A Systemic Sickness
In today’s LA Times, I read an article that I thought was just horrifying. It seems that an American soldier was using a Qur’an for target practice.
U.S. commanders moved swiftly to avert a crisis after a soldier deployed in Baghdad was found to have used a copy of the Koran for target practice.
Iraqi police found the desecrated copy of the Muslim holy book on May 11 at a small shooting range near a police station in Radwaniya, a mostly Sunni district on Baghdad’s western outskirts, Buckner said. The volume was riddled with bullets and had graffiti inside the cover. [link]
The journalist noted that the quick apology and removal of the offending soldier helped to keep various Sunni Arab alliances with the American forces intact, averting a possible disaster.
However, for me the problem runs much deeper. I cannot help but draw a link between this incident and the patka burning incident from last week. In America, there seems to be a domestic policy promoting Islamophobia. Islamophobia is not limited to merely Muslims, but includes all that have become racialized as Muslims. Sikhs fall most prominently within this category. However, while promoting this type of behavior at home, the Bush administration is trying to foster Arab and Muslim allies abroad. However, the two are linked and this accounts for another systemic failure and contradiction in the Bush doctrine.
7 Responses to “A Systemic Sickness”
eh – a hate crime is a hate crime (if you want to classify shooting a quran as a hate crime, which you seem to be doing)- they're all similar in the regard that they're precipitated on hostility towards a group or what that group represents. so, you can draw the parrallel between those two incidents just as easily as you can draw the parallel between shooting a quran, burning a patka, and spray painting "n*gger" on someone's house.
but, i think you're drawing the parallel to make this point…
are you directly attributing that one patka burning incident to Bush's policies? seriously? because if you are, my god, you lose some serious credibility. i hate to point out the obvious, but anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and racist sentiments have existed for quite a long time. if you'd like to sit on my knee, i can regale you with stories of what happened to me, my patka, and my pugh in schoolyards during the 1980's and 1990's. and that's the most simplistic critique of your analogy and hilariously broad indictment of Bush's actions, or maybe inaction in sheltering those perceived as muslims from the sentiments of ignorant americans to your liking. but beyond the possible PR blitz that another president might have have launched to protect us, there is one nagging question: what is this "Bush Doctrine" that you evoke, and what impact does it have on a few dumbsh*ts who engage in crimes against percieved muslims? the reason i ask, of course, is because as a sardar who was in college when 9/11 went down, i can tell you that i felt, every day, the ill effects of heightened islamophobia a hell of a lot more then and in the immediate years thereafter than i do now, when this alleged "Bush Doctrine" has been in place for a few years.
anyways, i'm no Bush apologist in the very least, but i hate it when he is set up as a straw man to explain social injustice, when, quite frankly, there are many other, far more significant factors in play. remember when the muslim kid held down the sikh grade schooler and cut off his hair? yea…if the kid wasn't muslim, we might be chalking up that to bush too, right? but no, who knows wtf was going on there. here? the sikh kid may have been been perceived as muslim, and some dumbass redneck might have lit his patka on fire. but, instead of venting and knee-jerk blaming Bush for allegedly creating and fostering an environment of hostility, and drawing far fetched analogies between two wholly different types of wrongs to make some contorted point, why don't we just address the problem that this happens, has been happening for decades, and just as Sikh Coalition and the parents are doing now, it is incumbent upon us to ensure it doesn't happen again.
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eh – a hate crime is a hate crime (if you want to classify shooting a quran as a hate crime, which you seem to be doing)- they’re all similar in the regard that they’re precipitated on hostility towards a group or what that group represents. so, you can draw the parrallel between those two incidents just as easily as you can draw the parallel between shooting a quran, burning a patka, and spray painting “n*gger” on someone’s house.
but, i think you’re drawing the parallel to make this point…
are you directly attributing that one patka burning incident to Bush’s policies? seriously? because if you are, my god, you lose some serious credibility. i hate to point out the obvious, but anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and racist sentiments have existed for quite a long time. if you’d like to sit on my knee, i can regale you with stories of what happened to me, my patka, and my pugh in schoolyards during the 1980’s and 1990’s. and that’s the most simplistic critique of your analogy and hilariously broad indictment of Bush’s actions, or maybe inaction in sheltering those perceived as muslims from the sentiments of ignorant americans to your liking. but beyond the possible PR blitz that another president might have have launched to protect us, there is one nagging question: what is this “Bush Doctrine” that you evoke, and what impact does it have on a few dumbsh*ts who engage in crimes against percieved muslims? the reason i ask, of course, is because as a sardar who was in college when 9/11 went down, i can tell you that i felt, every day, the ill effects of heightened islamophobia a hell of a lot more then and in the immediate years thereafter than i do now, when this alleged “Bush Doctrine” has been in place for a few years.
anyways, i’m no Bush apologist in the very least, but i hate it when he is set up as a straw man to explain social injustice, when, quite frankly, there are many other, far more significant factors in play. remember when the muslim kid held down the sikh grade schooler and cut off his hair? yea…if the kid wasn’t muslim, we might be chalking up that to bush too, right? but no, who knows wtf was going on there. here? the sikh kid may have been been perceived as muslim, and some dumbass redneck might have lit his patka on fire. but, instead of venting and knee-jerk blaming Bush for allegedly creating and fostering an environment of hostility, and drawing far fetched analogies between two wholly different types of wrongs to make some contorted point, why don’t we just address the problem that this happens, has been happening for decades, and just as Sikh Coalition and the parents are doing now, it is incumbent upon us to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
I had heard about the same incident on news radio this morning. It just pisses me off and reminds me of how the sggs was disrespected in a similar manner during 1984. The irony enrages me … democratic nations who peach tolerance decide to shoot the holy books of others.
Also, I can’t believe that a simply apology is seen as enough on behalf of the Bush administration.
I had heard about the same incident on news radio this morning. It just pisses me off and reminds me of how the sggs was disrespected in a similar manner during 1984. The irony enrages me … democratic nations who peach tolerance decide to shoot the holy books of others.
Also, I can’t believe that a simply apology is seen as enough on behalf of the Bush administration.
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