by Derek Farwell
Columnist

I recently had an appointment at the VA Hospital, and as I sat in the waiting room I was watching CNN as they talked about an incident in the Middle East. As I was watching and thinking how awful it must be for the innocent people caught in the middle of it I heard someone say, “It’s those G** d*** Muslims, we should just turn that place into a parking lot.” I didn’t say anything at the time because I was standing up to go into the doctor’s office, but I’ve heard those comments about Muslims countless times before at the VA, and I’ve gotten nowhere the few times I’ve rebutted comments like this with my own experience and semi-knowledge. As is most often the case with racist people, they have never had any sort of contact with the people they despise.

While it is of course true that a small population of the Muslim community has manipulated what is meant to be a peaceful religion for evil and misguided purposes, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are good, honest, friendly people. I would venture to say that the percentage of Muslims who use religion as a tool of destruction is comparable to the percentage of Christians who join white supremacy groups and use the Bible to spread hatred and violence. It’s unfortunate that all we see on the news is this very small fraction of a people, and not the 1.2 billion Muslims who manage to live in peace and hurt nobody, but that is the way of it.

I think it’s necessary to discuss a couple of different points on this topic. First I’ll tell you some of my more pleasant experiences. One of the more impactful things I experienced while I was deployed was not one of violence, but one of happiness. This situation occurred after a particularly intense firefight that had dragged on for 4 nights and 3 days. After we had pushed all the bad guys out of the neighborhoods, we were able to survey from rooftops and walk through the streets without being shot at. Slowly, as a little time passed, and the silence around the neighborhood went on, people began to peak out of their houses. When they realized it was safe to come out of their houses the streets began to fill up. Streets that had only an hour before been filled with smoke from smoke grenades, dust and shrapnel from explosions, and the smell of gun powder became something that more resembled Mardi Gras. Iraqis were parading through the streets cheering, clapping and crying. Old women and men would come up to us on the streets and hug us and kiss our cheeks. Still sweaty, guns hanging from our body armor, and they would come wrap their arms around us in thanks. Men and women would come to us in the streets and grab our hands and kiss them, a great show of respect.

We stayed in those few neighborhoods for the next couple of nights to ensure things remained safe. In those nights we were shown almost unbelievable gratitude. These people who had been beaten down, abused, exploited, robbed, and in many cases murdered were so appreciative that they offered us what little they had. People from everywhere were asking us to come in and eat with them. They were offering their own beds so that we could sleep in them. People that had so little were willing to give us so much. Those are the memories I have of interacting with true Muslims. People being kind, and giving when they had literally nothing to give, which is one of the main principles in which Islam was originally founded on.

I’m by no means an expert in religious studies nor am I trying to convince anyone to convert to Islam. I have however read both the Bible and the Koran and am perfectly capable of drawing my own conclusions, which is that as different as they seem, Christianity and Islam have far more similarities than differences. It really irritates me to hear people who judge the many based on the actions of the few.

It’d be great if everyone would make an attempt to read a book and learn something before drawing their own conclusions.