SUICIDE BOMBING

Whenever there are mass killings by suicide bombers and/or armed terrorists, the Muslim community in the affected areas express their sympathy for the dead and support for the injured and the emotionally traumatized victims through public remonstrations, demonstrations, press conferences, laying of flowers and wreaths, and vociferous public condemnation of the perpetrators.

Their reoccurring message is that these terrorists do not represent Islam, which is a peaceful religion, and that most Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding. This is commendable. However, one terrorist from any religious persuasion is one too many. There is clearly a problem, to put it mildly, when one religion becomes a mill for terrorists and suicide bombers.

Terrorism is not an Islamic word or Arabic word since Arabic is the Latin of Islam. Therefore, Muslims did not invent terrorism, but they have elevated it to a Zen art especially in the use of suicide bombers. There is no defense against somebody who is rigged with explosives and ready to die for God or Mohammed. At least one person must die or become incapacitated. Once the bomb goes off the suicide bomber is a guaranteed victim.

There have been African, European, Russian, American, German, British, French, Turkish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Atheist terrorists so terrorism is not the sole preserve of one religion or country. Colonialism, slavery, and unjust wars are forms of terrorism. The preponderance of the modern-day Muslims in employing terror to intimidate and emotionally scar people is without equal. If there are 100 terrors attacks in the world today, Muslims will account for over 99% of the attacks.

The real question for Muslims is: Why do your fellow religionists employ terror as an instrument of war or justice? The American Indians have every reason to employ terror against the white population that terrorized them for centuries, but they do not. The Biafrans should employ terror against Nigeria and the Western and Eastern powers that inflicted a Holocaust on them during the Biafra-Nigeria war, but they do not. Aboriginal owners of Australia and New Zealand will be justified in employing terror to avenge their humiliation, disenfranchisement, raping, and kidnapping of their children by white settlers, but they do not. Descendants of slaves in America who are still enslaved economically, judicially, socially, politically, and culturally by white America will justify terrorist attacks on their oppressors but they do not.

The oppression, discrimination, and disenfranchising of Moslems pale in comparison to the dehumanization of slavery yet we do not have black suicide bombers in America. The occupation and subjugation of Palestinians by Israelis is another reason for terrorism especially suicide bombing. Here, the suicide bombers are again Muslims. The British occupation and subjugation of the Irish in Northern Ireland has not produced one single Catholic Irish suicide bomber. It is one thing to rig a structure with explosives and warn people to avoid the structure and another thing to send a human bomb into a human gathering to be detonated at the moment when the greatest carnage is anticipated.

Obviously, there must be something in the teaching or practice of Islam that incubates terrorism. Pundits have claimed that it is the lack of education amongst adherents of Islam; others claim that it is radicalization by rogue Imams, which is a new-fangled expression. Others claim that it is due to corruption of Islamic youth by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) through social media, while some attribute it to Islam itself. I believe that Muslims are marginalized socially, politically, culturally, and economically and so are other races and religions.

Islam emerged after three wars between Medina (Mohammed) and Mecca (Saudi Aristocracy) and the Koran is filled with violence. America was created by violence and the violence continues today but not by suicide bombers. American Indians and Slaves used to be the victims of this violence but with the subjugation of Indians and Slaves, Americans have turned their guns on fellow Americans in the form of mass killings and gun violence in general. The Bible is also one of the most violent books ever written but Christians abhor suicide bombing. If the promises of unspoiled virgins on their earthly exit are luring the Muslim male suicide bombers to kill and maim, one wonders about the motivation of Muslim female suicide bombers? May be it is the male pirgins (male virgins) that await them in heaven.

Dismissing Islamic terrorism as radicalization of Moslems by radical Imams and ISIS is simplistic.

IS IT RADICALIZATION OR HOPELESSNESS!!!

Extensively interviewing surviving or intending suicide bombers can help us unravel the mind of suicide bombers.

The complicity by Saudi Arabia in Islamic terrorism cannot be underestimated. Moslems derisively dismiss other religions especially Christianity as non-religions. The Saudi policy that prohibits churches in Saudi Arabia whereas mosques are tolerated in Rome, London, Paris, Berlin, and Washington is dumb, disgraceful, and discomfiting to Christians. The arguments by Western benefactors of the oil trade with Saudi Arabia that ‘we’ cannot descend to the level of intolerance, repression, and injustice ingrained in the Saudi culture is untenable and inexcusable. The West should demand that churches be allowed in Saudi Arabia except for Medina and Mecca, which are holy to Moslems. This will change the attitude of Moslems to Christians and other religions.

Africastallestman believes that once Christians break down this barrier, other religions are bound to follow by establishing branches in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, Moslems will start tolerating “non-believers” and the carnage by Muslim suicide bombers will abate.