An Open Letter to a Naive Mother
Comments (1)
September 13th, 2009
Dear Monia Noor,
I read your article in the New York Times on how to explain 9/11 to your Muslim child. Your article caught me off guard. You started the article with a question from your eight-year-old son about 9/11, as then he was just a baby.
You write that “mass murder is impossible to explain to yourself, let alone a child.” You ask that people not “judge a billion people by a few bad apples”? A few bad apples? I don’t think you could belittle the threat that Radical Islamists pose on us even more if you tried. Maybe you should read the newspaper some more and see how many thousands every year are killed around the world in the name of Islam.
So instead of explaining what really happened in 9/11 you immerse your son in religious activities. You teach him that Islam is peaceful. You worry how your son will grow up as a Muslim in America. So you immerse him. Do you know who he is immersed with, what he is learning? How do you know that his peers are not the “bad apples” you refer to?
You write that you are trying to protect your son from negative associations with Islam. “I’ve developed lightening quick reflexes — the second I hear a story about suicide bombers or terrorists on the radio, I switch to a pop music station. I’ve made my husband limit his CNN time to after the kids go to sleep.”
I agree that eight is a young age, but do you think it is fair to your son that he is so immersed in a religion without understanding the negative aspects of it?
You write, “For me, the thought of talking to Bilal about terrorism is a bit like talking about sex for the first time. It is awkward and difficult I’m just not sure how much a child his age is ready to hear.” Essentially you are saying that terrorism is an inevitable fact – basically a fact of life? Why not work within your religion to change this?
You end your entry saying that he also a Cub Scout and knows how to hold the American flag. What I don’t understand is in what sort of household are children raised where they eventually burn the American flag they are holding? Or even worse commit suicide in the name of their religion?
“I did try and answer Bilal’s question. I relayed the day’s events in broad cartoonish strokes: bad guys attack, buildings collapse. Don’t worry, I assured him, we’ll get the bad guys so they won’t do it again. As I looked at Bilal in the rearview mirror, I explained that good and bad exists in every group, even your own. I think he understands.”
Monia – this might be an appropriate answer for an eight year old. But I get the impression that in reality you think it is this simple. Monia, who are the bad guys and how exactly are you planning to get them? We would all love some advice.
Comments
I had once sent an email commenting on the massacre of many Hindu pilgrims on a pilgrimage to Amarnath, a Hindu shrine in the Himlaya mountains. The email was never published: to know why, gentle reader, please read: "Apropos the massacre of unarmed Hindu pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine, and the order by the Taliban upon Hindus in Afghanistan to exhibit marking colours, and the forced exodus of Hindu Pandits from the Kashmir valley and the marked silence by their Muslim neighbours regarding the grief of the Pandits, and the routine massacre of Jews by Islamic terrorists in Israel, and the massacre of non-Islamic citizenry by Muslims rioting in Indonesia, so also all over the world, Islamic terrorists are waging holy wars for Islamic homelands. Their targets are the non- Islamic residents of the region they claim as rightfully theirs, because in the homelands of the claim as their own Muslims have become or are about to become the largest religious group. They claim is always an exclusive claim, which cannot be satisfied until Muslims are allowed a complete takeover of the claimed region - no other religious group, no divergent views. Resident Muslims of such areas are not generally known to protect their hapless non- Islamic neighbours who are the target of such Islamic terrorist activity. This is not a bare accusation, but a historic reality, the brunt of which is being born every day by many, often with tragic consequences. In the circumstances, Muslims the world over have to be asked whether they perceive Islam as a religion which is exclusive, intolerant of non- Islamic faiths, which does not favour cohabitation with the other religious communities. If they do not perceive Islam as such, they should make every effort in protest, in public and in private, making it clearly evident to the world at large that terrorists who pick on the unarmed in the name of Islam will be met with the vociferous protests of an Islamic community enraged to see a cowardly motley of mindless fanatics giving Islam a bad name. If, on the other hand, the large numbers of a avowedly peace loving Muslims hold their hands, if in the face of so much slaughter of the defenceless in the name of Islam they choose not to speak out against those would defile their beliefs, the world must come to the realisation that no strong protest is being made and sustained because there is no such defilement at all; the world should then begin to wake up to the idea that Islam is a rogue religion. ".