Outrage
: Where is the outrage in the Muslim world over the atrocity in Russia?
I found some:
Many Arabs found themselves in an increasingly common quandary: struggling to reconcile their sympathy for a political cause with growing revulsion at the wrath levelled by self-described “holy warriors” against the innocent.
“What is the guilt of those children? Why should they be responsible for your conflict with the government?” Grand Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, Egypt’s highest-ranking imam, railed during Friday prayers in the Egyptian town of Benha. “You are taking Islam as a cover and it is a deceptive cover; those who carry out the kidnappings are criminals, not Muslims.”
Sheik Tantawi’s refrain was a familiar one among Muslims who have felt unfairly tarred by the growing number of highly publicised bloodbaths perpetrated by fellow believers.
But on Saturday some prominent Arabs had a more sobering interpretation: corrupt, repressed Arab and Islamic societies have turned into breeding grounds for terrorism. It is a judgement rarely voiced in heavily censored Arab rhetoric.
“Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims,” wrote Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Al-Arabiya TV channel.
In a blunt column in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, he listed attacks carried out by Muslims in Iraq, Russia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. “Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture,” he wrote. “The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us.”
At last. At frigging last.
Is this the line they had to cross to evoke this revulsion? Will the rejection of these tactics last? Will they repudiate the scum of their earth?
: The BBC recaps editorial comment in Arab papers:
A lesson in terror at a children’s school – What happened at the ill-fated school is not only unjustifiable and unacceptable, it also provokes anger and revulsion among Muslim public opinion, since it tarnishes the name of all Muslims and distorts the image of our noble faith.
–Jordan’s Al-Dustur
An ugly crime against humanity – What happened at the Russian school is a reprehensible crime against the whole of humanity and the perpetrators should be called to account.
— Egypt’s Al-Ahram
These children and their teachers had committed no crime to justify their lives being endangered and their blood shed. If this terrorist group had chosen a Russian military barracks, their cause – if they had one at all – would have been more credible and many would have sympathised with them. What happened is the absolute opposite: the world reacted to the crisis with humanity, and the only loser is the side to which they [the hostage-takers] belong.
— Saudi Arabia’s Al-Watan
However, Iran’s papers, following the mullahs’ party line, criticized Russian officials just as much as they criticized these baby-killers.
