DC Trawler

#NotAllMuslims React Violently To OSU’s Islamophobia

Abdul Razak Artan, a third-year student in logistics management, sits on the Oval in an August 2016 photo

Courtesy of Kevin Stankiewicz for The Lantern/Handout via REUTERS

Jim Treacher Blogger
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It seemed so simple: An active shooter on a college campus. Even more proof that America needs even more gun control. Validation. Relief. Take that, teabaggers!

Then it got all so complicated and stressful. As it turned out, the Ohio State “shooter” didn’t have a gun. The only gun involved in the whole incident was used by the police officer who stopped the man with a knife who had just stabbed 11 people. And, complicating the narrative even further, the knife-wielding attacker was a Somali refugee named Abdul Razak Ali Artan.

This was not how things were supposed to go.

And it now it’s getting even worse, narratively speaking. Back in August, Artan was featured in OSU’s daily newspaper, The Lantern. Here he is, recounting his recent arrival at the school:

“I just transferred from Columbus State. We had prayer rooms, like actual rooms where we could go pray because we Muslims have to pray five times a day.

“There’s Fajr, which is early in the morning, at dawn. Then Zuhr during the daytime, then Asr in the evening, like right about now. And then Maghrib, which is like right at sunset and then Isha at night. I wanted to pray Asr. I mean, I’m new here. This is my first day. This place is huge, and I don’t even know where to pray.

“I wanted to pray in the open, but I was scared with everything going on in the media. I’m a Muslim, it’s not what the media portrays me to be. If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen. But, I don’t blame them. It’s the media that put that picture in their heads so they’re just going to have it and it, it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable. I was kind of scared right now. But I just did it. I relied on God. I went over to the corner and just prayed.”

And then, just minutes before the attack, Artan posted a Facebook rant condemning America for “interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah.” He specifically called out the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American-born imam who was droned in Yemen in 2011 by order of George W. Bush Barack Obama.

So, it’s obvious what happened here. This peaceful young Muslim was scared by all those white Christian Americans who kept looking at him funny, because they were brainwashed by the media’s lies about his coreligionists. Those infidels gave him no choice but to try to run them over and stab them to death. This is their fault.

This is your fault.

I’m reminded of Muzzammil Hassan, the Buffalo, NY entrepreneur who founded Bridges TV, the first Muslim-American TV network. His goal was to counter negative stereotypes about Muslims after 9/11. A few years later, he ended up complicating that effort a bit by beheading his wife.

Why do you keep forcing these proud, innocent Muslims to do these things, America? Why can’t you just leave them alone?

Why must you keep tormenting the real victims?

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Calm down, America. Fear of a backlash is exactly what triggered Abdul Razak Ali Artan.

Oh, also: We need to grab all the guns. Just in case. Artan was good enough to heed OSU’s gun ban, but the next victim of Islamophobia might not be so conscientious.

P.S. Jim Geraghty sums it up:

Is this guy a jihadist? Sure. Even worse, he’s a whiny Millennial jihadist, who thinks that everything in life is so uniquely unfair to him, and that he’s unjustly victimized everywhere he goes.

In any dispute involving Muslims, the victims are always Muslims. Always. No wonder they crave safe spaces.