Muslim in the Middle
In the wake of the Orlando shooting, I found the right wing media trying very hard to ‘prove’ that the Omar Mateen the Orlando shooter, had motivations related to Islam. They were very indignant about the fact that Obama did not use the term ‘radical Islam’. This amused me very much.
My right wing fellow human beings need not have worried at all. One does not have to say ‘radical Islam’, ‘Muslim extremism’ or even my personal favourite, ‘Islamofascism’ to get the point across. Just uttering the name ‘Omar Mateen’ would have been enough. Even if Omar Mateen had been a Christian or even an atheist, it would have got the point across. That’s how effective the Islamophobia machine is. It operates on racial rather than religious traits. Ask the Sikhs, they too have been victimized by Islamophobes for merely looking the part.
However, did Omar Mateen act in the name of Islam? According to reports, he made a call to emergency services declaring his allegiance to ISIS and some other Islamofascist groups (proving his confusion, by the way). So, he certainly thought he was acting in the name of Islam. Let’s give him that, at least
The question is, was he actually doing so? Over a billion Muslims would beg to differ. We are not talking about liberals, progressives, reformists or their ilk. We are talking about Conservative Traditional Muslims. Muslims who are decidedly sure that homosexuality is against nature and that the victims of the Orlando shooting were sinning. Even those people oppose Omar Mateen’s evil act.
From the reports, it seems that Omar Mateen was a conflicted man. Even his wife seems unsure of his sexuality. He has clear links to the Pulse nightclub which he attacked and apparently had profiles on gay dating apps. Like every Jihadi, his own issues became a springboard to violence. Are Muslims responsible for his act? I believe those who preach criminalization of homosexual acts are indeed responsible. By instilling hatred towards homosexuals, they have planted the seeds of self-hate in Omar Mateen which eventually led to his act. Yet ironically, even these people did not preach what Omar Mateen did. However, the ordinary Muslims are not culpable at all. Most do not even think about this issue. It is simply not within their heteronormative worldviews. If anything, they are guilty of apathy.
In this climate of conflict where Islam and the post-Christian west are in a dynamic tension on so many levels, there are parties for whom seeing Islam as a single monolith would greatly benefit. We are talking about Muslim dissenters (exMuslims, Muslim Athiests etc) who are very indignant at the very notion of interpretational differences, let alone different schools of thinking. It behoves them to present to the world a single Islam and an evil one at that. Right wing media panders to them in order to victimise the Muslims futher.
I ask my fellow human beings outside the Islamic tradition to look at the world with nuance. Be discerning. Understand that ‘Islam’ is an umbrella term for an infinite variety of human experiences. Omar Mateen thought he acted in the name of Islam but certainly not my Islam or even the Conservative Traditional Islam which is most prevalent in the world. Most Muslims would never dream of harming a person for their sexuality. Please do not tell us ‘Islam made him do it’. We live Islam and we ourselves never would.
Photo coutesy of (https://rumorbus.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/0612-omar-mateen-picture-9.jpg?w=450&h=450&crop=1)
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