The View of America from a Muslim

A Muslim person sent the following three e-mails to me from somewhere in the Middle East. The e-mails came in response to an article I wrote questioning why Muslims hadn’t been more vocal in their opposition to terrorism. The person writing seemed sincere in the argument given in opposition to my article. We exchanged three e-mails and in the end we agreed to disagree. For the life of me I couldn’t understand the position this person was taking. After reading and rereading, it finally occurred to me. “It’s a cultural difference; it’s a lifetime of teaching and learning.” We were equally ill-informed in the eyes of the other. It’s possible this person's views would never be known were it not for this web site. To have an opinion and never be heard is frustrating.

The misspelled words are cultural, accept it]

It occurred to me, how can I reject this person's beliefs and expect him or her to accept mine? We Americans expect Muslims to renounce 4,000 years of teachings and accept us as the new providers of truth. Muslims, Christians, and Jews all have differing views of how a society should conduct itself.

My agreement with the person e-mailing me is that I will not post his or her name. I will only say he or she is from the Middle East. This is obviously a security issue I intend to honor. I don’t endorse the views of this person in any way. Information is knowledge, if we are to understand Muslims we should know how they think and feel.

E-Mail # 1

I read your article "Muslim Whining Should Stop". I do agree with some of your points, but I think you are being a bit unfair & hypocritical.

After the 9/11 incident, didnt many Muslims condemn the attacks? Was the attack aimed against Muslims? Was it in a Muslim country? But still many Muslims said the attacks were NOT Islamic.

I can ask you the same thing, Israel has been carrying terrorism for more than 50 years, but why you people started the "anti-terrorist" talks only recently? Only when your people started getting targeted you started speaking out against terrorism, isnt killing of the innocents regardless of religion terrorism? Or just because a little kid is Muslim and gets butchered then thats no problem because after all he is a Muslim?

You are an American and you are proud of it, which is ok, but when your government for mysterious reasons supports a terrorist regime Israel, have you ever wondered it might have bad consequences? Declaring that US went into Iraq for freedom and all that talk but at the same time being the biggest supporter of a terrorst regime (Israel) in carrying out their terrorist acts of killing the innocents is a very dubious policy by the US. Are you so biased an American that you dont care if others die as long as Americans are safe? Its a natural thing that when a government carries a terrorist attack against others that it will produce hatred for that government because many innocent lives are lost because of it.

Why the word "terrorism" only occurs when a bombing takes place by some Muslim group claims responsibility (which itself is a mystery that out of no where an Islamic group right away claims responsibility, as if inviting non-Muslim governments to take action against Muslims all over the world)? And just because people in uniform kill innocent people that is not terrorism?

I agree with you on the part about Muslims whining, its about time we stop that, because it wont change anything, a Muslim should be strong enough that he doesnt have to whine but act, if France passes a law that asks Muslim girls to take off their Hijab(veil) then I say leave the country and go to a Muslim country o to another country that doesn’t have such a law, instead of whining and crying about it because Land is very big and there are many alternatives available.

My reply isn’t important at this point, my intention is to point out how a Muslim feels about America and our friend Israel.

E-Mail # 2

I am not convinced by your reply either. I heard it all before too, saying Israelis only attack Palestinians in self-defense which itself has to be one of the biggest lies in history. I am sure you have not been to Palestine and you dont know what Palestinians go through day and night because of terrorist Israel.

I see you totally ignored the American terrorism on Iraq issue, because now that its so open even a blind man knows what went on and the drama made by Americans before going into Iraq, the lies they spread that they are going in because Iraq has nuclear weapons etc. and the real reason is becoming evident, they are carrying out a terrorist mission of occupying Iraq and turning it into another Palestine.

Also you didnt reply about the term "modern" and what does it really mean? A culture which makes fun of a son taking care of his parents and living with them is modern? A place where a family structure is destroyed is modern? A place where women are treated as objects is modern(that too in the name of freedom and poor women buy that sorry excuse and expose to the core)? I do agree US advanced in sciences and thats a good thing but the lifestyle maybe modern to you but you cant just call others as non-modern if they dont accept the immoral lifestyle of the west, what exactly you mean by "living in the past"? Its an old and a very typical line used but what does it actually mean? Is the ruling in Islam for Hijab(veil for women) makes us live in the past and a women half naked on billboards for millions of people to see is living in the present? We are not involved in a game show where one has to change the mindset of the of her in order to win something, because I can say the same thing about you, that your mindset wont ever change, you will always defend terrorism in uniform and call it justice.

Just because Israelis dont strap on a bomb to kill people doesnt make them right, they dont strap on bombs because they already have state of the art weaponry(mostly if not all supplied by the terrorist US government) and they use them to kill innocent civilians and that is terrorism, recently an indoor-soccer team of Palestinians wanted to travel to Egypt to play a tournament, the Israeli government didn’t let them go, yet they boast to the world they are peace loving and a just government, a democratic government and all nonsense but then they do stuff like this, they are hypocrites and cant fool everyone.

This is how our Israeli friends are seen in the Muslim world. It’s a learned version of 4,000 years of mistrust and hate. Arabs and Jew are the sons of Abraham. That isn’t going to be changed with a few e-mails or peace treaties. Peace will come when both sides listen to each other.

E-Mail #3

As usual you had no answer for US government's terrorist acts in Iraq, on what grounds they went there? How they openly LIED and went their for their own agendas, they kill the innocent and nothing matters for you, but a Muslim killing someone, now that has to be terrorism, this is hypocrisy. Media brainwashed you people and you have no feelings for innocent Muslims getting killed, 9/11 incident shook you people because your people died in it, but US terrorism killed millions of Iraqis since early 90s and they are still killing but that doesnt matter because they are killing Muslims, it must be for the better of society.

Islam condemns the killing of the innocent and I am one of those do that, I dont appreciate the bombings here and there killing innocent civilians, but you only see one side and totally ignore the other, why? Because the side you are against is Islam, you dont care if innocent Muslims get killed.

Just because jews lived in Palestine for a long time doesnt give them the right to slaughter kids and rape women. Also you ignored another thing(as usual) about the Israelis denying soccer players to travel to Egypt to take part in a tournament!! what freedom? what democracy? they are nothing but hypocrites.

Islam respects women more than any other society ever would, if letting a woman be treated like objects by filthy perverted men is not what you called a civilized society, a place where half naked women appear standing next to cars in car magazines is not what you called a civilized modern society, and thats not respect for women, thats humiliation to the limit, but brainwashing people telling them that this is freedom of expression lead them to behave normally to such filthy acts and people are used to it. By the way I did live in the US but not anymore and I am grateful I left the hypocritical country which harbors terrorists in uniform. In my daily routine there I noticed how probably not even a single girl cant pass by males without being targetted, eyes cross check her entire body & mouths utter filthy comments, but hey, its freedom of speech, its a civilized and modern society. Another hypocritical aspect of your society is when a Nun chooses to cover her entire body, people view it as something positive but when a Muslim women WILLINGLY wears Hijab then you call it torture and lack of respect for women!!!! and I stressed the word "willingly" because you people act as if no women wears Hijab by her own will. Why does a Nun cover her body? Why religion stresses that? In order to have a society where women are treated with respect you have to have women cover their bodies because its a natural thing that a woman attracts attention more than a man, God created them differently so why call for equality? They are equal in spirit but they can never be equal in their behavior & the way they look, even in your so called "equal rights" society if a man slaps a woman in the middle of the street, he would be attacked and probably people would beat him, but when a woman slaps a man in the middle of the street, people would pass by as if nothing happened, could you tell me why is that? where is "EQUALITY" now?

Your capitalist country loves to bully others and they love to boast that they are a superpower, but still they are suffering badly in Iraq, where people with no official army are fighting and still killing so many terrorist Americans and Americans didn’t learn from Vietnam it seems.

You made a mistake by bringing up the terrorist Saddam Hussein, didnt Saddam kill his own people way before 1990? wasnt he a terrorist back then also? why did America support him and had good relations with him and never thought of taking him out of power? what secret agendas your hypocritical government has? why wasnt Saddam called "evil doer" by Americans like the idiot bush does now? Selfish and Slaves are the words that fit the American foreign policy, slaves of Israelis and selfish who care only about their agendas.

There’s very little in these e-mails I can agree with, except perhaps, if Muslims, Jews, Christians, and all those others with varying beliefs expect to share this planet in peace we would better learn to listen and discuss our differences. We all need to learn to show tolerance for other traditions.

Every voice should be heard.