Today a large crowd gathers in United States, a decade after 9/11, despite trillions spent by the U.S. and some $90 billion by Canada, the threat of terrorism is still very real. We were reminded of this last month when members of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, which roughly translated means "Western or non-Islamic education is a sin," attacked the United Nations building in Abuja, where more than 20 people died. In fact, maybe the question should whether Boko is really Haram. Seriously, if Boko means western and Haram means against, Boko haram should mean against western but they still have a websites use guns and make use of cell phones to contact their victims before operations. Anyway that is a discussion for another day.
Back to the 9/11, the attack on UN building in Nigeria occurred more than three months after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Although bin Laden's death symbolized the end of the "war on terror," it is a war that can never truly be won. Terrorism is like the mythical Greek serpent Hydra, which grew two heads for every one that was cut off. Bin Laden's al-Qaeda may be neutered, but in its place are the Boko Harams of the world, ready to surface.
According to one tally, there have been 17,710 terrorist incidents carried out in the name of Islam since Sept. 11, 2001, claiming over 100,000 lives.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a recent CBC interview, said radical Islamist militants are the biggest threat. "There are a number of threats on a number of levels, but if you are talking about terrorism, it is Islamicism," he said.
While it would be grossly unfair for us, or anyone, to make Islam the culprit, the truth of Harper's statement is backed up by U.S. Department of Justice figures, which show that radical Islamists are disproportionately involved in terror-related crimes.
Yet radical Islamists are not alone in perpetrating acts of evil. Anders Breivik, the confessed perpetrator of the July attacks in Norway that resulted in eight deaths in Oslo and the mass shooting of 69 teenagers at a youth camp, professed an antifeminist, white nationalist, Islamaphobic, anti-multicultural agenda to preserve a Christian Europe.
In terms of body count, nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, which is more than double the number of deaths in 9/11.
Radical Islamists, in fact, are indiscriminate, willingly sacrificing other Muslims for a cause and hijacking a religion in the process. The reprehensible acts of 9/11 claimed several dozen innocent Muslims, including a New York City police cadet who sacrificed his life attempting to rescue others. In the wake of the attacks, family members of deceased hijacked passenger Rahma Salie were barred from travelling to her memorial service, moving her mother, Haleema, to plead: "I would like everyone to know that she was a Muslim, she is a Muslim and we are victims too, of this tragic incident."
Today is a chance to reflect and to remember not only the victims of 9/11, but also the children in Norway, the 202 killed in Bali in 2002, the 380 mostly child victims of the 2004 school hostage incident in Beslan, Russia, the 191 people killed on commuter trains in 2004 in Madrid and most importantly, the lost souls in northern part of Nigeria and the many other 9/11-inspired attacks that have killed thousands of innocents, regardless of faith.
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