Earl Ofari Hutchinson
President Obama’s first official statement on the Boston
Marathon bombing couldn’t have been plainer on this point: “We still do not know
who did this or why. And people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have
all the facts.” Yet all it took was an isolated and scantily detailed report
that Boston Police were questioning a young Saudi national to set off the
standard rush to judgment finger point by some at Muslim terrorists. The Saudi
national as it turned out is here on a legal visa and had no criminal record.
But that didn’t stop some Muslim advocacy groups from quickly issuing
statements condemning the attack as “cowardly.” This was both defense and
precaution. One that Muslim groups feel is mandatory given the predictable
speculation that they are the culprits in any violence virtually anywhere in
the world that’s labeled “terrorist.”
The good thing is that government officials and many in the media
have learned the lessons of the past and that’s to pause, take a breath, and
wait until more is known about why an attack happened, and who the likely
perpetrator(s) are. This spares officials and the media the ultimate
embarrassment of pointing fingers in a direction that often prove wildly in the
wrong direction.
Obama applied the wait and see approach to a heinous act nearly
four years in the immediate aftermath of the Ft. Hood, Texas bloodbath. The pack of
shrill rightist bloggers and talk radio chatterers jumped all over the shooting
of several military personnel at the military base and gleefully fanned
anti-Muslim passions. It didn’t take much to get the hate juices flowing. A
legion of writers on web sites spewed the ritual anti-Muslim slurs, profanities,
and insults at the alleged shooter Major Nidal Hasan and by extension all
Muslims.
Obama quickly admonished the public not to rush to
judgment about the shooting and the shooter. Obama took a page from then
President’s Clinton and Bush’s playbook when mob hysteria was building after
the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1996 and the 9/11 attacks.
Clinton and Bush cautioned the public not to finger point Muslims for the
attacks.
The Oklahoma City bombing was the handiwork of Timothy
McVeigh, a loose screw, red blooded American fanatic. The 9/11 attackers were
mostly Saudi nationals. Yet, that still didn’t stop the murmurs, and finger
pointing at and bashing of all Muslims.
That’s no surprise. American Muslims have been the repeated
targets of verbal digs, physical assaults, and profiling. They are just too
inviting a scapegoat for the fears and frustrations many Americans have had over
two failed and flawed wars, a stagnant Middle East peace process, and even more
frightening to many, the increasing presence of more and more Muslims in their
neighborhoods, schools, and work places, especially when wearing Muslim attire.
Beyond the need for caution and just plain good sense in
making public or official pronouncements on who committed a heinous act of
violence and the motive behind it, there’s also the sobering reality that much
of the recent mass violence in the country has nothing to do with alleged
crazed, vengeful Muslim terrorists. It’s been home grown and the perpetrators
have been young, loose screwed, gun nuts. Or, they have been right wing, racist
loons that have a beef against a judge or a federal official. This has
tragically awoken millions of Americans to the grim reality that mass terror
can be inflicted just as easily, maybe even easier, by the withdrawn,
delusional kid, next door as a foreigner sneaking into the country bent on
mayhem and murder.
This also should not surprise when we consider that the
US has poured a king’s ransom during the past decade into foreign and homeland
security, surveillance, monitoring, and arrests, and detention of countless
individuals with known or suspected terrorist group connections. Government
officials periodically note with pride that the money is not a total waste
since there have been no known successful terrorist attacks that could be
positively traced back to a Muslim terror group since 9/11 on US soil. But this doesn’t mean that an
attack couldn’t happen despite mountainous spending to stop it and world class,
state of the art security measures.
The Boston Marathon bombing could be as some officials
cautiously said the work of a foreign or a domestic terror group or even a lone
terrorist, or crackpot. This much is known. Police and government officials
don’t know anything yet. And they have been wise not to do or say anything that
will fan anti-Muslim hysteria. And that’s a very good thing.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst.
He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network.
He is the author of How Obama Governed:
The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America
Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los
Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
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