They’re torturing, raping and bombing their way to our hearts.

And They Ask,
“Why Do They Hate Us?”

As an Arab Muslim, watching and hearing news on what went on in Palestine and Iraq had gotten to a nauseating point with me. There had been too much repetition, too much unintelligent jargon, and too much vulgarity for even devout Middle East addict to take. My and many others’ intelligence gets insulted everyday with not much done about it. God forbid I should forget that those who insult are the “mighty” ones with the black suits and the fancy ties, the ones with their sophisticated toys, ready to knock the hell out of anyone who misbehaves.

It’s been a pattern, and an intentional one at that. They strike, kill, enrage, and walk out clean. Our faces turn red; we scream; they turn blue. We walk down the streets holding signs and throwing tomatoes. We let it all out. Our faces grow back their yellow, and they stay that way. Colorful, isn’t it?

Alarmingly, each crime committed against my people is beginning to act like a vaccine booster, as if we were slowly adapting to humiliation. Proud men getting their faces rubbed in sand is the order of the day. At some point it was a Palestinian child’s bloody face into the pavement under an Israeli boot, so rubbing an adult face in sand with an American boot is not that bad after all!

As if we were slowly adapting to humiliation.

We’re looking at a policy that aims at producing non-reaction. Acquired helplessness. And they see it as the first step to a loving friendship. They’re torturing, raping and bombing their way to our hearts. And since we’re dogs, we’d continue to drool to them for attention, for love. This is their utopian vision of us. This is how they’ve chosen to run things with the people of a thousands-of-years-old civilization.

But as humiliated and helpless as many of us have come to feel, silent rage is spreading among us like a dangerous plague. No, they haven’t won any “dog’s” heart. They’ve only kept the hearts and minds of Arab rulers who gladly prostitute their countries for cash and prestige.

As this outrageous set of atrocities piles up with time, it awakens the proud human in any decent Muslim. They empower the will to act more assertively, to speak louder, and to make a change. And we’re more than a billion. We come from different parts of the world, and we live under differing conditions. Our education ranges from a PhD to nothing. But if a few of us get hurt, we all ache. And our reactions then vary, and range from speaking and writing to suicide bombing.

I believe this pile just got heaviest with me. When I saw pictures of my brothers in Iraq stripped naked I literally felt my blood boiling in a way it hasn’t for a very long time. I found myself writing for the first time in four years.

There isn’t much I can write that hasn’t already been written by many others or spoken by many more. But since there appears to be a massive state of ignorance on the policy making level, allow me to use some basic teaching techniques usually applied on Alzheimer patients: repetition.

Invade a country and treat its people like sheep and you’ll be loathed for generations. The Israelis still suffer from that mistake; the infamous “a land without people to people without land” dogma, which is translated in each Israeli policy, continues to cost many Israeli lives 56 years on. And they haven’t learned.

The Israelis still suffer from that mistake… And they haven’t learned.

And now, with a smiling face, I’m expected to give reassuring answers to angry patriotic Americans echoing the blond heads that popped on television right after 9/11: “Why do they hate us?” A question the media has managed to scare every American with. And many have internalized and believed it.

One thing: Get your honorable liberators out of our land. As each day passes you convince more and more people to really hate you this time, and fight to the very last drop of their boiling blood.

By Arwa Mahmoud
Arwa Mahmoud is editor and recently staff writer for IslamOnline. A Political Science graduate of the American University Cairo , she holds an International Relations diploma with special focus on foreign policy analysis. You can reach her at arwasm1@yahoo.com

Unfortunately I must write that the opinions of this author do not necessariiy reflect the opinions of the owner of this blog, her ducks, chickens, turkeys, geese, basset hounds, husband, neighbors, anyone who knows her or knows of her or will meet her in the future, or her dead grandmother.

Oh yea. My birth family might agree, they haven't talked to me for 15 years. Ask them.

Your P A T R I O T Act at work.

badumpdah.