I had been planning on going to a Halloween party with my coworkers that evening, but as a result of the bomb I spent most of the day trying to decide if this was a good idea or not. Some of my friends backed out, but others still wanted to go. We decided that things were probably safer than usual after the attack, and we wanted to have a nice night out together. This was their first Halloween celebration, so they were very excited to go out. We found a heavy metal bar doing a themed party and concert, so we decided to put some zombie make-up on and check it out.
We had a great time! I think the music was heavier than my coworkers would like, but it was mostly classic metal/80s rock stuff (Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Judas Priest, etc). Despite looking a little bit intimidating, the people there seemed really friendly. I'll hopefully go back there at some point.
Alright, serious rant time. When I told my family about the bombing in Taksim, a couple of them responded with remarks about the attack being religious in nature. While I know they are very smart and tolerant people who don't hate Muslims, this assumption bothers me. Reading through the comments on the CNN article (never do this, ever- it's bad for the soul), I found that a disturbing number of people shared this belief, stating how this was yet another Islamic terrorist attack, evidence of their violent religion. Somehow everyone completely ignores the fact that a motive was never given in any legitimate news article about the attack- in fact, it's very unlikely that there was any religious motivation there at all. 98% of Turkey is Muslim. The bomber and the victims were Muslim. The bomber targeted a police vehicle during a Republic Day celebration, meaning it is almost certainly politically motivated. An attacker being Muslim does not necessarily mean that they will commit a religious act of terrorism, just like a homicide in the US is very infrequently due to a Christian motive. People can be violent or peaceful regardless of their religion, and not every violent or peaceful act they commit has anything to do with their beliefs.
In conclusion, please try to think critically before making assumptions about an event like this. While it may not seem harmful, this further marginalizes Muslims in the US and elsewhere who already feel like other Americans view them as violent, extremist killers. It could very well be revealed that this attack was religiously motivated, but do not be so quick to jump to this conclusion before the facts are known.
I heard it was a PKK attack - so Kurdish rebels - but the party head did not confirm, so maybe not? News over here is a little hazy about motive... in fact, it was all over the news yesterday, but seems to have disappeared from major channels today :(
ReplyDeleteGlad you're safe! The minute I heard "Taksim Square" I was like uhoh, I've heard of that place before...
The PKK seems like the most likely group behind it, but today they denied any responsibility for what happened. Considering the attack occurred on the day their cease-fire expired, I'm not sure how convincing that is. Supposedly the Turkish police/government have a pretty good idea of who is behind it, but don't want to say anything until they have a confirmation. They actually were very uneasy with the "suicide bombing" label, since that makes many people's minds jump to extremist Islam groups like Al-Qaeda.
ReplyDeleteThe first few articles on the internet said something right away about PKK having to do with the attack, though it was and still is unknown about the motives of the attack. I think it was a "lone gunman", actually. It is common, however wrong it may be, that in the U.S. the term "terrorist attack" equals Muslim Extremism, though actual terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing had nothing to do with Muslims. You can thank 8 years of W. for giving many Americans a knee-jerk reaction of terrorist -> Muslim, though I feel that anti-Muslim sentiment has increased this year especially with the "911 mosque" and "Quran Burning".
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