such extremists.
Six months later with the inspiration of some from the “Tea Party,” a new movement started which was based on an Anti-Islam ideology. Using organization from European anti-Islam groups, a group was created in the United States called the “Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) group.” This extremist anti-Islam group also planned to go to the Washington DC Capital building. But instead of rallying there for human rights, the SIOA group went there to help disrupt a peaceful Muslim prayer meeting, including plans to bring “donkeys and dogs” to upset the Muslim prayer group. Instead of addressing human rights violations by extremists around the world against Muslim women, this new anti-Islam movement decided to commit its own abuses against Muslim women themselves. While R.E.A.L. sought to promote human rights, SIOA sought to perform human wrongs. The Stop Islamization of Europe (SIOE) group which founded this American Anti-Islam group had a motto which sought to PROMOTE Islamophobia, stating “Islamophobia is highest form of common sense.”
But hate is an attractive drug to polarized political groups, and so the SIOA did not disappear, although it was dormant from October 2009 until April 2010. Then its European anti-Islam leaders convinced Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to take up the leadership of the SIOA group. The SIOA group had a new activist “human wrongs” objective – seeking to shut down mosques to deny religious freedom and freedom of worship in the United States.
At the time, many human rights activists and myself were deeply concerned about the treatment of religious minorities in Communist China, Asia, and the Middle East, including the violent treatment in Pakistan against minority Pakistan Shiite Muslims, Pakistan Ahmadiyya Muslims, Pakistan Christians, Pakistan Hindus and the treatment in Egypt against Coptic Christians, as well as many other groups. There are many many human rights violations against such religious minorities around the world who suffer great wrongs and human rights abuses. R.E.A.L. and others have sought to educate the public on such human rights issues and seek change to end their oppression.
But Pamela Geller’s SIOA had a different focus, they sought to deny Muslims religious freedom in the United States. Their answer to human rights problems were to commit their own human wrongs. This continues to be the approach that the anti-Islam commmunity takes today. Furthermore, Pamela Geller than took my argument comparing racial and religious extremist views, and redefined “extremism” as attacking all of Islam as a monolithic practice by all Muslims.
I know these claims that Islam is nothing but extremism to be a lie, and I know the great diversity of Muslim practice, and peaceful Muslim lives around the world. I ask my Chrisitian brothers and sisters – would you want to be defined by the white supremacist Christian Identity group? Of course not. Neither do the majority of our Muslim brothers and sisters want to be defined by extremists who deny human rights, preach hate, and promote violence.
I have stood side by side with my Muslim brothers and sisters across Washington DC, defending women’s rights, condemning stoning, supporting freedom of religion and conscience, calling for an end to genocide, and calling for love and respect for all human beings. I have attended services at Muslim mosques and heard calls for love, peace, and dignity with my own ears. After the attack on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, my brother Mohamed Yahya stood with me praying for our Jewish brothers and sisters threatened by the white supremacist terrorists. He stood by me while white supremacists sought to disrupt our memorial and attack us. His answer was the same one we believe at R.E.A.L. – “you seek to hate me, but I love you.” We stopped our event and we offered the white supremacists our outstretched hand in friendship and fellow humanity. We prayed together for peace, dignity, respect, and safety.
To those of you in the anti-Islam movement who seek to spread hatred against all Muslims, I know better, and I know your argument is a lie. There are many many different practitioners of Islam, and I have been grateful to know many who promote respect, human rights, dignity, and love for one another. Your hatred cannot hurt them, because they have Chosen Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.
I have repeatedly spoken out against the SIOA, SION, and Pamela Geller’s other organizations, and the anti-Islam movement. I have publicly expressed my regret and apology for my use of the term “extremism” in my argument on how to challenge the ideas of extremist groups who deny human rights. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to offend my Muslim brothers and sisters, but to urge them to challenge the extremist views that falsely claim they represent the majority view of Muslims. Since then, I have used the term “Bin Ladenism” to represent the term of such extremist views. It is just as clear.
We cannot achieve human rights by committing human wrongs. None of us can, including myself.
We are all human beings with our weaknessess. But our focus must remain the same. We must continue to respect all of our brothers and sisters in humanity. We must defend their universal human rights, their dignity, their freedoms, their safety, and their lives. We must continue to approach defending human rights with an outstretched hand, not an upraised fist. We must be consistently Responsible for Equality AND Liberty – for all – without exception.
Most of all, we must Choose Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Attack Remembrance: R.E.A.L. Volunteers Jeffrey Imm, Mohamed Yahya, and Others Offer an Outstretched Hand, Not an Upraised Fist - to White Nationalism and Anti-Semitic Group Leader - Choose Love, Not HateMuslim Mahdi Husain (Right) and Christian Jeffrey Imm (Left) of R.E.A.L. Picket Together for Religious and Women's Freedom in Saudi ArabiaSeptember 11 - People of All Faith Stood Together in Washington DC for Human Rights, Freedom of Religion, and Dignity for all People - Christian Jeffrey Imm, Jewish Families, Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) Groups
To those Americans and Christians unaware of the struggle of Egyptian Copts, minority Christians, and minority members of religious groups around the world, their struggle for human rights, dignity, and safety is a real one. The protection of these universal human rights are a shared struggle that we must have with minority Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and other brothers and sisters – who are oppressed around the world EVERY DAY. These minority rights for religious freedom and freedom of conscience of beliefs around the world – are not just minority rights – they are HUMAN RIGHTS. They are universal human rights that apply to all of our brothers and sisters around the world.
Supporters of the volunteer human rights group Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) have stood shoulder to shoulder supporting and praying with members of such minority groups, whose freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, dignity, safety, and lives have been constantly threatened. This is not the challenge for individual religious leaders. This represents a consistent threat to the universal human rights entitled to every human being.
We have stood by our Coptic Christian brothers and sisters over the years, as they have been oppressed, threatened, attacked, kidnapped, houses of worship violently attacked, and murdered. We have stood by our Pakistan Christian minority brothers and sisters, whose children have been attacked, women arrested, and churches burned. We have stood shoulder to shoulder with our Muslim brothers and sisters, when they have been attacked and threatened, their mosques attacked, their beliefs defiled, when they have been victims of terrorism in the United States and around the world. We have stood by our Jewish brothers and sisters as they have been attacked with venomous Anti-Semitism in this country, around the world, and as Israel has been violently attacked. We have stood by our Hindu brothers and sisters when they have fled for safety due to their religious oppression, and when their young women have been kidnapped, forced to deny their religion, and Hindus have been injured and killed. We have condemned and prayed with our Sikh brothers and sisters as they have been the victims of hate violence in the United States and around the world. We have stood by our Buddhist brothers and sisters in their call for peace and call for the right to practice their traditional religions in Asia. We have stood by the practitioners of the Falun Gong when they have been kidnapped, tortured, and killed in China.
There is no nation without a record and history of minority religious oppression, so let us remember that such abuses happen everywhere, and must be confronted everywhere, just as our human rights apply everywhere.
After the Holocaust and the defeat of Adolf Hitler, the nations of the world banded together to form the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), setting a world standard to guarantee universal human rights, freedom of conscience, dignity, safety, and respect for people around the world, of every nationality and every religion.
When we see hate and violence – we must point to our shared commitment as human beings to such universal human rights – everywhere and without exception. It is the second part of this which confuses some people. They want to believe in such universal human rights – for themselves, for their identity group. But universal human rights apply to all of our brothers and sisters in humanity.
Our universal human rights also include our freedom of speech and our freedom of press. We may disagree with things that people say and write, but we must be consistent on our freedoms.
But freedom of speech and press is also a two way street. We too have the right to express ourselves. We have a right to call for peace and patience around the world, despite the loud voices that call for conflict and violence. To those of us who care deeply about the fate of Coptic Christian minorities, we also have the responsibility to disagree with those have created films that would make hateful comments against Islam. A commitment to human rights is not a mandate to attack others’ religions. Oppression does not justify venomous films that will spread hate and incite anger among many. We have our free speech, which we also share, and in our support of human rights, we disagree with such speech and such actions. At one Coptic rally at the White House three years ago, I met Morris Sadek, one of the reported promoters of this agitprop video on Islam. I am shocked, distressed, and discouraged by his actions and those of others in promoting this YouTube video “Innocence of Muslims.” It is wrong, counterproductive to anyone’s human rights, and I know that there are many leaders in the Coptic Christian community that spoke out against this film and these actions. Let us be clear, such actions will not promote human rights, will not promote freedom of conscience and religion, and will not help those genuinely oppressed religious minorities, such as the Coptic Christians.
The response to religious oppression anywhere in the world – should never be hate.
There is a real global problem with religious oppression around the world. Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) will continue to stand by our brothers and sisters in the Coptic Christian community, just like we do in the worldwide Christian community, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Falun Gong, and other communities to respect their universal human rights – without exception anywhere in the world.
Christian life is not cheap. But that is because no one’s life is cheap. We are all special and unique individuals, entitled to human liberty, human rights, safety, and human dignity. Those who ask if promoting videos of hate are Christian actions, should merely reflect on the commandment by Jesus Christ to “love one another.” This is the position that members of all religions of peace must take in responding to extremist views – anywhere in the world.
We stand by our brothers and sisters in humanity, and we have confidence that the minority of extremists and those stained by the disease of hatred, will ultimately be overshadowed by the bright light of our love, respect, trust, and hope in the dignity, decency, and love that we can find in humanity.
Choose Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.
Be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
Hate Hurts Us All
Can You Tell The Difference Between a Burned Church or a Burned Mosque? Church Burned Down in Malaysia -- Mosque Burned Down in United States -- Hate is HateCommunist China: Husan Church Destroyed (ChinaAid) -- Uighur Mosque and Kashgar Area Demolition (NYT)Pakistan: Mob Attack on Christian Churches and Homes, Destruction of Hindu Temple (Dawn), Bombing Attack on Muslim Shiites (Dawn)Malaysia Church Burned -- Indonesia Church Burned -- Indonesia Mosque BurnedAustralia: Photograph showing destruction at Hindu temple (Photo: Carlos Furtado) Middle East: Bombing Aftermath of Iraqi Christians (AP), Iraqi Shiite Mosques (London Times/Alice Fordham), Arson Attack on Egyptian Coptic Christians, and Terrorist Attack in January on Egyptian Coptic Christians (al-Masry al-Yom) West Bank Mosque Arson (Getty), Mosque Vandalism (Reuters), and Israel Synagogue AttackedNigeria Church Arson, Nigeria Mosque Arson (AP), Somalia Mosque Bombing (Trend)German Synagogue Arson (DDP), UK Mosque Arson, UK Mosque Vandalism (MEN), UK Synagogue VandalismIn America Today: Churches, Mosques (TIRCC), Synagogues, Other Houses of Worship Attacked
We can choose another direction. Choose Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.
Eleven years ago, terrorists attacked the United States of America killing over 3,000 in multiple attacks in New York City and Washington DC, as well as Shanksville, PA, where courageous Flight 93 passengers defied terrorists from using their plane as another bomb to kill others in the nation’s capital.
On this 9/11, as every year, we remember their loss and we remember the brave sacrifice of those who gave their lives to rescue others and prevent more attacks.
One tragic legacy of 9/11 has been the use of this attack on America by people around the world to rationalize their political views, to justify their hatred towards others, and to use the attack as a call for additional violence.
We will never forget those such as the British group Al-Muhajiroun who praised the 9/11 terrorists as the “Magnificent 19” and used the 9/11 attacks to call for more attacks on America, as well as to spread their ideology of hate. We have seen many, many around the world rally around the 9/11 attacks with a perverted glee. But we have also seen those who would use the 9/11 attacks to rationalize hatred and violence against people of other religions, other ethnic backgrounds, and other nationalities because they are viewed as “different” or “the enemy.” We have seen how such hatred can fuel the violence of individuals such as convicted Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik who used his hatred of Muslims to justify murdering 70 Norwegians.
Finally, we have also seen the sad use of the 9/11 attacks by some in politics, claiming the world would be different if only their political group was in power. In eleven bi-partisan years after the 9/11 attacks, the one concrete lesson we have seen is that the challenges and our response to the 9/11 attacks is not the responsibility for any one political group, but is the responsibility for all of us as human beings.
While the immediate security issues around the 9/11 attack made us question who we could trust, the targets of terrorist organizations have become clearer in the subsequent years. The target of terrorists is anyone who will not submit to their tyranny, their violence, and their hatred. The target of terrorists is not one nation, not one religion, not one identity group, not one race, but their target is the WORLD.
We have seen racial terrorists continue to attack, harass, threaten, and kill people of their own race, who will not submit to their views. We have seen political religious terrorists do the same. In the greater Middle East and Africa, while we see killing and deaths of Americans, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and all other identity groups, the majority of the casualties by such political religious terrorists are Muslims. We see this every week, and on some weeks, every day. Yesterday, over 100 people died in a day of terrorist car bombings and shootings in Iraq. This morning, in Turkey a suicide bomber attacked a police station. Terrorism did not “stop” after 9/11; it simply spread on the disease of hate throughout the world.
The reality is that the terrorist views that inspired the 9/11 attackers have resulted in such terrorists committing acts of violence and killing — mostly against Muslims. The terrorists’ world war against humanity means that religious extremists who claim to be acting on behalf of their view of “Islam” must kill fellow Muslims, who have become the majority of their victims. That is what hate can drive people to do.
But while they choose hate, we must choose love. While they seek the tyranny of extremism, we must defend the universal human rights for all of our brothers and sisters in humanity. While they seek destruction of humanity, we must assume responsibility to build human bonds. While they seek us on our knees, we must defiantly stand on our feet as human beings – free and equal in dignity and rights.
Over the past eleven years, the dialogue has changed from security solutions, military solutions, and even law enforcement solutions, to a greater focus on human rights solutions. We cannot build a fortress strong enough, an army strong enough, or law enforcement vigilant enough to protect everyone all the time. The Cold War strategy of endless war against one another has continued to lose favor among people in America and around the world. We increasingly spend less time identifying enemies, and more time building friends. Certainly, America’s security organizations have done everything they can to protect the nation. But it is not enough to defend our fellow human beings’ bodies. We must reach our fellow human beings’ hearts, minds, and conscience to renew and rebuild a commitment to shared human rights and respect for our brothers and sisters in humanity.
Over the years, we have seen the growing integration of groups from different religions and identity groups, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, American and Pakistani, men and women, and every other group (religious, ethnic, and otherwise) working together to renew and rebuild this commitment to human rights – around the world. Where once attention was focused on the terrorists’ actions, now a growing attention is on those working for human rights and dignity.
In some parts of the world, dictators have been overthrown and others are on their way out. Where we see human rights abuses in those areas, there is no longer the convenient excuse of the dictator, and people must face the issues of human rights in their culture and national history. Like America and every other nation, we have to own our mistakes in human rights, and do something about them.
We have to be responsible for our shared human rights. We must cherish every day as another good day to be responsible for equality and liberty for one another.
There is hope to the worldwide challenge of terrorism that resulted in the attacks on 9/11.
That hope can be found in our shared commitment to our universal human rights, dignity, conscience, and safety for one another, and our common bonds as brothers and sisters in humanity.
Choose Love, Not Hate.
Love Wins.
September 11 - People of All Faith Stood Together in Washington DC for Human Rights and Dignity
