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comment by Herunar
Herunar  ·  3079 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Shooting in Paris

My heart breaks for Paris (as well as Beirut and Baghdad). I will never understand why people resort to such vicious violence.

And as a young Muslim living in Europe, I am overwhelmed with fear. I'm gonna have to do a lot of apologizing to people for things that I have no affiliation with whatsoever. And I suspect I'll be reading a lot of vitriol online that will take pains to point out that I am incompatible with the West and Western values (even though I'm an American that heavily identifies with the West).

I suspect that Western Muslims like myself hate terrorists more than most. They continually humiliate us to the point where even mentioning my faith to people makes me deeply uncomfortable and ashamed.





deepflows  ·  3078 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I get what you're saying. I believe the only people who would take the crimes of a few extremists and project them on many millions of people are those who were looking for an excuse to do so anyway. You shouldn't have to apologize to anyone any more than I need to apologize for killing people with predator drones.

guybrush  ·  3077 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I read a good comment on reddit the other day that compared asking Muslim community leaders to apologise for these attacks to asking the Pope to apologise for the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church. I hope that you don't experience any backlash as a result, although I fear that this tragic event coupled with the refugee crisis will make life more difficult for the existing Muslims in Europe.