And speaking of...

The PeaceWalk gets hate mail!

Hello,

After you complete a peace walk, do the Muslim members of the peace walk cut
the heads off of the Jews, blow up Jewish schoolbuses, and demand that all
Jews fight to end the very existence of Israel while screaming "god is
great!" and shooting guns in the air while screaming at the top of your
lungs?

Curious,

Chris

Personally, I think this guy is a serious loser who doesn't have anything better to do than to send stupid emails to a non-profit organization making an honest effort to turn the world into a better place. My father, though, gave him a well-worded response.

Peace be with you Chris:

It is interesting that you take the incidents committed by a small radical component of the Muslim community that are really fringe extremists and put that on all of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Is it true that because a few men and countries had enslaved my African ancestors, and because a portion of the population of Europe helped in the killing of 6 million Jew during the holocaust, or that the Klu Klux Klan lynched many African Americans, or that hundreds of thousands of native peoples were slaughter throughout north and south America, or that Stalin killed over 30 million of his people that all white people or Christian peoples are evil or want to put all Jews in ovens or enslave all African-Americans?

If this were true that the 1.5 billion Muslims of the world believe this then the 1 in 5 portion of the population would be creating total havoc in all parts of the world. Of the 10 million Muslims that live in America, of which 45% are African American, where have you heard or seen any of the rhetoric that you are claiming. I have not heard any of our communities spouting any such thing. If anything we condemn suicide bombings, beheadings and etc. as unIslamic barbaric acts. Was slavery, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of native Americans or the genocide of Bosnians by Serb Christians, Christian acts of Jesus even though Christian doctrine was used to justify these acts. I would say no, not in the least.

After having over 8 peacewalks around the US to answer your question, have you seen in in the American news media any news of beheadings or blowing up of schoolbuses or shooting of guns at innocent children????? No you have not!!!! and will not!!!

If anything, if you had read any of the newspaper articles associated with these events and followup events afterwards you would have read about Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities coming together and working for each others benefit for peace.

Please look at your own history of America and Europe and see that in this last century that over 120 million people have been killed in wars of conquest, racism, bigotry. Yet does the action of a few extremist leaders and countries condemn the whole population of white Europeans and Americans. Based on your logic that would make them the most evil and barbaric people on the face of the earth.

Look beyond the surface and get to know truly what Islam is about and stop the indictment of a whole people because of the actions of a few, because the tables can be reversed with your logic for your own people also if this were true. Myself as an America can say that for my African American people, my brother native Americans and many Hispanic Americans of this country we could make a similar claim, yet it would not be fair to the majority of people who had no part what so ever in those atrocities.

Open your heart and your mind and look at your own history before you make such ridiculous statements. If you were truly curious you would make the effort to go beyond
pure prejudicial comments and seek the truth that is right in front of you.

May the peace and blessings of the creator be with you,


Abdul Rauf

Well put. Not that I think Chris will listen.