Oppressed Populations are the Battered Wives of Civilization

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by Mozaffar

When a people are oppressed and suppressed it is remarkably easy to abuse them enough so that they abuse themselves. Keep them psychologically marginalized and they will soon compose themselves in a manner reflecting the way they are treated. If they are treated with hate, they will self-identify with hate. They will be consumed with enough self hate that they will destroy their own selves. If the powerbroker ghettoizes them, they will soon self-ghettoize further. That is one nature of human nature: if it is beaten enough, it will start beating itself.

We have witnessed this situation again and again. The Danish cartoons claiming to depict the Prophet -p- in various offensive manners were obviously no statements of “free speech.” They were nothing more than triggers, that found their hoped result. Hundreds of millions of Muslims were offended, while significant masses of Muslims protested in such uncontrolled fashion that Muslims died. Thus, what we remember is not that hundreds of millions of Muslims were offended. We remember that Muslims rioted so wildly that Muslims died. This is also what so many Muslims remember.

And consider this sectarian split.  Shia & Sunni has become Shia vs. Sunni.  This polarity has little to with any new theological developments in the different schools.  Rather, it is another example of the psychologically oppressed beating themselves.

We have numerous young Muslims who have — in this self-ghettoization — chosen to take up the role of “the enemy” assuming that the world is at war with them. They speak with artificial accents, dress in clothes that to them seems more “authentically Islamic” and speak with vicious, sweeping language about the Other. But their conduct so often is nothing more than a shell, a mask, worn in response to their own sense of self loathing and their own sense of being under siege within and without their communities. The test for the sincerity of their outlook is simple: is their portrayal of Muslims consistently sympathetic? The answer is usually that, the closer one is to them, the more hatred their feel toward that person. The further one is away, more sympathy they feel. That is self hate, and that self hate comes from this collective abuse that the population has been hit with, both from without and from within. Their hearts have been battered, and they have responded likewise.

We see the same thing in the plight of so many African Americans. We see the same thing in the plight of American women.

And Allah knows best.

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