Tell me again: why do the Moslems hate us?

My Indian correspondent returns to a question on which much ink and many electrons have been spilt:

I can recount vividly when the alarm bells went ringing in my mind about Muslim attitudes.

It was about three and a half years ago. I was back home then in India. I was on a train to Delhi some four days after September 11. My neighbours in the adjoining compartment were two Muslim gentlemen—steel grey beards, grey hair. I guessed they were probably in their 60s.

We didn’t get a chance to speak initially as they had a group of associates and family friends with them. They got off somewhere halfway in our journey. After that, a conversation ensued between us—usual stuff, exchange of pleasantries, brief introduction and informal chit chat about this and that. Both of them seemed to be very well educated Muslims, probably professionals who seemed upper middle class and very sober.

Our conversation turned to 9-11. After all, it had only happened four days before.

I was stunned to get their reaction. They seemed overjoyed at the attacks; they said that America had it coming and that it deserved it fully, that it was a shame the terrorists hadn’t killed more people. And then the usual justification that Americans were “oppressing” Muslims everywhere. I found those opinions bizarre because these men had probably never met an American, they were wealthy, living comfortably in India where they had absolutely no problems. Also, the argument often advanced by Michael Ledeen and others that state sponsored media spreads misinformation was inappalicable. The state sponsored media in India hardly ever mentions the Israeli/Palestinian issue or any other US interventions that are interpreted as “oppressive” in the Middle East. And yet, these men had so much hatred in their eyes at the USA that it left me speechless.

So it’s a good question. Why do they hate us?

Doesn’t it seem likely that the answer is the same answer that’s been true from the start—and by the start I mean, not 9/11, not Israel, not U.S. culture, not U.S. power, not Moslem backwardness, not U.S. failure to relieve third-world poverty, not colonialism, not women’s rights, but the same cause that’s been the cause for the last 1,400 years. Kill the infidels wherever you find them, says the document that should never, ever, be put in a toilet. Strike off their heads. Wreak Allah’s vengeance upon those who have rejected him and his prophet. In short, the cause is Muhammad, the cause is the Koran, the cause is Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 25, 2005 05:38 PM | Send