Ahmed Tharwat

The morning after

I woke up that morning as the birds outside my bedroom window started their daily arguments earlier than usual. I went through my regular morning routine and quietly opened the windows, the fresh air rushing into my room as if waiting outside all evening, eagerly wanting to get in. Still in my pajamas, I walked barefoot on the cold gravel driveway to pick up the morning paper. The soft breeze of the fragrant outdoor air and the massive green landscape were abruptly interrupted by the front page headline: "London Subway Bombing Attack; Tens of Dead and Hundreds of Injuries." "It has all the makings of Al Qaeda's hand," they claimed on the news. Is this London or Baghdad? I mused. My feet became numb and I lost my way back to the house wondering about the breaking news. What have the brothers done this time? Al Qaida takes the blame and so do we Muslims, we all take the blame of what is bad in the world these days. "Who are those people and what do they really want?" I asked myself. All the news is an abstract, all I read is death without a context, all I see are images of people whom I never knew and I will never meet, in places I never been; however, this news is real, the people are real, the victims are real - as real as life itself. In London as in Baghdad there has been the same victimization but different victims, the same horror but different faces, the same destruction but different places. It is the abhorrent new reality of the British citizens, as much as the Iraqis. Their reaction, the fear on their faces, is vivid and real, their human tragedy is overwhelming, their silence as they walk the streets is deafening. The human devastation was in evidence everywhere, a grim reminder of a new and different lifestyle. A lot has been said about the brutality of Al Qaida and their motive to fight the west and its western values. A clash of civilization, a clash of barbaric values verses civilized values - the cultural warfare has been declared by the Bush Administration as well as on the front pages and evening news. Tony Blair stated that they want to change Britain's way of life; indeed, they want to change the British way of life as much as the IRA has been trying for hundreds of years. Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, wrote in the New York Times that most of the Al Qaida recruits are coming from friendly Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, Moroccan, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt) and not from countries that have been accused of sponsoring state terrorism (Libya, Syria, Iran). These new recruits share one motive: to get the United States' influence out of their land.
Until we recognize the real motive behind these heinous crimes and seriously address them, we are not going to win the so-called war on terrorism. Terrorism is a tool of terror, not an ideology to fight and defeat, like communism or fascism. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan and rounding up a few hundred Muslims in Guantanamo prison didn't take us very far, and soon we are going to run out of countries to invade to vent our fury. This is just what the terrorists want - to alienate the Muslim communities around the world and create a virtual job fair for more recruits from which the Al Qaida can easily select their next suicide bomber.

Ahmed 7/11/05
Host, BelAhdan/ Writer
An Arab American TV show
Airs on Public TV, Sundays at 10:30pm
Minnetonka, MN 55345
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www.belahdan.com
ahmedtharwat@belahdan.com

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