Remembering the Chapel Hill victims

Indifferent. That’s how I would describe my initial reaction to the Chapel Hill shootings, in which three innocent Muslims were shot and killed in their own home. Indifferent – a terrible way to feel about any death. I quickly skimmed through the news on my laptop. “A couple Muslims killed over a parking spot, huh?” I mused, not giving the issue much more thought. I closed the tab and replaced it with a few PowerPoints from my psychology class. I had a midterm to prepare for, and I couldn’t waste my time on this stuff. Completely indifferent. Looking back now, I’m disgusted by my emotionless response to such a tragedy. The only excuse I can come up with is that the past several years have been rough for the Muslim community. Perhaps reading story after story about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Pakistan and Afghanistan buried my empathy in a place where I wouldn’t have to feel the pain. Deah Shaddy Barakat. Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha. Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. These were just three more names added to the spreadsheets.

I experienced a much needed attitude adjustment after going to the “Vigil for Love and Remembrance” hosted by a few of my incredibly caring colleagues in the Muslim Students Association and the University Chaplaincy. Sitting in the front row, I was forced to hear people reflecting on the news. They came up, one by one, explaining their insecurities, fears, anger and sadness brought out by the shootings. Their cracked, pained voices and sudden pauses to fight back tears hit me hard. I felt my chest shaking slightly with every breath, accompanied by the occasional shiver. I think it took me some time to recognize that this was real. That these three young American Muslims, all within three years of my own age, were violently taken from us. When the talks finally stopped, I tried to again distance myself from the victims. Indifference, though disgusting, was far more comfortable. We concluded the night with an interview between Anderson Cooper and Suzanne Barakat, Deah’s sister, a candlelit moment of silence and a poster signing for the family.

Once alone in my dorm, I felt every emotion coursing through me, yet anger stood dominant. I raged against the widespread Islamophobia network, an industry filled with hate and bigotry. The Council on American-Islamic Relations published that just in the past few years, anti-Islam groups raised over $119 million through speeches, books and debates concerning the dangers of Islam. Selling fear has become quite profitable. My focus then turned to the “New Atheist” crowd, including men like Sam Harris and Bill Maher, who hide their racist remarks with faux-intellectual and oh-so-enlightened attitudes. It’s been reported that they served as great influences for the Chapel Hill murderer, Craig Hicks. My wrath eventually turned into helpless laughter after watching his wife and his wife's lawyer continue to argue that Hicks, a self-proclaimed “militant atheist,” had simply snapped due to the disputed parking space. Just another white man with mental issues; these brown souls were merely collateral damage. “Unfortunately, these victims were there at the wrong time at the wrong place,” says her lawyer. Three innocent youths in the safety of their home. Wrong time. Wrong place.

The following morning, however, a new emotion took center stage. It was a focus, a determination, to start a new chapter in Muslim-American history. In her interview with Cooper, Suzanne Barakat explains that we cannot allow these deaths to go in vain. She argues that we must continue their legacy of charity and hard work. Besides honoring their lives, I believe doing so would strengthen our community and prevent further tragedies like this one. It’s fairly clear that Islam, at least in its current condition, is a young religion in America. Consequently, we still have to deal with some growing pains. It’s for this reason that I find Jewish-American history so inspiring. That community serves as an apt role model for our own. The amount of torture and discrimination they have faced in this country is incredible, but somehow they only grew stronger. Communal resistance against their oppressors brought them together as true brothers and sisters in faith. This is something I hope our Muslim population, heavily divided by sect and ethnicity, can seek to imitate.

There’s a very popular verse in the Qur’an addressing struggle: “For indeed, with hardship comes ease” [94:6]. While I appreciate and admire this quote, I find it misinterpreted far too often. A number of Muslims take this verse and close their eyes to hardship, allowing it to overtake them, waiting for the inevitable ease to come. But we cannot treat Islamophobia the same way we treat a brain freeze. Sitting still and waiting in these circumstances means forfeiting the safety we once felt in our homes and in the country at large. We must fight the good fight – through love, patience and understanding. We need Muslims to go out and create impressive works of architecture, like 19-year-old Razan had intended. We need Muslims to travel to Turkey to aid Syrian refugees with dental care, like the newlyweds Deah and Yusor had planned. We need to volunteer in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, nursing homes – to honor the fallen, save those at risk and show the true essence of Islam. It’s an unfortunate truth, but evil deeds have far stronger outreach than good ones.

For every thousand Muslim volunteers, it only takes one ISIS militant to ruin our reputation. But that doesn’t mean we should shrug our shoulders, complain about life’s heavy burdens and just carry on with our lives. Rather, it means we need hundreds of thousands of Muslims on the streets, helping their communities in any way possible. I urge you to remember these names: Deah Shaddy Barakat. Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha. Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. Do not let their deaths go in vain.

 

Shaan is a sophomore majoring in International Relations and Arabic. He can be reached at Shaan.Shaikh@tufts.edu