On Whitewashing Hicks’ Terrorism: #MuslimLivesMatter

• February 12, 2015, 3:42 am

Craig Stephen Hicks is a terrorist, but the media is struggling to find other terminology to describe his crime.

The man who shot and killed three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, NC on Wednesday, February 11 is no ordinary terrorist either. A white male who proudly displayed his gun on social media carried out his crime not out of political despair or as a result of the humiliation experienced by having his country invaded and dismembered by a foreign invasion.

His terrorism is unique in the sense that he resides on the top of the food chain in terms of race, gender and other criteria. Yet, somehow he is politically frustrated. Go figure.

Even the media’s concealed apology for his crime, alleging that he hated ‘all religions’ is nonsensical to say that least. His social media posts indicated particular and irrational hate for Muslims.

“My respect for the Abrahamic religions went up in the smoke and choking dust of September 11 ..” he posted a quote on Facebook in 2012.

“The last vestige of respect for the taboo disappeared as I watched the ‘Day of Prayer’ in Washington Cathedral, where people of mutually incompatible faiths united in homage to the very force that caused the problem in the first place: religion. It is time for people of intellect, as opposed to people of faith, to stand up and say ‘Enough!’ Let our tribute to the dead be a new resolve: to respect people for what they individually think, rather than respect groups for what they were collectively brought up to believe.”

Hicks’ hate for ‘Abrahamic religion’ is motivated mostly by his hate for Muslims, and the fact that some members of other faiths insisted in uniting against terrorism, the type that Hicks had finally succumbed to.

Whether Hicks agrees or not, he is very much a terrorist; he thought his supposed ‘liberal’ views would shield him from that classification, but it won’t. Taking the lives of innocent people because of festering hate, accumulated by years of media brainwashing and the influence of such militant ‘anti-theists’, makes his crime particularly alarming.

https://twitter.com/miniestmini/status/565703936796266497

His type are not a radicalized generation born into oppression, foreign invasion, poverty and other untold humiliation. If that was the case, one can, at least to a degree fathom the hate, deconstruct the anger, or even rationalize that violence is a natural outcome of certain reality.

Hicks is of the Fox News demographic, gun touting unreasonably and immeasurably angry, white American. Self-proclaimed atheist or otherwise, it matters little.

This is what religious scholar Reza Aslan said about the new wave of “anti-theism” that Hicks belongs to. In a piece published in Salon in November, Aslan argued “that anti-theists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris respond ‘to religion with the same venomous ire with which religious fundamentalists respond to atheism.’ Aslan also cited a poll showing that about 85 percent of atheists do not subscribe to anti-theism.’

#CAIR: Huge crowd attends Chapel Hill vigil for Muslim shooting victims – #ChapelHillShooting… http://t.co/sQ9bugxj3P

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) February 12, 2015

Indeed, Hicks is a big Dawkins fan, according to his previous posts.

But Hicks terrorism aside, and the growing anti-atheist’s implication on violence, also aside, we are yet to see the immediate labeling of Hicks’ crime as terrorism by the mainstream media, the very media that doesn’t hesitate to label every crime allegedly committed by an Arab or a Muslim as terrorist. (Similar classification is reserved for members of other races. For the African American community the terms: ‘black on black violence’ or gang violence have been conveniently reserved for decades.)

#ChapelHillShooting 3 young MuslimAmericans killed by American Sniper#Douma_Exterminated 1000 Syrians burnt by Assad pic.twitter.com/fSw0pvesY0

— Tarek Abou Ghazala (@tarekmd) February 11, 2015

White crimes are different though. They essentially cannot be gang motivated, or God-forbid terrorist, at least that is what one can easily deduce from media coverage. But here is a little exercise that might highlight the point:

Say for instance, that Ahmed is a brown, second generation Arab Muslim American, who walks with a gun around his waist in Chapel Hill, NC. He is no fan of certain groups of people specifically because of their ideas, ideology or way of life. He would like to see them ‘go away’.

Ahmed killed three people, a young man, his wife and her sister. Let’s change their names. They are not Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha, but John, Kathy and Debbie.

Again, Ahmed is brown and a Muslim. The three victims are white, Christian and ‘red blooded Americans’ whatever that means.

Is Ahmed a terrorist?

I guarantee you that Fox New would interrupt its regularly scheduling programming (mostly dedicating to smear Muslims, anyway) to say whatever it takes to convince you that Ahmed was a terrorist.

Is Hicks a terrorist?

The Chapel Hill Murders Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Atheists http://t.co/ZvZAL3U5O1 via @tnr #ChapelHillShooting pic.twitter.com/EmiFcv7mff

— Joe Catron (@jncatron) February 12, 2015

Not according to the disgustingly skewed and crude media paradigm according to which much of our society and governments operate.

Parents of Deah Barakat. They could be our parents. pic via @ajplus #ChapelHillShooting #heartbroken pic.twitter.com/w4x82vIBE3

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) February 12, 2015

Yes, governments. If a Muslim carried out a bad deed anywhere, the first official assumption is that it is an act of terror. If no connection between the perpetrator and existing militant group is found, he may be qualified for the post of the ‘lone wolf’. If a connection is found, as simple as a particularly distasteful Facebook post or a militant tweet, the entire Muslim community of that country is held hostage to media smearing, hate crimes and more.

In fact a crime carried out by a Muslim is immediately stripped from its immediate context, and turned into a global story that could indeed compel a shift in foreign policy.

When the victims are Muslims, which could be millions of Iraqis, thousands of Palestinians, or three Muslim students in North Carolina, the discourse shifts away from generalizations, politics or any context that may in fact help us understand the issue better.

So Hicks, we are told killed the students ‘execution style’ because of a dispute over parking spaces.

The same way that Chris Kyle – ‘The American Sniper’ – made 164 confirmed “kills” during his four tours in Iraq because they were ‘savages’ who deserved to die.

And US wars and sanctions on Iraq killed, starved and wounded millions to bring democracy to the Arabs.

This selectively insane logic will persist however, because they are millions of unrepentant politicians, extremist media pundits and well-armed men and women dotting the Middle East, who refuse to see the insanity of their ‘logic’.

They will continue to feed violence – which unlike what Hicks is led to believe didn’t start on Sep. 11, 2001 – and spit out the most dangerous of militant phenomena: al-Qaeda, ISIS and all the rest.

Strange how those who vow to fight terrorism have carried most of the terrorist acts, and inspired the most dangerous of terrorist retaliation.

But according to the US media three Muslim kids were killed over a car parking dispute.

"@BigotExposed: Here's your guide to understanding the news.#ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/NpxbnQHg0I"

— Falcons …. back to reality (@Im_Egyptian_) February 12, 2015

No moral awakening yet. In fact, nothing to be expected. But the perils of having no such awakening is likely to lead to more violence, a cycle that will inspire more gun touting Hicks to carry out more terrorist deeds.

@RamzyBaroud #MuslimLivesMatter