Leilouta

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Commenting on VA Tech

For a different perspective here are some comments I collected from a few Arab newspapers about the massacre at Virginia Tech.

لو حصل ذلك الحادث في بلد اسلامي لقالوا هذا هو الإسلام والمسلمون. لكن يا ترى ماذا سيقولون الآن؟
If that happened in a Muslim country they would say that it is Islam and Muslims, but what will they say now?

هم دائما يلصقون صفة الارهاب بالعرب والسؤال الان ماذا نسمي الذي حدث بالجامعه ومقتل كل هؤلاء الابرياء الا يعد ارهابا واجراما وهذا يدل ان الارهاب ليس له جنسيه او دين وانما هو موجود في كل زمان ومكان حتى انه موجود في بلادكم التي تتغنى دائما بالحريه والديمقراطيه والتحضر وبايدي ابنائكم هذه المره
They always combine terrorism with the Arabs and the question now is what do we call what happened at that University and the death of all those innocents?
Isn’t it terror and crime and this proves that terrorism has no race or religion. It exists in every era and everywhere. It also exists in your country, that brags about freedom, democracy, and civilization, at the hands of your kids this time.

“Notice that the racist federal police spokesman did not call this terror a terroist act!! Why? If this is not terror what the hell is a terrorist act then?!! Is that because the criminal killer is American ?!! Shame , my heart goes out to the victims and their families.”

ها هي أميركا تدفع ثمن كبريائها،…
Here is the USA paying the price of its arrogance.

اولا تعازينا لاهالى الضحايا حتى لو كانت امريكا بسياستها متغطرسه وحدث هذا لعلها تفيق. اما الاهم والاغرب فالموضوع هو تعازى دوله ايران التى اقول عربيه بالفعل احتار امرى فى هذا البلد الصالح رغم انحرافه بعض الشىء فاصل الدين لكن صدقونى هم اقوياء ولا يبعثون بالتعازى من اجل شى وارجعو للايام الماضيه احتجازهم للبحارة البريطانين لمجرد عبورهم مياهم الاقليميه هذا يدل على ان ايران دوله قويه جدا فى كل شى حتى فالاخلاق لو لم اكن مصريا لوددت ان اكون ايرانيا مسلما موحدا بالله وسنه نبيه ويرحم الله الحكام العرب مهدرين الكرامه الذين يبعثون بالتعازى الان للدوله المسيطرة على عقولهم الموالسون معها
First of all, our condolences to the mourning families even if the US’s policy is brutal and now that happened maybe it will wake up. The most important and strange thing in this subject is Iran’s condolences. I am confused about that country but believe me they are strong and they don’t usually send condolences for anybody, and go back to the story of the British sailors. That shows that Iran is a very strong country in everything. If I was not Egyptian I would’ve loved to be Iranian, Muslim, believing in the only God and its prophet. And God have mercy on Arab rulers that lose their honor by sending condolences to the country that dominants their heads…

هذا هو غضب اللة علي الكفرة .الذين يقتلون الاطفال والشيوخ ويغتصبون النساء في العراق وفي افغانستان وجميع الدول الاسلامية .
This is God’s anger against the infidels who kill kids and elders and rape women in Iraq, Afganistan, and all the Muslim countries.

هذة حقيقة الشعب الامريكي (شعب مجرم ) و نسال الله ان يسلط بعضهم على بعض.
This is the truth about Americans (criminals) and we ask God ….

اعتقد ان المسلمين ليسوا الاعنف الان
I think that Muslims are not the most violent now

لعل ضمير بوش يصحو ويعرف انه كان سبب في قتل مئات الالوف من العراقيين وليس ثلاثة وثلاثين
Maybe Bush’s conscience will wake up now and will know that he was the reason for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths and not 33

طالم اسرائيل تقتلنا في لبنان ها هم في امريكا يقتلون بعضهم البعض والله يزيدن
As long as Israel kill us in Lebanon , there in America they kill each other …

مات الابرياء وبقي المذنبون الحقيقيون احياء يرزقون كم تمنيت لو كان هذا الهجوم علي البيت الابيض بدل تلك الجامعة المسالمة
Innocents died and the guilty are alive. I wish that attack happened in the White House instead of that peaceful University

انتظرو قبل ان تشمتو لعل بين القتلى احد من الطلبه المسلمين ...
Wait before you rejoice maybe one of the dead is a Muslim student

ما حدث ممكن أن يحدث فى أى مكان في العالم . لما الشماتة فى أمـريـكا!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What happened could happen anywhere in the world. Why take malicious pleasure in the mishaps of the US!!!!

أتقدم بالتعازي للضحايا وأسرهم وما حصل عندهم قد يحصل عندنا لا سمح الله علمنا ديننا ونبينا أن لا نشمت بأحد أي كان الحمد لله على كل حال
My condolences to the victim’s families and what happened to them can happen to us, God forbid. Our religion and prophet taught us that we shouldn’t rejoice in anybody’s misery.

18 Comments:

  • At 7:54 PM, Blogger Nouri said…

    Interesting.

    On Arabisto.com there is an article about two of the students who were killed, both of whom were Arab-American. I believe they were both Christian (judging by their names). I wonder if that writer from the quote third to last would rejoice at this?

    Nouri

     
  • At 8:06 PM, Blogger Carmen said…

    Nasty. Disgusting. And stupid. That's all I have to say about their comments.

     
  • At 10:03 PM, Blogger Jane said…

    I'm glad you included the last quote--I was beginning to be very disheartened. I hope that is how the majority of Muslims overseas feel. Whatever horrible things our government is responsible for one thing is certain; the people of the US do not take to the streets and rejoice when other countries suffer tragedy, even if we are at war. We do not tell them that they deserved it. We don't even think it. How callous some people are. These weren't soldiers or government politicos. These were regular people gunned down by a lunatic. When a lunatic in the Middle East attaches a bomb to him/herself and blows up a marketplace the Americans aren't happy about it. We don't tell them "look at your policies" or that "they are paying a price for their arrogance". All this incident shows is that we have crazy people who want to kill as many others as possible too. Only here they use guns. Over there they get on a bus and blow it up. They are all just crazy people. Period. This could have happened anywhere. Didn't a mayor of a major Japanese town just get gunned down by a ganster? Sh*t happens and not just in America to punish the Americans. People are crazy everywhere.

     
  • At 10:07 PM, Blogger Kaiser said…

    George Bush declaration : "Those who have been killed were in the wrong place at the wrong moment ..."

    What a nice reconfort for victims families. I think he did not measure the weight of his declaration.

    Our condolences goes to the victims families. We cannot rejoice this serial killing because human beings have been killed.

     
  • At 10:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Look if you hate this country then please go home. To ypour country where they behead people and women have no rights.

     
  • At 10:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh bye the way were was the suicide bomber?
    Muslim on Muslim violence is popular in the Middle east right!
    You dont have the right to comment on this fix your house first then you can complain about my GREAT COUNTRY

     
  • At 2:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Here is another perspective, that is similar to some of those portrayed here, but given by an American Professor I think the comments are more relevant.

     
  • At 7:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I am american. i was born in this great country and i will die in this country. i do not support the violence in the middle east. i do not believe that it is our right to come into a country, where we are not wanted, and try and change things. if people in that country are happy with tyrrany and the killing of thousands of their fellow countrymen at the hands of an evil dictator, so be it. For anyone to rejoice in the killing of innocent people is ludacris. i do not care if a person is Muslim or Christian, they are still people, and no one has the right to take their life away. Only God, which ever one you believe in, has that right.

     
  • At 7:45 AM, Blogger sassou said…

    Chaque chose à sa place, certains comments c vraiment du "hazzen wa nafdhan", ce qui s'est passé peut se passer n'importe où, une victime est une victime quelle que soit sa religion ou sa nationalité, certaines personnes sont vraiment aveuglées par leur haine envers les U.S, je trouve cela vraiment pathétique!

     
  • At 9:56 AM, Blogger D.B. Shobrawy said…

    unfortunately I'm not the least bit surprised.

     
  • At 12:47 PM, Blogger Miss Carnivorous said…

    The shooting proves only that there are people (men mostly) in this world who have violent impulses they are unable to control. Humans have been proven to have a huge capacity for violence. The wonder is that the world has pockets of peace and stability. Many people have violent impulses but do not act on them. The shooter's race and naturalized American nationality have no bearing on his actions. Virginia Tech is full of law abiding, gentle and humane immigrants of many nationalities who will never harm others and indeed after graduation will contribute to societies all over the world. He must be judged as an individual. The murders were not society's fault, nor his parent's fault, nor the American government's fault nor the University's fault. He and he alone, was responsible for the crimes and now he is dead and free from the hands of justice so the world will look for others to blame. That is human nature.

     
  • At 5:00 PM, Blogger Consider This said…

    I find it genuinely unnerving that people have such little solidarity with each other. We are all enemies of 'terror', in which ever form it takes. A tit for tat attitude just goes to show that the world has not grown up from playground politics to have any real human dignity

     
  • At 6:54 PM, Blogger shlemazl said…

    There is one thing in common between the Islamic "terrorists" and this guy. None of them is a "terrorist".

    Terrorists terrorise to achieve a political objective. Islamic "terrorists", suicide bombers et al are simply mass murderers. They kill for the sake of it.

     
  • At 1:02 PM, Blogger Miss Carnivorous said…

    Watching the PBS Frontline documentaries this week made me realize that most of the Eoropean "homegrown terrorists" are just criminals, drug dealers and wife beaters. Misfits and losers!

     
  • At 6:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Most of the reactions don't make a lot of sense.

    The guy was crazy, not a terrorist. And while the media keep referring to Arab and Muslim terrorists as "militants" and "extremists" (probably because they are Muslim or Arab), using the word to describe the South-Korean guy would be wrong. He was not a terrorist. His plan was not to create fear, he wanted to take revenge (for whatever he thought society did to him).

    That doesn't make his crime any better, but the word "terrorist" means something and the meaning should not be watered down ("a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims").

    The there is the blame Bush routine. I am sorry, but George Bush is NOT to blame for the Iraqi victims of _Arab terrorists_. Many people tend to blame Americans, and especially the president for the acts of others. It doesn't make sense. If a terrorist group blows up a mosque in Iraq, as they often do, it is the terrorists' fault, not George Bush's. Arabs are not children and neither are Arab terrorists.

    "Hundreds of thousands" of victims in Iraq is nonsense. If that number was right, the Iraqi government would have vanished several hundred bodies a day. The Nazis needed furnaces for such a task, Saddam Hussein used mass graves (the pictures of them are quite horrible), what do the Americans use? I think one must be more careful with accusations. Think first, then accuse.

    But anyway, if you believe there are too many victims in Iraq, talk to the terrorists about it. The US have no interest in killing Iraqis or do anything that could make Iraq appear as anything but heaven on earth. It's the terrorists who want Iraq in shambles, not America.

    And to those who believe that this is is America paying the price for its arrogance: Talk to the Kurds about national arrogance and see if America seems so arrogant to those who were the victims of the proud.

    Look at these pictures (http://www.9neesan.com/massgraves/) and tell me again what American arrogance is. Look at these pictures (http://www.9neesan.com/halapja/) and call the Americans arrogant for defeating the government responsible for those acts!

    If you are Arab, consider that it was other Arabs who did that, not Americans.

    No Arab can be proud of what Saddam did then and what the terrorists are doing now in Iraq. That you still find time to call Americans arrogant is plain amazing. What about the arrogance of the Baathists and terrorists?

     
  • At 9:48 AM, Blogger programmer craig said…

    Some truly disgusting comments, there. How many mentioned rejoicing? 3? 4? And every one of them mentioned God, I think. DO Muslims think God has something to do with mass murder? I don't get it.

    And I still don't get the idea that Arabs don't understand the difference between terrorism and ordinary criminal insanity. Is it really such a difficult concept?

    I think the middle east is doomed, if the average citizen is so stuck on stupid. Or maybe it's the rest of us who are doomed, to be the victims of such cretins, sooner or later.

     
  • At 1:52 PM, Blogger Cairogal said…

    Grim, though not shocking. I think events like what happened at VT are a good opportunity for a lot of Americans to look at the issue of violence w/in our borders. What makes us a violent nation? What changes need to happen in order to prevent some other emotionally disturbed kid from walking into a university and doing the same? There's been plenty of dialogue in the media about this (though perhaps not as much on gun control as I would like to see). It takes a good bit of humility for a people to ask themselvse 'Why?' It takes a great deal of humility for a nation of people to say, "There's something wrong here, and we need to find a way to change this." America is flawed, like any other nation, but one thing I do treasure our ability and tendency to talk about what's wrong with us. It might not be reflected in our government's actions, but I do think it's a trait of the people.

     
  • At 2:01 PM, Blogger Cairogal said…

    Craig said: I think the middle east is doomed, if the average citizen is so stuck on stupid.

    You know, Craig, I think this has more to do with deflection. If you have to start addressing the issues on your own doorstep (and I'm not just talking terrorism, but corruption, social injustice, etc.), it's a hard pill to swallow. Many people in the region find it easier to blame the problems on Israel, US foreign policy. I'm the first person to criticise both, but not as a scapegoat. I think if more Arabs put effort into reforming their own broken governments rather than seeking an external scapegoat, the ME might have a fighting chance. But doing that means turning the eye inward, admitting flaws, and being self-critical as a whole nation.

     

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