Cozy Corner: Apology Accepted

Emilio Karim Dabul apologizes:

September 12, 2006 -- WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.

The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.

Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.

Yes, our extremists and our culture.

Every single 9/11 hijacker was Arab and a Muslim. The apologists (including President Bush) tried to reassure us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, but was a twisting of a great and noble religion. With all due respect, read the Koran, Mr. President. There's enough there for someone of extreme tendencies to find their way to a global jihad.

Comments

Your culture causes nothing evil. It just provides its adherents a sense of familialarity that transcends the antiquated and western-imposed idea of a nation. Inevitably, when this sense of familialarity is transgressed against time and again, and with far greater consequences than 10 9/11s put together, and over a longer period of time, this familial sense throws up militant responses. Some call it the self-defensive instinct.

Posted by: Inquisitor | September 13, 2006 12:51 AM

Inquisitor,
Just for clarification, I'm not apologizing, so I assume you were addressing Mr. Dabul. Are you justifiying the worst in Islamic Fascism? If so, I reject that position, as has Mr. Dabul. I see from your blog that this is the likely interpretation.
That you consider a suicide bombing that kills 2,996 people - mostly civilians - to be justifiable at all makes you one of the people that Mr. Dabul is apologizing for.

Posted by: Andy | September 13, 2006 08:16 AM