Up
until the winter of 09, Muzzammil Hassan was known as the founder of Bridges
TV, one of those ubiquitous ventures meant to normalize Islam in the American
context. There was all the usual talk about promoting moderate Islam, even
though Bridges TV
broadcast "Current Issues" which focused on building
bridges to such average Americans as David Duke and assorted other Neo-Nazis
and shock collar wearing types. Then in a shocking turn of events, Muzzammil Hassan beheaded his director of programming and
wife at the TV station after she had received an order of
protection against him.
Muzzammil
Hassan
|
Now
almost two years later, Hassan will finally get his day in court. And his defense will be that he was a
battered spouse, who was abused by his diminutive wife, until after years of
physical abuse, he snapped and was forced to kill her. And behead her. Never
mind that his previous two wives each filed for divorce on the grounds of
domestic abuse, and that the family of his second wife actually sacrificed two goats in
thankfulness that she escaped the marriage alive. Or that the murder happened
less than a week after Hassan was served with divorce papers. In his own mind,
Hassan is still the victim. And while this murder is only one case, it provides
a narrow window into a mindset in which the perpetrator is always the victim.
Hardly a terrorist plot against Americans
is unravelled, before cries of Islamophobia go up. A visitor from another
planet, hearing all the shouts of Islamophobia would assume that there were
constant attacks on Muslims all across the United States. Except there are
hardly any. In New York City there were eleven incidents, none of them fatal.
Compare that to Egypt, a Muslim country with less than a third of America's
population, where numerous Christian Copts have been murdered in just the last
several months. (And Egypt is one of the more "moderate" countries in
the Muslim world, moderate because we spend billions of dollars a year to back
a dictator and his secret police in order to keep it that way.) Every few
months, we turn up a Muslim plot to mass murder Americans, and for all the
effort and energy invested in searching for domestic extremists, we haven't
found any cells of Americans preparing to car bomb Muslims.
Then of course there's Israel. After conquering the
land and spending nearly a thousand years subjugating and persecuting the
native Jewish population-- the Arab ruling class realized that Jewish
nationalism hadn't perished after all. Not all the degrading laws or the
abusive treatment had suppressed the Jewish desire to reclaim their own
country. Which they began to do after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the
end of Muslim supremacy over the region. Naturally the Arab Muslim world
responded with all the tolerance and reasonableness you would expect from
people who were so insecure about their sense of superiority that they needed
to pass special laws forbidding synagogues and churches from being taller than
mosques. There were riots, massacres and bombings. Then when the British left,
seven Arab Muslim armies, backed by assorted militias and bandits tried to
destroy Israel. After only managing to take half of Jerusalem, along with
Judea, Samaria and Gaza-- they tried it again nearly twenty years later, and
lost them as well. And then they became the victims.
Prisoners
at Guantanamo
|
Here
we come to the Muslim world's definition of victim as someone who tries, but
fails to kill you. Guantanamo Bay has a cargo load of "victims" whose
victimization consists of being captured by the American soldiers whom they
failed to kill. At home, their treatment of enemy prisoners consisted of a hole
and a hand grenade in the best case scenario, and dismemberment and torture in
the worst. But when they were forced to stand in the presence of infidel women
and had interrogators berate them about their body odor, suddenly they became
victims. And this point of equivalence would not even register with them. In
their minds, the people they killed were non-Muslims or not "true
Muslims" and therefore subhuman. If they had been able to empathize with
their victims, they would not have done what they did. But as for themselves,
they are members of a superior people who may not be mistreated this way.
Empathy is a weakness of the Western world, but it is a non-starter in the Muslim world. While we have been taught to extend our empathy circle as widely as possible, circumstances in the Muslim world make that seem both irrational and dangerous to them. Secularization and denationalization have made identification on the basis of a common humanity commonplace in the West. But such ubiquitous ideas are alien to the tribalism of the Muslim world, whose great revolution was a limited identification on the basis of a common religion, that was usually eclipsed in day to day dealings by familial connections. It is only possible to identify with a person from another culture, religion or race by seeing him as an individual. And individualism is a scarce commodity in the Muslim world, where identification is tribal and religious. Where the group is always more important than the individual.
Contrary
to the visions of 19th century Utopians, a society that disdains the individual
is not selfless, but supremely selfish. The Soviet economy had levels of theft
and mercenary greed that made America on its worst day seem positively
altruistic. The rapid transition of China to a frighteningly ruthless
capitalist oligarchy shows that it too fits the pattern. As does the desert
culture that gave birth to Islam. While we might think that members of such a
society would think of themselves as non-persons, that is not how it works.
Most human beings will remain in touch with their egos, their needs and
desires, regardless of what society they live in. The big difference is in how
they treat others. A society where the individual is a non-person, is a society
where everyone treats everyone else like non-persons.
Honor
Killing
|
Now
let's go back to Hassan, who abused his way through three wives and still
remains a victim in his own mind. And a Muslim world which refuses to hold
itself accountable for any crime, but always finds a way to invert the moral
scales, so that it is always either the winner or the victim-- but never
actually wrong. What is missing here is context. And situational context
requires the ability to see beyond yourself, past your own desires and
feelings, at the world as it is. To do that you must be more than your
identity. You must be a human being. And a human being is a moral individual.
Islam
thrives on honor, rather than morality. Like honor, Islam is an illusion. A
shadow cast by those who adhere to it. And like honor, it is less a religion
than an attempt to save face for lack of a religion. Honor replaces inner
morality with outer worth. Perception negates reality. The myth becomes its own
legend. And the legend becomes an obsession as it fights to incorporate and
subsume reality within the construct of its own fantasy universe. The outer
perception of honor requires not the reality, but the myth. The central figure
is always right. When he is wrong, it is not his own fault, but because he is a
victim. He does not need to change, only restore honor by punishing those who
undermined him. And so the cycle of violence begins.
Hassan might have changed after his first or second marriages went bad in the same way. And the Arab world might have quit after the first or second war. But instead they remained trapped in a cycle of their own making. And when confronted with failure, they lash out in violence and then claim to be the victims.
Hassan might have changed after his first or second marriages went bad in the same way. And the Arab world might have quit after the first or second war. But instead they remained trapped in a cycle of their own making. And when confronted with failure, they lash out in violence and then claim to be the victims.
Restore
Thy Honor
|
"Who is the master, who is the slave? Who (is) the terrorist, who is the hostage? Who is the dictator, who is the prisoner? Who is the captor, who is the POW?" Hassan wrote in a letter to the AP. This is a common theme in the Muslim justification of their own atrocities. Muslim clerics condemn terrorism and then ask, "Who are the real terrorists?" And the answer turns out the people they have been terrorizing.
Such
shifts of meaning are typical hallmarks of relativistic belief systems. And
Islam is surprisingly relativistic. The common theme of the Koran is that no
matter what Mohammed did, he turned out to be right and not his foes. No matter
if his conduct violated every norm of human behavior and the treaties he signed and even
the laws he conveyed from Allah. He was always right. The relativistic belief
system accommodates the need for that perpetual sense of rightness. While modern
secular relativism does this by questioning laws, Islam does it by treating
laws as means to an end, with itself as the end. By subsuming himself within
Islam, the Muslim can rise as far above the law as he is willing to sacrifice
himself. The devout Jihadist who goes to a strip club on the night before
ramming a plane into a building is not being hypocritical, but rising above the
laws of mortal men on a mission for Islam.
The
Muslim worldview is thus built on sand. It is unmoving, yet constantly shifting.
The secret of it is that the worldview moves, but the Muslim does not. One day
he may be a righteous warrior. The next day an innocent victim. He has not
changed, but he moves the world around him to better suit his new context. He
is still telling the story and he is still right, and the world had better
adapt itself to his rightness. Or more bombings will follow by more innocent
victims who were righteous warriors fighting to avenge what happened to the
last righteous warrior/innocent victim. And so the game is played.
Hassan is guilty of killing his wife, but absolutely innocent because she was the aggressor. Muslims are terrorists, but only because they are the victims. Israel and America are oppressors because they successfully defended themselves against Muslim violence. And that is doubtlessly the same reason why Hassan saw his wife as the oppressor. By successfully filing for divorce and a restraining order, she had successfully defended herself against him. And that meant she had oppressed him and had to die.
"Who is the terrorist and who is the hostage?" Hassan asks. But Hassan, like the Muslim world, was a hostage of his own ego, his own need for control. The Muslim world suffers from that same pathology, the need to validate itself by killing and subjugating others. And that same inability to recognize those actions for what they are. Attempts at control by weak people unable to face up to their own failures of character and culture.
Hassan is guilty of killing his wife, but absolutely innocent because she was the aggressor. Muslims are terrorists, but only because they are the victims. Israel and America are oppressors because they successfully defended themselves against Muslim violence. And that is doubtlessly the same reason why Hassan saw his wife as the oppressor. By successfully filing for divorce and a restraining order, she had successfully defended herself against him. And that meant she had oppressed him and had to die.
"Who is the terrorist and who is the hostage?" Hassan asks. But Hassan, like the Muslim world, was a hostage of his own ego, his own need for control. The Muslim world suffers from that same pathology, the need to validate itself by killing and subjugating others. And that same inability to recognize those actions for what they are. Attempts at control by weak people unable to face up to their own failures of character and culture.
Hassan is a pathetic
caricature of what every Muslim terrorist is, a bully and a thug, who beats the
weak and then runs to hide when justice comes his way. Who are a furious
warrior when his victim is weak, and a snivelling coward whining about
oppression when he's finally held to account.
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