Muslims as victims
Reports have shown that Muslims are the largest victims of terrorism. According to the Counter Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Al-Qaeda kills over seven times more Muslims than non-Muslims. According to the United Nations, Muslims are the largest victims of Isis. According to the State Department, Muslims are the largest victims of terrorism in general.
However, despite these facts, Islam and Muslims continue to be at the receiving end of grudges that resulted from these terror attacks. There is a website that records all the terror attacks in the world that is linked with Islam and the Muslims.
Yes! There is such a website. It is called The Religion of Peace (Trop). According to this site, Trop is a non-partisan, fact-based site which examines the ideological threat that Islam poses to human dignity and freedom.
The website also claims that it is a pluralistic, non-partisan site concerned with Islam’s true political and religious teachings according to its own texts.
Its main purpose is to counter whitewashing and explain the threat that Islam truly poses to human dignity and freedom, as well as the violence and dysfunction that ensues as a direct consequence of this religion’s supremacist teachings.
In the last four weeks, it recorded more than 50 terror attacks in different countries. It made mention the following: The recent attack in Tanta, Egypt, where a suicide bomber blows up in the middle of a Palm Sunday service of Coptic Christians and the attack in Stockholm, Sweden, where a “radicalized” Muslim steals a truck and mows down four pedestrians.
It also mentioned the attack in Queanbeyan, Australia, where a gas station worker is stabbed to death by two “radicalized” teens; the attack in St. Petersburg, Russia, where a Fedayeen subway bomber sends ball bearing and bolts through a subway car, aerating fourteen commuters; the attack in London, England, where a Muslim man mows down pedestrians on a bridge, killing a teacher, tourist and an elderly man, before stabbing a police officer to death. A fifth victim succumbs weeks later. And the attack in Paris, France, a father and son’s throats are slit by a family member yelling “Allah Akbar.”
As a Muslim, I feel that our community and society expect us to apologize to all these crimes committed by these so called radicalized Muslims. I feel that we are being blamed for things that we absolutely have no control.
I am a proud Muslim Filipino and a Bangsamoro. I am the director of Al Qalam Institute of the Ateneo de Davao University. I am currently appointed as commissioner to the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC). The BTC is mandated to draft the enabling Bangsamoro Law to address the Bangsamoro struggle for right to self-determination and to address the structural and social injustices committed to the Bangsamoro people.
As a citizen of this country, I dream for the day that we will have long lasting peace in the Bangsamoro homeland. Thus, I continually strive to do everything I can for the betterment of my community and this nation.