To A Few Of My Conservative Friends, To Whom I Am Tired Of Discussing Terrorism With

A few notes before I proceed - I am tired, sick, and oddly in the mood to write this post. I do not support terrorism, but I am not sure I don't understand it. As a Muslim, I decry cowardly acts such as 9/11, but I am a little worn thin by the folks on the other side of it who use it as a tool to mask their own selfishness and barbarism. They say we have freedom of speech in this country, let's see.......

I am probably more conservative than I am liberal, thanks to a few years living in a refugee camp with folks from a civil war. Succinctly put, they taught me that there were wicked people in the world that needed to be stopped by force, not coddled by diplomacy. It reminded me of living in those cheap rentals over the Midwest, cowering in an empty corner as my drunken step-father raged through the place. When I finally stood up and fought him, I lost, but whatever pain he inflicted was far less than the humiliation of my silence, my cowardice. Yes an eleven year old is a coward if he hides away while his mother is beaten or his sister is terrified or worse. The liberals in my universe of course tried to comfort me, probably believed I shouldn't have felt any shame. But I did - when someone takes up in his hands all that you have, all that you love and fear and humbles and crushes you with it, there is little left but the emptiness of shame.
It was almost forty years before I felt that helplessness again; this time at the hands (and rifle barrels) of young Israelis bent on toying with me while I tried to go into mosques to pray - indifferently exposing me to just a bit of the animosity and ugliness inside them that they project so well on the Palestinians around them. And to be sure, mine was just a taste of this madness. I would love to take any freedom-loving American over there, let them find out why they believe it is so important that the military is not the only armed populace in their society, find out what it is like to have a 19 year old hold your life in the balance at any given moment of the day, or maybe just leave them at home, knock down their houses, move them fifty miles away and tell them they can never return "home." Or maybe have them explain how a group of people could displace them over night, claiming the land that has a cemetery with five generations of their family buried in it.
Really, what I am most tired of is the dishonesty that often precedes the questions about terrorism. An artful artifice of sorts, masking the motive that dares not reveal itself: "We think those people should just disappear quietly." Whether it fulfills a prophecy or profitability, it is amazing how a good part of the world cares so little about these Palestinians who face daily realities that are completely anathema to the American ideals I was taught. Well, given that they probably won't just go away, what should they do? What would an American do?
In this modern world, there is inevitable conflict. How does a group, outnumbered and out resourced, defend itself today? In a military state where the general populace feels disenfranchised and oppressed, how should they assert their basic rights? Imagine an American reality where a particular ethnic group could expect their homes to be demolished regularly with no recourse, no recompense. Imagine a world that would respect you only if you slid silently into your oblivion in order to spare it some uncomfortable introspection.
While growing up in that household filled with violence and shame, I was often astounded by the grown-ups that stood away and let it happen. These adults were family members, school officials, social workers, even policemen. There were times the police were called to our house and they cautiously dealt with my step-father, as afraid of him as I was I supposed. On most occasions, they postured a bit then let him return back into the house, not concerned with the consequences that would follow. I realized early that I was on my own. When I did begin to fight back, eventually prevailing, those same mature witnesses looked the other way - fair is fair I guess, but perhaps not in Palestine though.
As I have said before, I should have killed my step-father back then, before those more terrible things followed my occasional beatings and periodic degradation - things I won't speak of here. If I had killed him with whatever means I could have summoned, would I have been a terrorist? Am I a terrorist now for promoting this retroactive posture? Am I a terrorist when the occasional thought passes my mind that killing one Israeli soldier would do more good than trying to help teach a hundred displaced Palestinian children in a desolate refugee camp (that point when my logic and my ethics collide uncomfortably and repulsively)?
It is an ever-coalescing notion that I as a Muslim am becoming an enemy to my own country. Whether it is Michele Bachmann, the state of Kansas, or the Republican convention featuring a Zionist Rabbi and the Democratic convention voting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, I see the alignment forming. Looking down this road, I wonder what my recourse would be when a bulldozer or tank shows up at my home because my grandson threw a rock at armored soldier, or if the space became needed for some zealous Christian converts who liked the property. If my home wasn't very nice, would they put a thirty-foot high wall around it? Would my religion trump my right to bear arms? Would I be expected to relocate to Mexico or Canada? No, surely not in America! Why then anywhere else in the world?
So, given that we won't suggest the Palestinians turn away and die, what is their recourse? What are the rules of engagement? Of war? When negotiations fail, and you are hopelessly outnumbered, what do you do?
I don't know the answers to these honest questions, but I do know I am weary of the conversations I have about the byproducts of injustice and racism. When you oppress people, when you treat them inhumanely, you introduce them to the evil you may one day reap. Let me be clear - evil is evil, and anyone who engages in it is evil and unsupportable. It is a dangerous game to begin to quantify its effects, particularly when you initiate it - I would never say or believe a terrorist act is justified, but I would be less than honest if I said I could not imagine what motivated it. And if I would have killed my step-father forty years ago, I would suspect there would be consequences, lest our society unravel into a anarchistic chaos as Martin Luther King admonished us.
We are a nation that worships justice, that has attained a fair measure of it, and maybe no longer appreciates its principles. I simply cannot believe that what has evolved in Palestine is compatible with the fair and equitable notions lodged securely in the freedom-loving hearts of most of the people I know here in the United States. Therefore, please quit asking me about terrorism because I am a Muslim and start asking me about the basic and unalienable rights of all people everywhere, and the consequences of looking the other way, or worse yet, colluding in the suppression of the freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of anyone.

I do not support terrorism.

I Support Terrorism

Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
--FBI Definition
When I read this, it struck me so vividly why the US staunchly refuses to declare any action of Israel as illegal. To do so would be to denounce it as a terrorist state. Time after time, the US is the sole dissenter on the UN Security Council when it comes to critique of Israeli actions. In essence then, we the people of the US, define what is legal and illegal, therefore what is a terrorist action and what is not. In a very thinly veiled defense, the best we (the US) could do was create the Negroponte Doctrine, whereby we refuse to endorse any sanction of Israel that does not also include a reference to Palestinian terrorist groups. Somewhat less than brilliant, it basically adds the adolescent grouse that any action is a relevant, justified reaction. Just like a 13 year old, Israel cannot conceptualize the possibility that their actions are proactive and unjust, and therefore believe it is unfair to be criticized. Even if there is no attributable cause, injury can be abjured with the specter of future danger abated. And worse, we accept this moral relativity not as a logical consequence, but because of the dissonance its denial would produce – imagine the war on terror if Israel becomes a foe. This cannot happen, therefore Israel cannot be a terrorist state, therefore Israel cannot execute illegal actions against the people of Palestine. Simple really.
I have come to the conclusion that I am a terrorist – or at the very least, that I support terrorism. In my opinion, many of Israel’s operations constitute the FBI definition of terrorism, whether or not our administration recognizes the fact. My government supports Israel, therefore I support Israel. I am not a Dixie Chick, I cannot declare that the President of the United States is not my president, nor can I renounce my government while remaining inside its purview. So, I guess to this point, I have been a somnambulent terrorist at the very least.
Now, to this issue of waking up - I am aware that I am an active participant in terrorist activities, what to do? Can I stand up like my liberal friends and shake my fist at the rest of my community, pedantically ranting about its ignorance? Should I bury my head back in the sand this time knowing where it is, and the consequences of my blindness? Can I immerse myself in politics and picket and protest? How do I know when I can rightfully place my head on my pillow at night and truly sleep? What to do, what to do?
Instead of worrying about what to do now that I am awake (if I really am, another philosophic discussion), I have been wondering how one endeavors to wake others. Through self-righteous indignation, protest, education, media, blogs, etc.? Do those methods work? Or are they like other forms of vain diplomacy that take decades while innocent people suffer and die? Do we need to be woken up gently, like the sleepwalker you dare not startle? Do we deserve to be left to our slumber, even when the dream within the dream starts to reveal troublesome inconsistencies? For if we wake to the reality that we have killed innocent people, children would that bring a new meaning to the term “night terror?” Can we choose to ignore the consequences of our luxurious languor? Is there a price?
I wonder now if some terrorists are not monsters at all, maybe just zealots intent on making other people wake up, anyway they can. Please do not mistake these musings as any type of justification or support for violent actions. But I have learned that certain behaviors (or willful oversight of behaviors) often carry consequences, deserved or otherwise. I wonder if we ever think about children in other places and whether or not they are to be accorded the rights we hold so dear and so close to our American hearts. Are these rights only for Americans? I wonder if we ever think about the Spencerian distinction of patriotism whereby we love our country rather than hating all others. Is the terror we feel the direct result of the heinous violence directed at us, or the possibility of rousing to our own culpability? I do not connect the two, morally or logically, but I understand the frustrated compulsion to do so, particularly when every other form of remedy has failed or been ignored.
I am a terrorist who despises terrorists. Where do I go?