Muslim Hero to New York Subway Jews

In a twist on post-9/11 worldviews, a young Muslim man risked his life to help two Jewish victims of a racist attack in a New York subway. The perpetrators were yelling "Merry Christmas!" and in response, a young Jewish couple said "Happy Hannukah!" - it being, in fact, Hannukah at the time and not Christmas, incidentally - to which the Christmas-yellers responded by a brutal physical attack. The Muslim, a Sunni originally from Pakistan - ooh, doesn't he fit the terrorist profile? - came to their rescue, and was himself beaten up by the Merry Christmas crew.

Now don't tell me about how many Christians are shuddering, saying "That's not typical of us!"

Will they instead say, "That's not typical of Muslims!" ... ???

Don't they represent Pat Robertson and his ilk? Don't those thugs represent Christendom and those who follow the many and sundry sects and visions and splinter groups of Christianity? Don't they speak for every and any Christian? If they yelled "Kill the Jews!" - well, didn't Hitler do that, too? So shall we arrest all Christians then, to save the Jews? Are not all Christians alike?

If you don't think so, then why do you apply the same great logic to Muslims? Is not Osama bin Laden the Spokesperson at Large for all Islam? Looks like Gitmo will be the destiny for a hell of a lot of people if we don't rein in our profiling proliferation...

We'll have to detain all Christians on suspicion of killing the Jews, and presumably, to appease the Evangelical wing, detain Jews because if Jesus comes again they might kill him, and of course, we're already detaining Muslims because they are known to be bloodthirsty. Humankind is really basically rotten, and that's what Guantanamo and the Patriot Act and the whole War on Terror are all about. It's about saving humans from themselves by locking them up so somebody can get rich.

Hopefully, that someone will ride the subway ... if there's anyone left to run it. In the meantime, those of us in the real world ought to sit back and enjoy this news story that has a good ending, breaking all the neocon Cheney-Bush-driven stereotypes that are pulling us back into a very dangerous netherworld.

A huge thank you to Hassan Askari!