#You Ain’t No Muslim Bro...the Best Way to Fight ISIS

Muslims all over the world are fighting extremism, and if we really want to stop ISIS, we need to work with them, not against them.

This is not, of course, what Republicans think.

In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, they’ve ramped up their usual fearmongering about Muslims and Islam, a religion practiced by 1.6 billion people with a rich 1,500 year history of scholarship, art, and culture.

“Moderate” Muslims, Republican say, just aren’t doing enough to fight radical groups like ISIS.

This argument is so flat-out wrong and inaccurate it wouldn’t be worth talking about if it weren’t echoed everyday on cable news by right-wing stooge after right-wing stooge.

The fact is that every day Muslims ARE fighting ISIS.

They’re fighting ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq, they’re fighting ISIS as members of our armed forces, and they’re fighting ISIS in their mosques and communities where they are doing their best to stop extremism before it starts.

Everyday Muslims hate ISIS more than anyone, and that’s not just because most of its victims are, you know, Muslim.

They hate ISIS more than anyone -- yes, even more than Ted “Bomb ‘Em All” Cruz -- because it’s perverting their religion and using it for evil.

For example, just check out what’s happening over in U.K. right now, where the hashtag #YouAintNoMuslimBruv is trending on Twitter.

The hashtags stems from something a bystander shouted during an incident on the London Underground over the weekend.

As police arrested an apparently Muslim man who stabbed a fellow Tube passenger while screaming “this is for Syria,” another passenger, also apparently Muslim, called him out in the best way possible.

He responded with "You Ain't No Muslim, Bruv."

Pretty cool, right?

British Muslims think so as well.

Thousands of them are now taking to Twitter and using the hashtag #YouAintNoMuslimBruv on Twitter to condemn extremism and talk about the true meaning of their faith.

You really couldn’t ask for a better counterexample to all the hate coming from Republicans like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who talk about Muslims like Nazis used to talk about Jews.

What’s going on the in Muslim world is very similar to what happened a few decades ago when Christian extremists started murdering abortion doctors in the name of Jesus.

When that began to happen, church leaders all across American came out and called the extremists out for what they were -- terrorists.

They didn’t do this because they were secret extremists who were trying to pass themselves off as normal -- they did this because they were good Christians who hated seeing their religion used for evil.

Muslims like the guy who said “You ain’t no Muslim, bruv” and Muslims like the people who turned that phrase into a hashtag are just as worried about what people think about their faith as the Christians who condemned abortion clinic bombings.

As President Obama pointed out in his Oval Office Address last night, the threat from ISIS terrorism is real.

It's rare, and not something that warrants the apocalyptic end-of-Western-civilization talk that comes from Republicans, but it's still real, and, as the attacks in Paris showed, potentially very deadly.

Which is exactly why some of the rhetoric coming from Republicans these days is so dangerous.

Muslims who read the Qu’ran and practice the best of what it says -- are our allies in the fight in the fight against ISIS.

Actually, they’re our best allies, because when they call ISIS terrorists out for breaking the rules of Islam, they undercut that group’s whole propaganda strategy, which is to portray itself as the one true defender of the faith.

Let’s not give ISIS what it wants.

Let’s embrace Muslims who are fighting extremism and work with them, as opposed to alienate them.

And let’s do this because the Middle Eastern Muslims who are fighting ISIS are just like us -- decent people who hate seeing atrocities done in their name.

Comments

Demo3rd's picture
Demo3rd 7 years 15 weeks ago
#1

So fifty thousand out of 1.6 billion use the #YouAintNoMuslimBruv on Twitter... so I think that is stretching it a little. I think it is better to just say a lot Muslims are unhappy.

Hephaestus's picture
Hephaestus 7 years 15 weeks ago
#2

Sorry! I see no evidence of any action by muslims to counteract any of these terrorist events at any location on the planet!!!

Kindly prove me wrong!

cccccttttt 7 years 15 weeks ago
#3

Clearly the active support of the Muslim community is needed.

But, some percent of the Muslim community condones the violence.

See this PEW article:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2005/07/14/iv-how-muslims-view-relations-with-the-world/

Its not just the guys who pick up the guns, but those who support them.

So the larger the Muslim population in a country, up go the likely number of supporters.

How governments around the planet choose to control those numbers

remains to be seen.

ct

davideweed's picture
davideweed 7 years 15 weeks ago
#4

Only 16 to 19 Americans have died in America from a person that claims to be a muslim. How many so-called Christians have killed this year? Stop the Muslim bashing Republicans!

darbuki13 7 years 15 weeks ago
#5

My friend Kevin Smith says:
I'm totally agnostic, but have a BA in comparative world religions. I have read the Koran and Haddith in several translations. I have no problem with freedom of religion...but I won't be silent when it comes to pointing out just how evil and violent the teachings of Islam are. And its damn evil. More of an evil political ideology bent on world dominion (caliphate) than an actual religion.

BMetcalfe's picture
BMetcalfe 7 years 15 weeks ago
#6

We can look in the backgrounds of all religious texts and find violence against infidels. But some Americans like to single-out Muslims to incite fear and discrimination against the current refugees and American Muslims already living here, who are just as appalled and shocked as all the rest of us at Daesh's souless brutality. Most (75% of American Christians and Jewish people) are moderates. It's you gun-toting militia-type so-called Americans who are dangerous for all the rest of us. I guess you don't feel safe without yourBibles and guns. I don't carry either one of those things. I don't need religion or a gun to feel safe. I think you who DO need those two crutches, need to grow up. America would be so much safer without so many cowards, dependent upon God and an AK47 or a concealed weapon and permit. Guns kill over 30K Americans and tourists in our country, and I think that's a damn shame! Having a gun with which you're familiar in your home for protection is fine, but when you're afraid to step off your property without one, there's someething wrong with YOU. I know that will offend a lot of you - mostly you who support that rich egomaniac named Trump, and some of his fellow candidates. I can see through Trump's rhetoric. I don't understand why you who will never have a deep breath's chance of making a tenth of what that man has, think he's the answer to your safety. He will ruin our reputation in the world, he will make promises he knows he can never keep just to get you to his rallies and your votes. He may know how to build attractive walls to keep out the "dangerous Latinos and the fierce Canadians" (both groups that have far more in common with America than most of YOU!) And yet you want to keep them out... along with helpless refugees fleeing the very terrorists all of you are fearing. NO religion is "evil." They all are just methods used for the past 2000+ years to control the masses and ensure procreation of the next generations who will also be controlled by whatever religious masters they're born to respect. Oh - and all these controlled masses finance the religions to whom you're devoted. I prefer to give my tithe money to the ones who really need it - the homeless, the sick, the down-trodden, and the ones who are looking for jobs they may never find, plus the helpless animals we're obliterating at about a million a day, nation-wide, just because they're housed in kill-shelters and there aren't enough people to adopt them all before they're put to death. Trump and people similar to him are not your saviors. They will disappoint you, and probably cause America to lose most of our allies, should one of those jerks get elected. You need to put down your Bibles and guns long enough to read about the candidates you tend to worship enough to vote into Office. If you don't, you will get what YOU deserve, but the rest of us will have to suffer for your ignorance. I've lived 70 years without guns and Bibles. I don't fear stepping out my door and driving through Los Angeles with the top down on my car. I don't understand why so many of you aren't as brave as I am. I'm a 95 pound woman. What are your excuses for not feeling as safe and free as I always have?

Al Alpert's picture
Al Alpert 7 years 15 weeks ago
#7

Mob psychology rules. Through yelling loud and louder, anyone can get people who have no independent thought process to follow them, even if following them into action is against their own best inerests. Example #1= Donald (the bully) Trump.

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