The Tunisian daily Al-Haqaiq's September 11, 2013 editorial, on the 9/11 attacks, harshly criticized those in the Arab and Islamic world who continue to justify suicide bombings on various pretexts and to claim that 9/11 was a Zionist-American plot against Islam. The piece, written by the daily's chief editor, Hadi Yahmad, stated that the Arab-Islamic mentality rejects any examination of its own flaws and tends to lay blame on the other, and that the cultural and ideological backwardness of the Arabs and Muslims is a breeding ground for the growth of Arab and Islamic terrorism.
The following are excerpts from the editorial:[1]
"...September 11 has become a global phenomenon tied to a certain ethnicity – Arabs – and to a certain religion – Islam... The day after the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were blown up, the world, or at least the part that has the hegemony, became convinced that there was a problem called the Arabs and a religion called Islam. The Arabs and the Muslims became a phenomenon called terrorism.
"In the Western mentality, September 11 is tied to Islamic terrorism. In the world capitals, they began to see us [all] as potential terrorists. It is enough for your name to be Muhammad or 'Ali, or for your skin tone to be North African or Middle Eastern, for them to thoroughly search you and monitor your every move or lack thereof.
"Following 9/11, we all became potential terrorists, because a small minority among us thought they would meet the virgins of Paradise by murdering those they consider infidels who fight the religion of Allah… Even [now, when] the second decade [since the attacks has begun], some of us are still convinced that they were a preplanned global Zionist or Masonic plot – or, at the very least were perpetrated by conspirators in the right-wing conservative George Bush administration. Those who are more realistic [among us] acknowledge that Muslim extremists carried out [the attacks], but justify them by citing the occupation of Palestine and Afghanistan, and add the excuse of the occupation of Iraq. In the Arab-Islamic mentality, 9/11 was carried out by the other, or was the response of a small minority among us to the oppression, the injustice, and the occupation inflicted upon this ummah. When the mentality of denial combines with [the thought] that this event [9/11] was imported from without [i.e. carried out by the other], then it [i.e. the mentality of denial] sees it as a plot against Islam and the Muslims!"
After Striking "The Infidels In Their Bastions In New York, Madrid, London, And Moscow" – The "Global Terrorism Mill... Began Harvesting The Heads Of Thousands Of Muslims"
"The absurd thing is that the global terrorism mill, which had struck what it calls infidels in their bastions in New York, Madrid, London, and Moscow, later began harvesting the heads of thousands of Muslims in the mosques and markets of Iraq, in the villages and cities of Syria, and in the south and north of Yemen.
"The first paradox is that the number of [Muslims and Arabs] killed by Al-Qaeda in Arab and Islamic countries is three times greater than [the number of people] that it considers fighters against Islam in infidel countries! The daily death toll in suicide operations in Iraq, in Syria today, or in Yemen has undercut and collapsed all the excuses that are made for the terrorists... [that is, that terrorism] is a reaction to oppression and injustice.
"The second paradox is that the only organization that declares its official and ideological connection to Al-Qaeda situated itself in the Sinai on the border of occupied Palestine – and [then] aimed its weapons to slaughter Egyptian troops and declared jihad against the Egyptian military. This, without daring to open a jihad front against Israel...!
"Everything that happened after [9/11], and what we are experiencing today, which has earned the name 'Arab Spring,' as well as the flourishing of terrorist organizations in almost all the Arab regions, reveal the scope of the flaw in our curricula and in the religious culture that we inherited and have not criticized or reassessed for decades. We must acknowledge without shame that we in the Arab and Islamic region have become a breeding ground for terrorists... due to [our] cultural and ideological backwardness.
"[How] many of us have never asked themselves why these horrors, massacres, and cold-blooded murders take place on our lands?! Must we always lay the blame on others, so that we can [continue] to deny [reality], to forget [it] and to wreak vengeance?!..."
Endnotes:
[1] Al-Haqaiq (Tunisia), September 11, 2013.
