Hi Cathy thanks for reading and responding.
Your contentions aren’t mutually exclusive with what I’m proposing.
To be clear, nobody is obligated to do either of two things:
1) non-Muslims need not defend Islam, the religion, and Muslims, a corpus of nearly two billion diverse human beings, as being distinct from ISIS, an exceptionally violent jihadist proto-state and militant terror organization, whose combatant total strength numbers between 47,600–257,900 (latest Wikipedia estimates, based on CIA and other intel sources as of late 2016), and need not come to our defense in the aftermath of unfortunate terror attacks and unspeakable tragedies on the global stage, whether at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, San Bernardino, Manchester, Paris, or elsewhere in Europe.
2) Muslims need not condemn and deplore and distance themselves from the obviously un-Islamic basis of ISIS’ murderous, barbaric ideology and nefarious utilitarian ends-justify-means perspective and worldview in the aftermath of the same unfortunate terror attacks and unspeakable tragedies. What this means is simple: just as nobody expects Christians to distance themselves from the obvious un-Christ-like nature of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), both Christian organizations insofar as their founders, membership and fervent adherents profess belief in some form of fundamental Christian theology; just as nobody expects Hindus to distance themselves from the obviously barbaric political actions of the Hindu nationalist parties emboldened by Indian PM Narendra Modi’s election victory, carrying out genocidal campaigns, rape, assault, looting and vandalism against poor Indian Muslim villagers with absolute impunity; just as nobody expects Jews to distance themselves from the obviously criminal actions of Baruch Goldstein in the 1994 Cave of Patriarchs massacre, as well as the near-seven-decade apartheid reign of the brutal Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against an innocent captive civilian population in Gaza, a city which is also effectively the world’s largest open air prison; just as nobody expects Buddhists to distance themselves from the genocidal campaigns of Burmese monks against Muslim citizens in Myanmar… so too should Muslims not be expected to do the same. To anybody possessed of an iota of common sense and modicum of decency, expecting this is hypocritical, immoral, and unfair.
Having said this, it’s important to acknowledge over 90% of ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and all Islamic extremist jihadist militant group victims and casualties are… drum roll… Muslims. Yes. You read that correctly.
So, with love and respect, believe me… we hate them more than you do, and it’s not even about you, us, or them right now. Like I said, it’s about victims, survivors, families, and suffering human beings in Manchester.
Hope that helps.
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