Was it an Arab? Was it a Muslim? These were some of the initial questions a group of friends asked when we first heard of the Virginia Tech shootings. Very early news reports quoted eyewitnesses describing the shooter as “Asian.”
What did that mean, we all said. Are Arabs “Asian”? And certainly there are countless “Asian” Muslims, particularly in South Asia.
As we followed the story on TV and on the Internet the day of the murders, we watched “terrorism experts” suddenly appearing and commenting on what had happened and who the culprit or culprits might be. One of the most notable commentators was identified as an Israeli expert on terrorism and, as he analyzed the photos and data up to that time, he commented that the “patterns” that he saw looked very much like the terrorism patterns in Iraq that we are confronted with daily in the media. He inferred that we Americans were watching the beginning of something akin to the terrorism that, in his mindset, Muslims and Arabs inflict on the world. We didn’t see him again after the actual identity of the deranged killer, Cho Seung-hui was released.
Debbie Schlussel is a right-wing pundit with a well-read daily blog on many issues. A good friend of mine, who tends to be on the right on most points that we discuss, sent me one of her commentaries a few weeks ago. She was commenting on Saudi Arabia, Arabs and Muslims and her remarks showed nothing but contempt and derision for anything Arab or Muslim. My friend, who generally agrees with Schlussel on most American domestic issues that she argues, was perplexed with her comments on Arabs and Muslims and asked me to respond. After quite a bit of research, I found that Schussel was a strong right-wing pro-Israel Zionist and had never written anything even remotely plosive about Arabs or Muslims.
On Schussel’s blogsite the day of the shooting, she initially speculated that the first reports identifying “a man of Asian descent” as the killer might indicate that a “Paki” Muslim was part of “a coordinated terrorist attack” at Virginia Tech. Her use of the term “Paki” is in itself racist and defamatory.
Schussel continued, “The Virginia Tech campus has a very large Muslim community, many of which are from Pakistan. Pakis are considered ‘Asian,’” and asked, “Were there two (shooters) and was this a coordinated terrorist attack?” Schlussel asserted that the reason she was “speculating that the ‘Asian’ gunman is a Pakistani Muslim” was “(b)ecause law enforcement and the media strangely won’t tell us more specifically who the gunman is.” Schlussel claimed that “(e)ven if it does not turn out that the shooter is Muslim, this is a demonstration to Muslim jihadists all over that it is extremely easy to shoot and kill multiple American college students.”
In further updates to her posting, after more information became known about the shooter, Schlussel first claimed that “(t)he shooter has now been identified as a Chinese national here on a student visa,” which she called “(y)et another reason to stop letting in so many foreign students.” Schlussel later wrote that the killer was a “South Korean national.” Since making those comments, Schussel has neither taken any responsibility for her false comments nor seen any need to apologize.
Racism is racism and defamation is defamation whether it is against Arabs, Muslims, Jews or Koreans or any other ethic or nationality designation. Many Asia-Americans and Asian nationals in the United States have commented that they have felt and are feeling resentment and negative comments about their ethnicity since the South Korean ethnic background of Cho Seung-hui was released. According to the Financial Times, in a group of Chinese students in the US when asked whether they felt nervous about how Americans would react to the carnage, one commented: “Americans can’t tell a Korean from a Chinese.”
Since the first release of the killer’s identity and the materials that he sent to NBC, much additional speculation has risen about Cho’s possible Arab and Muslim connections, mostly from right-wing pro-Israeli commentators and blogs. Apparently Cho’s father worked as a construction worker in Saudi Arabia before Cho was born and prior to his returning to South Korea.
Tens of thousands of Koreans have worked in Saudi Arabia over the past few decades. Additionally tens of thousands of Americans have worked and are working in Saudi Arabia. Does that make them and their children all terrorist suspects? Additional speculation has surfaced from the same sources trying to tie the killer and Islam together regarding Cho’s tattoo and nome de plume, “Ismail Ax.” The name “Ismail” appears in all of the monotheistic holy books, the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an; yet the focus is on the term as a “Muslim” connection. Additionally, Cho was an English major and almost all English majors are exposed to James Fenimore Cooper. In Cooper’s novel “The Prairie” there is a character named Ishmael Bush who symbolically tries to conquer nature with an ax. Also in the novel “Moby Dick” again we have a character named Ishmael who is obsessed with killing a whale as a symbol of his manhood and revenge.
We all grieve for the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre and their families. We grieve for the Arab-Americans and Muslims as well as the Asian Americans that were killed by a clearly insane and deranged individual. But we hope and we trust that Americans are above the racist and defamatory campaign that is being thrust upon us by those who have a broader political agenda. Please, don’t place the blame on the victims.
