Stand and Speak Out

Ari Bussel

More and more often we hear of UK- or US-born and bred who turned against their country, often in the name of Islam against the Western Devil. Many of today’s most dangerous terrorists are indeed the products of our own societies.They are not destitute, nor did they witness from early childhood abuse, poverty, rape and incest or cruelty beyond imagination. They did not grow up in repressive societies rather in places that afforded them as much freedom as the imagination can fathom.



Some were educated at the best universities the West has to offer. They are doctors and engineers, chemists and scientists. Some are philosophers others from the exact sciences. So why would British doctors explode themselves along with the Infidels at the Glasgow Airport? Where is the root of hatred, so deep and impenetrable, it controls their whole being, bewitches their entire view on life?



At a recent Q&A following a screening of “The Stoning of Soroya M,” a film depicting the Islamic practice of stoning a person to death, the audience was predominantly American born and raised, highly educated and well spoken. Spirits were livid. The movie, all felt, was very humane and touched one’s spirit, whatever the person’s religion, ethnicity or historical national origin.



Yet, the conflicted audience was up in arms. Those who stood to defend Islam accused the filmmaker, director, producer and cast who were present of propaganda. They claimed there was insufficient research and proof it was a true case. Besides, they continued passionately, the American audience is not sophisticated enough to realize this blatant attack on Islam is nothing but a fabrication.



They conveniently ignored prevailing evidence to the contrary. This perversion, if it even happened, they argued fervently, would have been a result of a corrupt Mullah (religious leader), not a characterization of current-day practices in the Islamic Republic of Iran or any other Muslim country.



In their zeal, they hijacked the discussion, refusing to allow others to express an opinion. Interestingly, a majority of the audience, self-professed Muslims, was touched by the film’s “fake” Mullah, the struggle between evil and conscience, the mere flame of humanity in the most evil man, the simple man who has to make a choice and a village that succumbs trancelike to the worst barbaric, animalistic behavior.



During World War II Germans, too, lost sight of the human image in the extermination camps. Like the Islamists today, they returned home at night to their families to a “normal” life, oblivious to the atrocities they committed during the day.



How many of them spoke against what was happening in front of their very eyes? How many dared to act? How many righteous gentiles existed, “random acts of kindness” shown? Clearly, not enough to stop the barbarism. Oh, they “just followed orders.”



At the screening, the “enlightened” tried to discredit the film as unworthy, unreliable, based on fiction, harmful and on any other basis. They did not, instead, choose to stand and defeat this barbaric version of Islam and its effects.



What amazed me most were the same commonalities I see time and again: Attack the messenger and ignore the message. Try to hush up anyone who pokes holes in your personal agenda and belief. Divert the discussion to a different venue.



The Defenders of Islam (more accurately Fighters against the West) would have been successful had not the humanity touched each and every other member of the audience to such a high degree. Alas, at last, here is the true protection: People were so shaken, so moved, they realized the flaws in such arguments.



It was clear these people who called for Amnesty and other international “human rights” organizations to deal with the problem, removing it from our cognition and awareness, wanted it to go away. After all, it did great damage to their worldview: It showed Islam, the drive to establish and expand Shariah Law throughout the world, for what it is: An attempt to rule our lives and return us some 14 centuries backward into the past.



If they are such humanitarians where was their outrage over such convoluted behavior? There was a dire need for someone to stand up and say: “I am Muslim. THIS IS WRONG. WE NEED TO FIGHT IT. IT IS DEPLORABLE. IF THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NAME OF ISLAM, SO HERE I AM TO FIGHT. I ENLIST.”



Instead they spoke about a Muslim conference with the Department of Homeland Security and charged Muslims are the victims, the underdogs, being unjustly targeted and persecuted. The perpetrators became the “innocent bystanders” while someone else hijacked their peaceful religion, culture and very being.


Nonsense! Do not attack others for your faults. If beheadings, stoning, rape, adultery and all the other evils in the Muslim world are wrong, say so. If a girl who was raped is the person at fault and you condone this way of thinking, have the guts to stand up and say so.



If one has nothing to hide, why say Muslims are targeted unfairly through profiling? Submit willingly, as the rest of us do with no choice. Was not every terrorist attack related to an “Allah Uh Akbar” pronunciation? Were not all the perpetrators Muslim? Is this fake outrage at being profiled not a merely silent agreement for such acts?

Good people are either afraid to speak or apathetic unless directly affected. Those self-appointed and self-declared “speakers” of the Muslim community revel in the opportunity to proclaim their own innocence. Refusing to decry the evil acts and instead cast all Muslims as victims.



They do not even attempt to uproot the wrong from within. Instead, they cast blame for faults on someone else: the USA, Israel and the Jews.



Those who spoke so passionately against the treatment of Islam also speak against the USA (and Israel and the Jews of course). They are Americans who for some odd reason find fault in Western values and see virtue in all exotic things Muslim.



These woman, who so easily defend Islam, would be the first to be stoned, for under Muslim rule they would be forbidden to present themselves in such sinful a manner to the public or to express opinions at all, especially in the presence of men. But they spoke not against stoning. These indignant men would not last long in a barbaric society that values strength and blood and places no value on innocence, childhood and youth or human life. But they, too, did not speak out and would be the first to be beheaded or have their limbs torn from their bodies.



It is interesting that people raised in America can have such a convoluted yet deep sense of Islam-being-wronged and Islam-cannot-be-wrong. They never experienced Islam for what it truly is outside of the USA, whether in the Middle East, Africa or the Far East. They have lived under the protection of the U.S. Constitution and are spoiled and naïve about the world.



They fail to the feel outrage at seeing a live broadcast of the self-declared Palestinian People dancing in the streets for joy as the second of the World Trade Center Towers collapsed. They have not felt the utter devastation we felt when two Israeli reservist soldiers got lost in Palestinian territory, were taken to a police station and there, surrounded by a mob of hundreds of cheering Palestinians, beaten to near-death. One could not comprehend how can anyone throw another human being thru the window to the cheering crowd outside to complete the work and smear themselves in Jewish blood (all live-broadcast to the world).



Only at the moment when these heinous images outraged the world, and good people stood aghast, did these murderers pull the feeds, threatening the lives of each journalist who was there, and confiscating any incriminating evidence of any wrong doing.


Likewise tonight, the movie disturbed them. They were up in arms but against exactly what? The idea the true nature of the beast was shown, with credence and much success conveying the unabashed truth to audiences in the USA? They did not fight against a horrible truth, nor are they concerned about its existence but because it was uncovered and brought to light. They attacked everyone possible, from the director to the other members of the audience to bury reality and maintain their own warped version of existence.



September 11th did happen. Atrocities are happening day in and day out throughout Muslim and European and now even American lands. Rape, subjugation of women, slavery and other ills infest the minds of those aspiring to return to the Sixth and Seventh Centuries AD. They are commonplace today in 2010 in the Netherlands, Middle East or Fort Hood, Texas. Alas, they surface even in Los Angeles.



The enemy from within must be our concern. Tonight taught me a very important lesson: Goodness, when it touches the raw nerve of a person, will not let go. Soon, evil will be stripped of all its disguises and that Goodness will sense what is real and what is “propaganda.” No guides or spokespeople will be needed.



Thus, to win we need only show the truth and remind ourselves time and again of all the freedoms we enjoy here at home in the United States of America. We must be aware, if we take our legacy for granted, the day may come in our lifetimes it may all be taken away.





In the series “Postcards from Israel—Postcards from America,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, an Israel visitors rarely discover