Born a Muslim and practicing the religion of Islam, I did not find myself in the least offended at Piers Morgan’s comments in his Good Morning Britain interview on the tragic Manchester terror attack, nor his words in the subsequent article he wrote for the Daily Mail in its defense.
The crux of his argument being that we, Muslims, ought to step up our game in rooting out the evil of terrorism.
Far from being offensive, I merely found his words naïve at best.
Though it is not hard to see where such sentiments are coming from. Like him, and any other human possessing a shred of human decency, I too find myself in a mess of emotions contemplating the death of the eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos, who was among the victims of this senseless act of carnage seen in Manchester.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the tragedy, as hollow and empty my words may sound. Given such emotions, I do understand the need to jump to conclusions.
But like my fellow Muslims -- generously called “moderate” (thank you broad-minded and unbiased media, I guess?), to distinguish us from the extremist lot -- I feel it’s hard to justify such sentiments. Because the god under whose name such horrendous acts are being carried out shares nothing with the God my brothers and sisters in faith and I worship save for the name: Allah.
The vocal minority
Let it be known that we are not passive in our feeling of solidarity. Our condemnation is loud and unambiguous. Or so demonstrated Heraa Hashimi, a 19-year-old American Muslim student, as she compiled a 712-page list of Muslims speaking out against extremism.
Now, her original Google spreadsheet takes the form of an interactive website that goes by the name of muslimcondemn.com. Also, it’s worth to remember how 120 prominent Muslim scholars from across the globe have already released and signed an 18-page open letter, in Arabic at that, steeped heavily in the nitty-gritties of Islamic theology to expose the madness of ideologues, to denounce Daesh back in 2014 (I refuse to call them Islamic State for they neither are Islamic nor a state, and to call them such would only further embolden their agenda).
What of Zeeshan ul-hassan Usmani, the prominent Muslim scientist who dedicated the resources of his big data company PredictifyMe to run information analyses to revel trends and patterns among the typical Daesh recruit to help counter-terrorism efforts?
And what about Mohammed Saeed, the very imam at the local mosque which the Manchester bomber Salman Abedi attended, who at a sermon chastising terror and murder under guise of Islamic motives or political causes?
Yet Piers Morgan claimed, in his own words: “I can’t do that. No young impressionable Muslim is going to give a stuff what I, a middle-class, middle-aged white guy, has to say about their religion.
But they might care what fellow Muslims who live around them say about Islam if an alternative view is expressed with enough conviction.”
Clearly someone has not been keeping up with all that’s been going around.
What we ought to be, after the anger has passed, having wiped away our tears and whispered our prayers, is to be the precise antithesis to the cowardly terrorist scum
Raised flags, lowered expectations
Elsewhere Morgan claims: “But I refuse to believe this disgusting excuse for a human being never gave a single clue to anyone around him that he was becoming radicalised.”
Except the community did report, on five separate occasions at least, as per a Telegraph article, to authorities on the Manchester bomber’s troubling behaviour and the home secretary of UK conceded that the young man was known to intelligent services.
With investigations still being carried out, exactly why the authorities did not act on the red flags raised is still to be made clear. The truth is, the remarkable way the Muslim community acted on Salman Abedi’s act of terror cannot be hailed as an example of how Muslim community should act. It is rare for prospective terrorists to exhibit the telltale signs of radicalisation anyway.
You do not have to take it from me, biased as I might be. But do take note of the MI5. In a sophisticated analysis based on hundreds of case studies in regards to British terror activities, they conclude that there is no single pathway to violent extremism, nor do British terrorists fit any remarkable demographic profile and are indeed a collection of diverse individuals.
So what are we to report on? Raising an alarm on account of any disturbing behaviour will surely raise false flags more often than not, and to say nothing of the mindset of paranoia that it will induce in communities.
Hence, Piers Morgan, and those of similar views do not come out as begotten or racist in the least, just outright lazy, naïve, and impractical. Piers does conclude his piece and says: “Be very … angry.”
Are we to conclude that anger alone will suffice? Will it invoke the dead back to life? Heal the traumatised survivors and their loved ones? Halt the reprehensible perverts and their disgusting acts of violence?
No.
What we ought to be, after the anger has passed, having wiped away our tears and whispered our prayers, is to be the precise antithesis to the cowardly terrorist scum, hating and deluded as they are.
We have to be: Valiant. Loving. Rational.
Syed Raiyan Nuri Reza is a freelance contributor. He writes from Tehran.
