Even before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured last Friday, people have been quick to assign blame for the explosions in Boston, assuaging their fears by holding someone responsible.
The goal was to eschew radicalism by pointing out that “Muslims view ‘Islamic extremists’ the same way most Christians view the Westboro Baptist Church.” However, Muslims abroad and at home were also worried that Islamic involvement would incite the waves of Islamophobic attacks we saw after Park51, the community center in Lower Manhattan, was announced.
They wouldn&apos;t have to wait long for an answer. The day after the attack professional Islamophobe Pamela Geller was already trying to pin Boston on Muslims, labelling the act one of violent “jihad.” When @EliClifton attempted to call her out for being a bigot, Geller tweeted back that the “blood [is] on your hands.” According to Geller, anyone who tries to defend Muslims is as responsible as they are.
Sadly, her logic reflected the harsh reality of police profiling after the Boston attacks. A New Yorker article detailed the way one runner’s apartment was torn apart by the FBI while his neighbors watched, helpless to stop it. The man’s body was ripped to shreds by the explosion, a victim like many others that day.
What made him different from the others who were also treated in the hospital? What made him a suspect? He was Saudi.
This is the new culture of internment for Muslims. Despite being a citizen, Tsarnaev won’t even be read his Miranda rights, and some are using his citizenship to argue for stricter immigration laws. We are trying to systemically take away the few rights he has as a criminal, those allegedly offered to everyone guilty of a crime in the United States. You can tell a lot about a people by how they treat those they perceive as their enemies.
What does Islamophobia say about us? On Tuesday, a plane departing from Logan Airport in Boston was delayed after two of the passengers began to speak Arabic to each other. The following day, still two days prior to Tsarnaev’s capture, a Bangladeshi man was jumped outside of an Applebee’s and a Palestinian woman was assaulted in Medford, Mass.
While she was walking down the street with her friend, a white man came up to Hema Abolaban, a local physician, and started harassing her. He shouted, “F*** you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions!” He then punched Abolaban and kept insulting her as he walked away.
Abolaban claims that she didn’t say anything back to him, which is understandable. What do you say to someone who believes that you’re capable of unimaginable crimes, including the death of an 8-year-old child, because of the simple fact of your religion? All Americans were Bostonians last week. Why couldn’t that include Muslims?
If the Tzarnaev brothers wanted to scare us, they hit us at the right time, when Americans are particularly vulnerable. We look at Congress’ inability to pass wildly popular gun control laws and feel powerless, the product of a broken system that no longer protects us. Every Boston is an affirmation of cultural pessimism, an empire in slow decline. Terrorists become ciphers for phantom neuroses we dare not name, and due to the role of Islamic extremism in 9/11, Islamophobia acts as the easy emotional shortcut for our feelings of loss.
Patton Oswalt echoed Rogers’ sentiments. Oswalt wrote, “You watch the videos of the carnage, and there are people running towards the destruction to help out.” For Oswalt, it’s a reminder to “look [evil] in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’"
This is how the world begins again — when we remember we aren&apos;t alone in it.
Take Marie Roberts. After her husband gunned down five children in an Amish school in 2006, Roberts went to the victims’ families to seek forgiveness and grace. In doing so, Roberts found strangers she learned to call neighbors, families she learned to call friends and a community she could call home again. There was no going back, but in building a bridge over the destruction, their families figured out a way to move forward.
Instead of continuing to hold Muslims responsible, we should ask what what we do if the culprits were "one of us." How would we help? Would we reach out as Muslims have? Would we shut down a city to hold a candlelight vigil, as Tehran did to support Americans after 9/11? Instead of forcing a nation of Muslims to be accountable for two radicals, we must all take responsibility for Boston. Each of us must clean up the mess by working together as a force for good, building a more peaceful, loving world.
Instead of searching for enemies in the wreckage, we need to start creating allies. All around the world, Muslims are standing with us. It’s time to stand with them.