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Dec

27

Unburying My Head

Filed Under current affairs, history, islam, politics, sadness

Not being much of a news watcher, I learned about Benazir Bhutto’s assassination from a casual blogger in Brooklyn. For the first few minutes, I ran searches in Google, trying to confirm that it was just a prank or rumor, but it seems to be real.

For a while now I’ve been feeling a growing bemusement about what so-called Muslims are doing to each other. Earlier this year, I stopped listening to reports about bombings across the African and Asian continents - and slaughters in Iraq. As a former Muslim I am dismayed - and wondering what conversations Muslims are having about these atrocities - in this post 9/11, post-Taliban, post-Saddam, post-Arafat “Muslim world.”

I’ve had the displeasure of interacting with a few very frightening “Muslims” who expressed support for suicide bombings and such things - and this was pre-9/11. But even then they seemed peripheral. Surely, as a typical Muslim in the US, such people are anomalies and weirdos - they were as central to my life as neo-Nazi clans are to the average American. But gradually these people have become less peripheral; they are changing the agenda. Hell, they are the agenda.

For a long time I just wanted to take a break from all things politically Muslim. But now it’s definitely time to get my head out of the sand. I decided last week, while registering for my Winter classes, to take History of the Middle East (in Spring there is History of US-Middle East relations). There is a lot I don’t understand and don’t know.; lots of blanks to fill in. I’m sure a few courses won’t teach me all there is, but it feels more and more necessary to have some grasp of what’s going on. I may not be able to do anything more than have an informed opinion, but that’s got to feel better than just being at a complete loss.