On Tuesday we heard the news of a man from Fremont careening
through San Francisco, mowing down and injuring 13 assorted
pedestrians and cyclists until he was taken into custody.
On Tuesday we heard the news of a man from Fremont careening through San Francisco, mowing down and injuring 13 assorted pedestrians and cyclists until he was taken into custody.
At the time of writing, police were still investigating the link between these crimes and an earlier, fatal hit-and-run in Fremont.
I happened to hear a call-in radio station that was making much of the fact that the suspect’s name seemed Middle Eastern. The host was insinuating, in a skillful and tantalizing way, that it sounded like a name that might be supposed to belong to a person of the – he deliciously hesitated to say – Islamic faith.
His point was that the mainstream press and media had not mentioned the Islamic connection.
My point is: Well, duh.
“Well, duh” for a couple of reasons.
First, the minute I heard the suspect’s name, I noted that it sounded Middle Eastern or Islamic and thought, “What’s up with that?” while acknowledging that people with Middle-Eastern names can also be Christian.
And second, as much as I complain about the mainstream media and the way it belabors pointless stories and non-news promotions, I do acknowledge that they mainly seem to build stories around facts and let the facts speak for themselves.
I know there are a lot of Afghanis in Fremont, where the suspect lives. I don’t know if his name is a typical Afghani name or not. I know there are mosques in Fremont, probably as are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and other congregations of varying degrees of fundamentalism and politicization.
The talk-show host seemed eager to hear from Fremont residents who’d weigh in on how Fremont had changed, and how they felt about the presence of Afghanis.
The callers eagerly explained that they weren’t racist and it was all right for people to come here, but when “they” start deliberately running over pedestrians, “they” ought to all be rounded up and shipped back where they came from.
Oh.
The talk-show host’s theory is that this incident looked like another example of “Instant Jihad Syndrome” wherein a seemingly mild-mannered, peaceful Muslim suddenly flips out and brings Jihad to a neighborhood near you.
“Instant” or “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” does have a few entries on the Web. It was used by Daniel Pipes of the New York Sun in reference to an Iranian-American who also assaulted pedestrians with his vehicle at the University of North Carolina in March. The term was picked up by Brian Chin in Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer, discussing the incident of the Islamic gunman who opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Seattle in July.
Pipes contends that apparently well-adjusted Muslims have a higher incidence of suddenly erupting in a homicidal rage than non-Muslims. I’m not so sure about that. We owe it to ourselves to learn about Jihad and how it fits into Islamic beliefs. From what I understand, Jihad is less a matter of homicidal rage than of calm, methodical religious fanaticism.
I’m not an apologist for homicidal rages or any type of Jihad. (Crusades, anyone?) But I’d rather make up my own mind whom to fear, and protect myself with knowledge rather than innuendo.
