The man who has been charged with 10 counts of murder at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado yesterday has been identified as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year old Syrian born Muslim who came to America with his family as a toddler.
At this point, it is not definitive if this was act of Islamic terrorism. Of course, there have been mass shootings motivated by this ideology as was the case in San Bernardino in December 2015 and in Orlando in June 2016. It has been indicated that Alissa believed he was being persecuted for being a Muslim and a had a history of a violent temper as he was convicted of a misdemeanor assault while in high school. Misdemeanor assault is troubling but it is a long way from killing 10 people with an AR-15. As such one cannot discount the possibility that this was an act of Islamic terrorism.
There will be those who will wish to separate the suspect's religious background from his actions. However, much has been made of Atlanta spa shooter Robert Aaron Long's Evangelical beliefs. Unfortunately, the state of our politics is such that those who deride Long for his Southern Baptist roots while pretending Alissa is only a white man. Conversely there are those who would have dismissed Alissa's acts just as they have dismissed Long's actions thinking he too was a Christian man.
Let me therefore make a radical proposition. Most Evangelical Christians and Muslims manage to go through life without committing mass murder. Thus those who commit mass murder are bad people whether they practice Evangelical Christianity or Islam or for that matter Judaism, Buddhism or any other faith or no faith at all. Because what we are left with are grieving families whose loved ones were taken away from them in the cruelest manner possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment