Awdalpress Editorial: It is Time for Muslims to Clean up Their Own Mess

As much as one may like to rejoice at the killing of Ahmed Abdi Godane, leader of Al Shabab in Somalia, one finds one’s self perplexed on what difference would the killing of one leader or even an entire command of any of the terrorist organizations make as long as Muslim countries spew thousands of indoctrinated youth who are ready to sacrifice their lives as cannon fodder.

This is not to underestimate the delight felt by the millions of the Somali people, and other victims of the demonic ideology and barbaric actions in Godane’s elimination. This is indeed an answer to a prayer for mothers whose children he used as human bombs, for the young men and women whose limbs he cut leaving them physically and mentally scarred for life, for the millions of Somali people from whom he robbed their farms, livestock, and properties, the women that he denied to earn their livelihoods, hooded them and condemned them to die with their orphaned kids in misery, and the relatives of the hundreds of school and university students,  intellectuals and journalists he killed. The death of Godane is a sigh of relief to the Somali mothers and elderly people and children that he reduced to being victims of the world’s pity when he deprived them of their livelihoods and denied international help to reach them, causing one of the greatest man-made famines in Somalia.

However, the killing of this man and hundreds of his ilk will only be a temporary panacea as long as the Muslim world sits back and lets someone else clean up their mess. The nagging question is how long can the Muslim world rely on America’s firepower. How long will the Muslims curse and accuse America for being the cause of all their ills and yet hide behind American tanks and drones when their home grown monsters, who were nourished in their mosques and madrasas, wreak havoc on the lives of Muslim people.

The truth is, the plague that descended on the Muslim world from Somalia’s Al Shabab to Nigeria’s Boko Haram, from ISIL in Iraq and Syria to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan to its offshoots in Yemen and North Africa, are all by-products of centuries of sleep walking, self-hating, self flagellating, zombie-like monster culture that can only ramble around aimlessly and without any sense of direction to cause death and mayhem.

This is why that no matter how many terrorists are killed or smoked out of their hiding caves, it will bring no change as long as the culture of death remains as the greatest motivation to regain the perceived lost glory of Islamic Caliphate. As long as the lure and attraction of the world after life overweigh the beauty and love of living on the earth. As long as religion dominates over people’s thinking and we resort to the book for everything we do including which foot to take first. As long as we spend life times arguing whether the shoelaces or neckties are illegal innovations the use of which can lead one to hell. As long as the technological innovations of the youth from the advanced world made for the improvement of human life, is used by our youth as tools of death and destruction. As long as the sacred term “Allahu Akbar” remains as the most abused religious term in history and is used as a mantra for killing and annihilation and not for a call to connect with the Almighty. As long as hearing “Allahu Akbar” puts fear into the heart of mothers and children who associate it with images of barbarians slaughtering human beings while shamelessly invoking God’s name.

Terrorism committed in the name of Islam will not be overcome as long as we shun secular education and stuff our children’s minds with fantasy stories about palaces, women and singing gardens waiting for them in dreamlands similar to those entertained by the Hashshashin of the Alamut. As long as our children play with severed human heads as toys and all sane people in the Muslim world opt to watch silently. As long as we believe that unkempt long beards are signs of piety that guarantee express tickets to paradise and we look down on human intelligence and common sense.

As the long as the word Haram dominates our daily speech and our children are choked with red flags on everything thing they do, stifling their mental freedom and creativity. As long as music is haram, painting is haram, scientific theories such as evolution is haram, laughing is haram, cinema is haram, and football is haram, as long as we teach them that all these are devil’s work that leads to hellfire. As long as crazy mullahs with alien looks harass, beat, and embarrass women, married couples, and carefree youth in the streets of our holy lands as moral police and they turn Islam, the religion revealed by the merciful Almighty for the mercy of his people, into a whip wielding monster. As long as everyone can appoint himself as a new prophet and can accuse others who don’t measure up to his narrow interpretation of Islam as “infidels” who deserve to die. As long as we live in denial, refuse to see our ugly reality, bury our heads in the sand, and let others decide our fate for us; all that the American firepower can do is to just give us temporary relief by opening holes to remove the pus from our festering wounds.

The killing of Godane and others of his type will only herald a new dawn for the Muslim world, if the Islamic Umma makes a united decision to stem out this sick ideology from their schools, their mosques and their communities at large. It is time to invest in human capital through education, education, and even more education as well as economic development. It is time to teach our kids that to live and prosper in this world and to live peacefully with oneself and with others is the true essence and beauty of life.