In light of the Fort Hood Massacre, you notice there are not much condemnation from Muslims, like right after 9/11. It was silence for the most part, with the exception of a few. On the other hand, there were lots of condemnation from Koreans right after the Virginia Tech Massacre. Quite a stark contrast right there. They were fears of backlash in both cases. By the way, I never encountered any backlash after Virginia Tech Massacre. South Korea apologized after Seung-Hui Cho massacred 32 people. Quite frankly, I thought that was a little over the top coming from a Korean myself because Cho lived in America and is part of the "1.5 Generation" and had not been in Korea for years. I was born in America, so I am not part of the "1.5 Generation". On the other hand, I have yet to hear any apology from the Middle East. Also, many Koreans felt guilty about what Cho did. Once again, I think that was over the top. I did not feel guilty what Cho did. Don't get me wrong, I really despise Cho as much as I despise the 9/11 Terrorists, Nidal Malik Hasan, Fred Phelps, and Casey Anthony. Clearly, Cho was screwed up in his head. He was up to no good and was ready to go off and did not matter if he was mute or in America or South Korea.
I think most thinking people didn't really consider the fact that Cho was Korean as important to the issue (it certainly didn't matter to me).....he was a nutcase, plain and simple......his ethnicity wasn't important. And further, Koreans simply don't have a history of blowing up schools and taking down landmarks here in the US. The ones most of us know are decent hard-working people, and South Korea (in general) a strong ally historically.
That said, as we view such events in a global context, there is one group that is involved in 99.9% of the atrocities that are seen happening weekly,
muslims.......why they don't see a huge backlash is a mystery to me, as I would certainly be a part of that backlash.......but here in the US, there are two dynamics at work vis-a-vis muslims, in my opinion:
.....First is "political correctness"......
.....Second is fear......as recently demonstrated by the screenwriter of the soon-to-be-released movie
"2012".....where part of the plot is the destruction of religious symbols/places of all of the major world religions...save one.....and the reason that he excluded islam, in his own words....."I didn't want a fatwa on my head because of a movie....."
Even internally within the muslim community, they refuse to take a stand because they fear their extremist brethren, and as such appear to the outsider as supporting those actions......but then I am giving them credit where it may not be due......I'm fast approaching the opinion that there is no such thing as a "good" muslim.....sad, but true.
Note: lack of capitalization of "muslim/islam" is an intentional sign of my personal disrespect/distaste......
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