"It's a Good Thing Those Heathens Died"

The Boston Globe Magazine today featured the creator of The 99, a comic book series popular in the Middle East.  Kuwaiti-native Naif Al-Mutawa had an interesting upbringing, including going to a predominantly Jewish summer camp in New Hampshire for ten years, and going back to Kuwait for school.  He attended Tufts University, and he became involved with the Islamic Society there:

"Perhaps the defining moment of his college career occurred at a friend's apartment, when al-Mutawa overheard a fellow Muslim student talking about people who had died in flooding along the Mississippi River. "This guy was saying things like 'It's a good thing those heathens died,' " recalls al-Mutawa. The real shocker was the discovery that this same person was an officer in the Tufts Islamic Society. "So at the end of the night, I walk up to this guy and say, 'You have convinced me to join the Islamic Society.' The guy replied, `Welcome. Thank you. I knew it . . .' But I said, `Let me finish my sentence. I am joining with the sole intention that you are taken out of your position.' " And this is exactly what al-Mutawa did."

Good on him.  But bad on Tufts Islamic Society members for electing that student in the first place.  An officer of a Tufts University student organization thinks that it was a good thing that heathens (would infidels be a better word?) were killed in the Mississipi flood of 1993.  Who were the officers of the Tufts Islamic Society in 1993?  Enquiring minds want to know.  And where are these people now? 

Naif laments that moderate Muslims rarely show up in the media:

" 'I'd prefer you talk to me about how I feel about Islam, rather than the people who keep showing up in the media cross-eyed and angry,' says al-Mutawa. 'But if you are a moderate, you are not much of a story to the media, and this is part of the problem.' "

Yes, it is a part of the problem.  Others like Mona Eltahaway have noted that the media likes to cover "angry bearded Muslims." Or angry hijabbed Muslims.  And the media still likes to interview CAIR officials to get the Muslim viewpoint, even though CAIR has been quite discredited.  Locally, the Boston media and interfaith groups still go to the Islamic Society of Boston and Muslim American Society for the same, despite the fundamentalist ideology of those groups and their demonstrated ties to radical Islamists. 

You can criticize the media, but who else do reporters have to talk to?  Where can interfaith groups find an alternative to Mr. Red Hat?  Where are the organizations and leaders of these supposedly numerous but invisible "moderate Muslims"?   The only way moderate Muslims can compete against the well-funded, media-savvy Islamists is to create their own organizations.  Stop worrying about creating fitnah for the ummah, and start talking loudly about who you are, what you believe, and who does and who does not speak for you.  Give the reporters, politicians, local officials and talk show hosts other Muslims to talk to besides the fundamentalists.