I heard about the events in Tucson AZ from my sister. I have two brothers in Arizona; one in Scottsdale and one in Tucson itself. So when I heard that people had been killed outside a supermarket in Tucson I automatically got concerned and phone calls and text messages from family were flooding in. After the dust had settled, news reached us 

that several people who attended a rally for Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had been shot, including the Rep. Giffords herself. In all 6 people had been killed; the victims ranging from all ages to even as young as 9 years old. I was genuinely saddened. I also happened to catch the larger portion of the memorial service that took place Wednesday night. I was deeply moved by the overall sentiment at the gathering. As President Obama spoke of the victims individually as was expected, things really began to hit home. I began to imagine the grief of the families who lost loved ones in more personal terms. Dorwin Stoddard looks like a guy I used to work with. Both Phyllis Schneck and Dorothy Morris are around my mothers age.  I have nieces that are the same age as young Christina Taylor Green. I along with so many Americans shuddered at the idea of our near and dear ones being taken away from us by a senseless act of violence. 

This wasn’t all I reflected upon. I watched intently as journalists and pundits did their best to fill the 24 hour news cycle with their opinions, psychobabble, and very little news. I was particularly interested in their analysis of the shooter, his motivation, and the possible implications if a particular ideology was found to be the impetus for this horrible crime. In the days since, the shooting of a democratic member of congress, has sent the left into overtime. They didn’t waste a second trying to find links between the shooting and the increased  heated rhetoric coming from right wing talk-radio and TV personalities such as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin. (It’s worth noting that a chilling video of a previous interview with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has surfaced. In it, she comments on how a graphic on Sarah Palin’s web site has her and Arizona district in crosshairs.) This sent the Right wingers in a scramble to play defense. All of them declaring themselves innocent by downplaying their gun totin’ talk and their many attempts to gin people up against their liberal opponents with violent rhetoric. Out of this larger discussion on the causes of violence I made several keen observations that brought me to varying levels of peace, understand, and outrage. 

Being a Muslim in a post 9/11 America, I’m always on edge after I hear of incidents such as these. The well publicized acts of violence that have been committed by the extreme branch of my co-religionists has done such grave harm to the reputation of Islam and Muslims, it feels at times irreparable. The thought of them rearing their ugly heads again, which some say is inevitable, makes me sick to my stomach. Strangely though, while this incident had nothing to do with us, (All praise is due to Allah for that) I’m learning from it. Some of the observations and words of non-Muslims regarding the tragedy at Tucson, has given me some much needed understanding and hope. 

Most people are disposing with the idea that the shooter acted upon the urging from any kind of partisan group left or right and have come to the conclusion that this guy had some serious problems. They point to him being thrown out of a community college due to him exhibiting disturbing behavior that they said required psychological treatment before he could return. I was happy at the depths in which some outlets examined and explained this persons individual state of mind in a way that helped us come to terms with his unfathomable actions. I just wish this was done more when the culprit of violence happens to be a Muslim. Just as in the case of the Tucson shooter, we may hear words of ideology, religion or just blind hatred towards others as a reason for killing innocents, however the inability of our minds to accept this as a justification proves to us a simple fact: Irrational acts of violence have no true explanation. They also have no true religion.

Since the worst days of the health care debate the left has been decrying the heated rhetoric of the right. They’ve been seizing every possible moment to try to highlight moments of extremism and outrage and blame it on the Right-wing crazies. But to the dismay of the left, a source close to the Arizona shooter clearly stated that he was not a listener of right-wing talk radio or TV. ‘Darn it! There goes the narrative.’ The Daily Shows Jon Stewart reflecting on the discourse over the past few days said , “Boy would it be nice to be able to draw a straight line of causation  from this horror to something tangible, because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stop this then the horrors will end.”  It would be nice, but as he alluded to in his later comments it is unfortunately more complicated than that. The Islamophobes of the West do their best to group all Muslims with the worst of the violent extremists. Even the most liberal Muslims are not given a chance to become “real Americans“. Simply because one of them chooses to participate in advocacy for Muslims they are portrayed as enemy combatants in suits, trying to Islamize America from within. It’s very easy to say that 85% of Mosques in America are run by extremists and because of that we are worthy of your mistrust, but it is also very untrue. 

 Observation #3 “Crimes begin and end with the criminals who commit them” 

Our third inspirational observation comes from surprising quarters. It was the ever-vapid Sarah Palin whose words rang truest in my moment of introspection.  The truest as well as the most ironic. The hardest working hockey mom in show business defended herself and her heated rhetoric in an 8 min video. In it she said that her taking aim and talk of “reloading” on political opponents were not to blame for the tragic shooting in Arizona. She said "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them.” It was so eloquently put, I wanted to write a thank you note to who ever wrote it for her. The irony was not lost on the fact that it came from someone affiliated with the Tea Party. A group whose leaders have said that a Muslim should be disqualified from running for public office because of their faith. To them, there is not much difference between congressman Keith Ellison (a Muslim) and Usamah bin laden. But somehow, I don’t think their being totally honest with us. I believe deep down they know that the Muslim doctor who works saving the lives of complete strangers could not believe in a book that teaches the murder of innocents. Deep down they know that the Muslim neighbor they just shared a meal with does not believe in a faith that promotes terrorism. If only Right wingers, and Islamophobes would take these golden words of Sarah’s to heart. Here’s to the day when Muslims living in America are no longer asked to apologize for the actions of extremists against ‘real Americans‘.