Is it true that Muslims all over the world condemn terrorism?
Is it true that Muslims all over the world condemn terrorism? Yes or No? Take to social media (beyond our own insular circle of friends) or cross the street and ask a Muslim neighbor, what do you find? You’ll find that not only do the vast majority of Muslims want peace and stand against terrorism, you’ll also find that many Muslims and their extended families have suffered more from jihadi terrorists than your average Westerner could ever imagine. My own experience of over 30 years of intimate friendships among Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Malay, Iranian, and Arab Muslims is that the average Muslim is just as horrified by violent religious extremism as anybody else. The primary difference between the fearful plaintive West and the anguishing global Muslim community is that the average Muslim is much more likely to have a front row seat for viewing the carnage. And the tickets, as it were, for that unenviable privilege of witnessing the horrors of terrorism, do not come cheap. Muslims are much more likely to suffer at the hands of jihadi terrorists than are non-Muslims. The statistics are not even close. Relatively speaking, violent terrorism is an exotic newcomer to western modernity, while the east is a weary and wounded veteran of the ancient war with terror.
Are Muslim leaders and statesmen doing enough to do away with religious radicalism and the violence advocated by jihadi philosophy and other extremist worldviews? No. But neither are most non-Muslims across the globe. We must all break our silence and our complicity. We must all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, pledge anew to provide more appealing and plausible alternatives to a hateful and violent future for rising generations. We must conspicuously give ourselves to worthy ideals, attitudes, convictions, and measures that build up healthier, saner, safer, positive communities and societies. What are we personally doing to promote goodwill, peace, justice, disinterested and universal respect of other people, cultures, and nations? Do we rail against violence and hatred—where is our own peacemaking and selfless love? What are we each doing to overcome the evils of ethnocentric myopia, nationalistic arrogance, systematic racism, mindless bigotries, jingoistic militarism, or the false, destructive worship of economic and political ideologies? Are we working to secure justice for others as well as for ourselves? There are serious social, spiritual, and political reformations that must be ongoing, we must all examine ourselves, and we must all make our contributions to the common good. It is time for all of us to step out from the comfortable sidelines and bleachers. It is time for all of us to get in the game and play our parts. There are lies to be barked down. There are truths to be told. There is love to be shared. There is peace to be won. There is evil to be overcome. There is good to be done.
What am I doing to help, really?
—D. Freeman Littlerood, The Lutterworth Society
Lutterworth Society 