In 2013, Egypt suffered a military coup and their president was arrested. Many Muslims blamed the Christian minority — at least, enough Muslims believed the rumor of Christian coup support that 50 Egyptian churches were reported torched.
One of these churches neighbored a police station. In that church and at others, the police refused to intervene.
Often when a member of a Middle East minority is accused of a serious crime, the rumor spreads that every member of that minority applauds the crime. Religious and political leaders bray for whole communities to pay, to punish all of “the other.”
What’s so different when American leaders spread lies that “thousands” of American Muslims cheered 9/11; tweet exaggerations of Black crime; brand entire groups rapists; when news story comments choke with cries to kill all “cretin” Muslims?
Two months ago, a Lebanese-American man called Khalid Jabara alerted police that a neighbor was brandishing a gun. This neighbor, who dubbed the family “dirty Arabs,” ran his car over Khalid’s mother last year but spent mere months in jail. At Khalid’s call, the police came, tried to engage with the neighbor, failed and said there was nothing to be done.
Ten minutes later, Khalid was killed. What’s different between how American police treated that situation, and Egyptian police who allowed a church to burn?
Khalid’s death, like the huge U.S. increase in Arab/Muslim hate crimes, was virtually unnoticed. When the rare article gets through, I suspect it’s in the same spirit that local Egyptian media likely covered their burning churches: “You can’t expect us to talk nonstop about our annoying minorities!”
We’re to the point where many think killing Muslims or burning mosques aren’t real crimes, because as the rumor goes, all Muslims secretly cheered the Orlando and San Bernardino shootings. This is simply not true.
We Muslims are not perfect and I have written columns about our hypocrisies, but bombs and massacres in the U.S. horrify most of us.
