Suspicion

It was the 1980s, during the Iraqi-Iranian war; a father killed his own son claiming that he was a draft dodger. The crime shocked the Iraqi society. On the other hand Saddam praised the father's conduct and awarded him a medal. Saddam's regime encouraged people, through many wicked methods, to report secretly their family members, relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances…etc to the secret police, baathists, intelligence services and so forth. As a 'secret organization' government, Saddam's regime worked hard to change the Iraqis into informants. It resulted in lot of suspicion between members of the community. People did not find it easy to trust each other. Such policy created a climate of mistrust and fear. Only Saddam & his henchmen were authentic (sarcastic).

Few months ago I was in a minibus (public transportation). The traffic was totally stopped because a group of soldiers were dismantling a roadside bomb. The commuters started to chat, through which I discovered that one of the passengers was an Arab student from Yemen. Frankly, I was frightened, since the suicide bombers are mainly Arabs and I couldn't stop thinking that he was probably wearing a coat filled with explosives. Moreover, I started to imagine him blowing the bomb. So I jumped out of the minibus and completed my way on foot. Here in Baghdad, walking in the street means to keep on looking at every car as a bomb which is going to blow up and kill you. I believe that illusions of the kind above were the main reason for shooting Jean Charles de Menezes. Once again it is mistrust & fear.

Mistrust & Fear is the preferable method, for the terrorists, to debilitate the community civilized relations. I believe what the terrorists trying to do is to make the Muslim communities feel alienated in their own western countries, in which they were born and bred. A special report in the Guardian spotlights some of the issues that may participate in alienating Muslims:

'There are bigots out there who are reading some media reports and deciding to take the law into their own hands,' he said (Tahir Butt of the MSF). 'The message from everyone is zero tolerance, but we need action. We need to hear about people being arrested for these attacks on Muslims who are threefold victims. They are targets of terrorists, targets of the Islamophobic backlash and they will be targets of anti-terror legislation.'

As for being targets of terrorists, some of the 7/7 blasts victims are Muslims (Behnaz Mokakka, Slimane Ihab, and Shahara Islam). And what kind of targets of Islamphobic backlash they would be:

Amar Singh, editor of the Eastern Eye newspaper, said Muslim communities were on tenterhooks. 'There is genuine fear. At worst it is assault and abuse, at best it is strange looks or people moving away from you on the train. After 11 September we looked at Americans and thought they were so ignorant ... They didn't know the difference between a Muslim and a Sikh. I can't believe parts of Britain are just as bad. Just as
xenophobic.'

Shahid Malik is MP for Dewsbury wrote in the Observer:

"There is a feeling of alienation, often isolation; a feeling that somehow you don't belong;"

His point of view is:

"Those of us in leadership roles must make it clear to our young people that in a democracy the way we express such feelings is by debate and through democratic institutions, not through violence. We must drag them into the political mainstream."

And:

"We must confront head-on those few who preach violence and hatred in the name of Islam and, in doing so, poison the minds of vulnerable young men."

This is a critical issue. But they are not 'few' since they are spawning in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even in Iraq which became the newest nest for teaching & training terrorists. The difference between British Muslims and those of the Islamic countries is that the British have much more acts of bravery to stand against extremists as Mr. Malik says:

"We will no longer pretend not to see or hear the fanatical few who stand outside our mosques, polluting young minds. The events of 7 July have changed that. The choices are stark yet clear - we either confront the enemy within, or are seen to condone."

Still, there is some fear for the future:

A Leeds city council member, Mohammed Iqbal, told worshipers at the Kashmir Muslim Welfare Association, also known as the Hardy street mosque, in Leeds. "It should be clear to us all that these kinds of events are a threat to our freedom."

This young man expresses what he and people who look like him may undergo:

But Nakib Islam, 19, a Muslim high school student who was speaking after a bomb alert at an East London mosque turned out to have been a hoax, said, "I am afraid of a stronger backlash" against Muslims."

"We all have to use the Tube and people who look like me all became suspicious," he said. "I even don't wear my rucksack anymore when I use the Tube because of that."

I believe that British people should stand by the British Muslim community to protect them from the extremists to prevail as one can sense from the words of this man:

"We can only stop all this when we are able to find the people who brainwashed the kids," said Abu Mumin, a worshiper at the mosque, who would not disclose his last name for fear of reprisal. He said the community was working diligently to cooperate with the police, and the latest incidents were likely to increase that cooperation. But ultimately, the road ahead may be difficult."

Finally, someone put it as follows:

"It's clear, everybody's worried and stunned," he said."This is a continuing attempt at endangering democracy and our freedom. We are part of this society, and what damages it, damages us."

It is one of the terrorists' goals to damage the society, or as I said above to debilitate the ties between the members of community. Weak ties help the terrorists in recruiting more persons to work with them. Here in Iraq, terrorists (consisting mainly of the saddamists) work hard toward this goal, so they try to alienate the Sunnis community.