A letter from Pakistan.

• Author: Rizvi, Mashhood
• Position: Terrorism, United States - Brief Article

September 15, 2001

Dear Matthew,

I wonder whether to thank you for considering me to write about the "possible U.S. attack on Afghanistan and maybe additional countries" or to be offended by the entirety of the probability.

I wonder whether to feel elevated or distressed.

I ponder whether I should feel honored or dismayed.

You asked me what it's like to be in a Muslim nation when the bombs are falling nearby? I will rephrase: What is it like to be a Muslim when the bombs are falling on a Muslim nation?

I can easily claim to be an ardent and staunch Muslim who has no fear of death, but I choose not to, as I perhaps do not fear my death but certainly fear the death of hundreds of people who have nothing to do with any of the injustices committed against anyone anywhere in the world. They are the people who have been at the forefront of injustice. They suffer from appalling conditions of poverty and hunger yet choose to be content and nonviolent.

You asked me what it's like to be in a Muslim nation when the bombs are falling nearby?

I do not doubt your intentions, but under the current circumstances your query struck me like a brutal threat. As if you were trying to tell me that it is now our turn to face the music. Such is the gravity of the situation here. Such is the level of hatred we somehow see targeted towards us, the Muslims.

I wish I could tell you that I feel horrified; I wish I could tell you that I feel terrified and petrified. I wish.

All I can tell you is that I only feel convinced. I feel convinced that if we, as humans, continue to refuse to recognize the appalling consequences of oppression, fundamentalism, and social control, we will be faced with an irreversible destruction scenario before we know it.

I can always try and emulate Mr. John Pilger (journalist and author of Hidden Agendas, New Press, 1998) and remind the United States of being the root cause of innumerable ongoing injustices in the world.

I can always refer to Lebanon and Palestine.

I can always debate the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan.

I can go into the depths of the genocide against Iraqi children.

Or I could simply quote from Mr. Pilger's response to the bombing: "Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims, principally the victims of U.S. fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms--military, strategic, and economic--is the greatest source of terrorism on Earth.... People are neither still nor stupid. They see...