Commentary
If shooting suspect were foreign, we'd call him a terrorist
by Ahmed TharwatEveryone in the media is rushing to come up with an explanation for the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others.
So here we go again. America is searching deep in its soul to find out what went wrong and where to lay the blame: Is it simply Jared Lee Loughner, who, according to his notes, hated Giffords? Or the gun he used, or the pot he smoked? How about Sarah Palin's online fatwa against Giffords and other Democrats? Or is it the right wing and the Tea Party's wacky rhetoric?
"Since getting out of high school, you could tell that Jared had become disillusioned with life and having to take on responsibility," said a neighbor. "You'd see him walking around and think, 'That's not someone I really want to know.' " His school kicked him out and informed his parents he would need a mental health clearance if he wanted to return.
The main question that everyone agrees on remains: Was the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others politically motivated? Politically motivated violence is the essence of terrorism, but in our open society and with our free press, nobody is willing to use the T word when it comes to domestic violence. Our history is full of such violence -- from the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to Timothy McVeigh's well-planned attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City. But the term "terrorism" is reserved to those others, the Muslims and Middle Eastern bad guys.
In our society, domestic violence is presented and received as an aberration, committed by disturbed individuals who should have had help, psychoanalysis and rehabilitation. Violence committed by Muslims, in contrast, is simply a terrorist act by single-minded people who hate our way of life and want to hurt us.
An American outcast who hated every American around him and goes on a killing spree is just a disturbed person. He is mental, deprived of love and care. Experts on TV go deep into his mind to find out the real motive. When it comes to violence committed by foreigners, nobody is willing to go as deep. Violence committed by Muslim Arabs is automatically seen as politically motivated and quickly labeled an act of terrorism, case closed.
Muslim terrorists seem capable of committing violence with clear intention, to terrorize the American people. Domestic terrorists seem capable only of misguided intention, committed by lost souls.
The McClatchy News Service quoted Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik as saying of Loughner, "When you try to rationalize irrational acts, you wind up with zero." Wow. I couldn't have said it better.
--
Ahmed Tharwat, Minnetonka, is host of the Arab American TV show "Belahdan."
Comments (5)
I agree if the person was a muslim,,,
it would have been an TERRIOST act of somekind.
There were alot of RED flags all over the place yet for some reason,,,,this man slipped threw all of them. It took the lives and harm to 17 people to finally see those red flags. WHAT A SHAME!!!!!
My heart is full of compassion to all of the people this man tore apart within seconds.
It takes tragadys like this to open our eyes alot wider to pay attention to red flags,,,,,,NO matter skin colour or what religion one has., pay attention to red flags!!
The 9 year old girl that was killed, my heart crys for her and I will mourn her death for some time ahead.Shes a victim that should never have been!!
Mary..
Terrorist is someone who kills for his religious or political beliefs, like the MUSLIMS do. But this poor chap, Jared Lee Loughner, did it because he is mentally unstable. He did not kill because he can go to heaven to be with 70 blonde virgins. You see the difference ?
Certain Americans are far too arrogant and prideful to call one of their own a terrorist. We all know without question if Jared was of color and or had a Muslim name the word terrorist would have been introduced into this conversation from day one. But sadly most white Americans cannot and will not see the clear double standard because it will uncover a bias that most of us benefit from. How one can say this man was not politically motivated is just a clear dismisal of the facts. He attempted to kill a "Politician" for Petes sake. It was not random. It was diliberate.
With most of the terrorist who do commit crimes and kill themselves in the process, how does the media brand them terrorist without the benefit of interviewing them because they are dead. The answer is they don't, they simply slap the "terrorist" label on them because they are either muslim or with color. The mainstream media has done a great disservice to the American public in not labeling this monster a terrorist. All terrorist are mentally derranged and disturbed as this kid was. Arrogance, white privilage, and down right racism has blocked the word "terrorist" from this discussion. Another display of the worst that this country has to offer.
The greatest motivator to label a given act of violence a terrorist attack depends on if there is evidence that the act was politically and/or religiously motivated; nothing Loughner wrote before he attacked the Representative suggests a political motivation, or much of any motivation really. On the other hand, with all the recent acts of domestic terrorism, be it McVeigh or Joseph Stack attacking the IRS building in Texas, there were clear messages left about purpose and motivation. This may or may not have been terrorism, but at this point it merely seems like a deranged shooter who fixated on a public personality that he could get close to. Or something; maybe it was terrorism, but we don't really know right now. What we *do* know is that he is mentally unstable, quite obviously so. So, for the time being, we are calling him that, and not a terrorist, as we don't know anything else.
I'm not sure why he would be called a terrorist. A terrorist is someone who tries to affect political reform through violence and it doesn't look like that was the case here.
It seems like Sheriff Dupnik is largely responsible for politicizing these murders. I think by trying to frame this as an 'act of terrorism' would just be to further superimpose one's own politics onto something.
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