Globe Letter: Scream for Darfur, Mindy G. Alter
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Scream for Darfur, Mindy G. Alter, Globe and Mail Letters, Thursday, May 4, 2006
Toronto -- I can't tell you how refreshing it was to read Tarek Fatah decry Muslim silence on Darfur (Why Are We Muslims So Silent On Darfur? -- May 3), a silence he attributes to the misperception among Muslim leadership that "the Zionists" had "exaggerated" the issue and were "abusing" it for their own nefarious purposes. Mr. Fatah shines a bright light of reason on the kind of delusional thinking that blames the Jews for all the world's ills. This displacement allows Muslims to evade responsibility and, in the case of Darfur, enables them to stand by in silence as Arab militias backed by Sudan's Islamist government slaughter thousands of innocent people.
If Jews raise their voices against such willful slaughter, it is because they've had great experience with it themselves; the example of the Holocaust clearly demonstrates what happens when people remain silent in the face of genocide. That this concern, born of historical experience, should be turned against them, and used as an excuse by Muslims to not become involved, is indeed alarming -- and extremely disheartening.
One hopes that Mr. Fatah's piece will serve as a wake-up call for his community. But given the mindset of its leadership and its tendency to offload blame, his words are likely to fall on deaf ears.
Toronto -- I can't tell you how refreshing it was to read Tarek Fatah decry Muslim silence on Darfur (Why Are We Muslims So Silent On Darfur? -- May 3), a silence he attributes to the misperception among Muslim leadership that "the Zionists" had "exaggerated" the issue and were "abusing" it for their own nefarious purposes. Mr. Fatah shines a bright light of reason on the kind of delusional thinking that blames the Jews for all the world's ills. This displacement allows Muslims to evade responsibility and, in the case of Darfur, enables them to stand by in silence as Arab militias backed by Sudan's Islamist government slaughter thousands of innocent people.
If Jews raise their voices against such willful slaughter, it is because they've had great experience with it themselves; the example of the Holocaust clearly demonstrates what happens when people remain silent in the face of genocide. That this concern, born of historical experience, should be turned against them, and used as an excuse by Muslims to not become involved, is indeed alarming -- and extremely disheartening.
One hopes that Mr. Fatah's piece will serve as a wake-up call for his community. But given the mindset of its leadership and its tendency to offload blame, his words are likely to fall on deaf ears.
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