Afters reporting that a “Saudi National” was a suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombings, and that he was taken into custody, the New York Post lost a lot of its credibility and was criticized for reporting, with no evidence, something as serious as that; not only did it give the Saudi student a really hard time -although he was just another victim of the bombings- but the false reporting of the New York Post fed the fire that’s burning  the Muslim communities in general, the fire called Islamophobia.

I came across an article written by Vladimir Chituc, titled: “Even If It Was a Muslim, So What?” , and I  believe that, so far, I haven’t read any better article tackling the issue of Islamophobia in relation to the Boston Marathon Bombings than this one.
I do encourage readers to read the article in full, but below are the paragraphs that I believe summarize the main points and do certainly hit the nail right on the head.

“What would have happened, though, if the perpetrator was this 20-year-old Saudi, who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time looking the wrong color and maybe calling out to the name of the wrong-sounding God? What if it was some other Muslim, instead? Why should that even matter?

“They use extraordinary examples as an excuse to rub in our faces how violent and harmful a religion Islam is… But what about the Gallup poll that shows that 93 percent of Muslims in the world aren’t radical, and that the radicals give political, not religious, justifications for their violence? What about the study out of Duke and UNC Chapel Hill showing that only 6 percent of terrorist attacks in the U.S. have been by Muslims? What about the studies by Robert Pape showing that nearly all suicide bombings have the secular goal of resisting Western occupation, rather than any religious aim? What about the secular and nationalist group, the Tamil Tigers, which pioneered the modern suicide attack, accounting for the majority in the latter end of the 20th century? …

“We don’t see Muslims in Minnesotta blowing themselves up because of Islam, so why should we even take seriously the idea that religion is involved when the effect is entirely explained by other factors? Stalin may very well have said “religion is a poison” as he was ordering the massacre of clergymen in Soviet Russia, but I think most of us are happy to chalk this up to economics, politics and nationalism. I see no reason we should treat Islam any differently. …

“… More than that, though, this topic is important because of how we treat people like the 20-year-old Saudi, a visiting student who looks, to many, more like a killer than a victim.
If we find out tomorrow that the bomber was a right-wing radical protesting tax day, then no one will look at their Republican friends any differently, and no Republicans will feel the need to be careful about how they respond in a tragedy. But if we find out tomorrow that the bomber was a Muslim, then I don’t think we can say the same. And that’s a problem.”
[Article in full]

What happened in the Boston Marathon was tragic, inhumane, heart-breaking and I don’t think that any culture, or religion,  justifies or encourages such terrorism. I hope they catch the one(s) behind this tragedy and that they get what they deserve no matter where they come from, or what they believe in.

Related:

* Sign this petition to demand an apology from the New York Post for racial profiling and the harm it caused to the Saudi student.

* Another very well written article on the same issue, this time by Andreas Rekdal, titled: ‘The bomber isn’t one of “us” – and probably not one of “them”, either‘.