Edmund Burke, a philosopher from the 17th Century had said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And a similar message was communicated by spiritual leaders of all faiths through out the course of human history.

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." -- Albert Einstein.

Evil exists in the world because of good people. The good people’s silence, silently gives a tacit approval to the bad guys to continue to do bad things. I believe Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi had expressed similar sentiments.

Indeed, the problem is not with the evil men, it is with us. I’m least worried about what bad people can do than what good people don’t. The majority of Americans do not want war, yet the few are carrying it out. We silently sat by and let 3,500 of our sons and daughters and some 650,000 Iraqis slaughtered.

If we can recall our class room scenario, our work place, or our extended family, there was always a tyrant, who got away bullying every one. No one dared him or said anything to him, due to fear or not having the stomach to stand up to him or her. Had you stopped that tyrant in the tract, things would have stopped long ago, but no one dared it and simply endured it for a long time. As a larger society, we are allowing those tyrants to go on terrorizing all of us. You and I regardless of our faiths face the same evil.

That brings us to Terrorism, go ahead and make my day, call it Muslim terrorism and beam me up.

Did you know that a Muslim is more vulnerable to terrorism than a Christian, Jew or a Hindu?

A Muslim get the shaft three different ways; i) the bullying fear from the extremists Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus, ii) the idiotic media and iii) and the denigration of his/her religion where as the others get only one way.

Silent no more, speak up is our mission, not just for Muslims, but for all. The peaceful majority sounds like good for nothing crowd. We believe they will wake when pushed to the corner. As we Americans spoke up during the last days of Vietnam, then we spoke up on Tuesday, November 7th 2006 and we still have not taken actions to the death and destructions we are causing in Iraq, we will, and the Muslims will do their chore as well.

Everyday, I go through many articles and at least 80% of them border on finger pointing and blaming the others with no particular goal to pursue a solution.

One of the biggest mistakes we make is to give a religious label to the bad people. It is a shame to call those bad boys Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christian or otherwise. It is our gutlessness to face the evil that prevents us from facing the problem squarely. If we can recall a dialogue with our mother, father, uncle or some one powerful over us. We find that when we disagreed with them we whispered it quietly or even mumbled; we did not want a fight. However when they screamed “What did you say?” We shuddered and quietly denied saying any such thing, or depending on the strength of the voice of the opposite person, we even slighted our response and said "oh nothing" or something irrelevant… we did not want to invoke the wrath of the tyrant facing us.

When Osama Bin Laden brought hell on all of us, what did our president do? He did not face the tyrant squarely… like many, he found it convenient to blame Muslims and Islam, just like you may act when you face a real tyrant (family or community) and start blaming the world when you could not laser bark at the bad dog any more.

If a TV anchor blames you for the wrongs you do, most people would let you handle it on your own terms, but when he suggests that those ‘people’ are messing our nation”. I can guarantee that all of us would be offended and are less likely to listen to the anchor. By calling Muslims the terrorists, they have invariably barked at the wrong tree and they continue to do so.

99% of terrorists are Muslims! When you watch some of the Neocon websites, CNN and Fox network: Every kidnapping and every individual vandalism done by the Muslims is jumped at; rightfully so. Indeed all of us should jump at it. But when similar crimes are happening in the same breath, they are reported as a regular crime that is wrong by any sense of morality.

Thanks God the V-tech crazy was not a Muslim, if it was, the bad guys would have feasted on it for months, it feeds them and they are eager to be the first. The TV, Radio and the papers would have stretched the food for months.

In your city there is a murder and rape every day, like Iraq, why don’t we call them Christian terrorists or if it is in India call it Hindu Terrorism or other one, then why call Muslim Terrorism for similar crimes on the street?

No terrorists should be given respect by adding a religion to his crime. Any one who commits a crime, disturbs the peace, should be punished for his acts. Religion should not be a factor at all, if we do that, we find excuses not to take the action. We should get the individual criminal for his act and punish according to the law. Let law be not taken any any one's hands including the Chief Executive. Let us not give an opportunity to any one to become terrorist in reverse.

What if we do not point the gun, and just shoot what surounds that criminal? What is the difference between them and us. It is this dual sense of morality that we need to avoid. Mother Teresa's wisdom is eternal "if you want to make peace, You don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

In the fight between the good and the bad, the average man gets killed. We should care for human life, whether we are Muslims, Hindus, Christians or Zoroastrians. All evil must be condemned whether it is my brother or any one. If each one of us adopts the posture of a just position – we can find peace, peace comes through you in your language. Each one of us has to find solutions.

Let’s take a principle stand and call the evil for simply what it is; Evil. Let’s use the same yardstick to judge all criminals. Each one of us should focus on building peace, hate and blame does not take any one anywhere, the first casualty is ones own peace and then others’. One cannot point fingers at other others to be peaceful while he himself is not.

Peace begins with a dialogue as does the war.

Source: Foundation for Pluralism

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