Yasmine Bahrani raises a valid question in her article in Washington post. If protests against the Israeli killings of innocent Gaza civilians was right thing to do, then what about protests against ISIS for killing innocent civilians? Indonesian Government has spoken out against ISIS and asked all Muslim nations to unite against ISIS. Does it matter how ISIS was created and who is responsible? It still needs condemnation from all Muslim quarters because Islamic State is committing crimes against humanity (F. Sheikh)
This summer, many Muslims marched in the streets of London, Parisand other cities to condemn the deaths of Gazans at the hands of Israel . Of course it makes sense to protest the bombing of schools and residential buildings. I marched in the streets against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon when I was a student, and I marched against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. But, inexplicably, there have been no similarly large-scale demonstrations against the Islamic State for its horrific acts against Christians, Yazidis and even its fellow Muslims in Iraq and Syria. And there certainly haven’t been any marches protesting the beheading of innocents . It’s not hard to organize a march. So where are the demonstrations?
This is not the first time this question has occurred to me. For years, I have wondered about this absence of public outrage. When I asked about the murder of Iraqi civilians by Sunni and Shiite gangs, my fellow Muslims dodged my questions: “Why did the United States invade Iraq in the first place?” Yes, the U.S. invasion was a mistake. But why is it so hard to take a stand against the killing of women and children? I never got a straight answer.
To be sure, many Muslims have spoken out against the Islamic State, and some clerics have condemned this gang of terrorists; Qatar-based Islamic scholar Yusuf Qaradawi, for instance, said the Islamic State violates sharia law and declared “null and void” the group’s declaration of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But their words merely echoed those of non-Muslims who have called for an end to the violence. Surely we can do better. Don’t Muslims have a responsibility to speak out more loudly than others? We need the world to see anti-Islamic State marchers taking to the streets with the passion that we saw at the Gaza rallies in London and Paris. Mainstream Muslims must express our rejection of extremism in clear terms, while doing whatever we can to stop young people from radicalizing.
The protests against the Israeli flattening of Gaza is an appeal against the insanity of war which if allowed to proceed unchecked results in the militant psychosis of ISIS and Taliban. The history of the 20th century alone teaches us that at such advanced state of disfunction protestations cease to be effective until violence has utterly devastated the people.