Islamic Terrorists

You know, we all need to be paying more attention to Somalia (and, while I am at it, Bangladesh, but I will come to that another time). For example y'all saw the headlines about the recent news about a new President taking over in Somalia. And then of his coming to an agreement with "Islamist" "rebels". Okay, so there's much to be said about how "real" the presidency is and all that.

But there's talk about ministers handing over to other ministers (okay, so the VOA might not be the best place for objective news)--something that I don't think Somalia's had since a Somali classmate of mine in Freshman year at college in Karachi told me "A civil war started today in my country."

There was a report being circulated via email in some circles titled "Reports from Muslim Women attacked by Hindu Terrorists".

The phrases "Hindu Terrorists" and "Hindu Terrorism" should not be any more acceptable to us than "Islamic Terrorist" or "Islamic Terrorism". These people are, very like our own right wing extremists, the product of a neo-conservative movement within Hinduism that, also like our own, has been formed and has grown in the last century or more. This is not all Hindus. One of the most interesting statistics, if you want to talk about Gujarat--and I have worked in and with organizations active on the issue of the Gujarat massacares, and that's what they were: massacares, not riots--is how many districts (counties we call them in this country) in Gujarat had genocide happen in them, and how many did not.