Terrorists Only Represent Themselves
By: Usama Awan

The headlines read: “Norway Bombing, Massacre: ‘Fundamentalist Christian’ Killer Anders Behring Breivik Reveals Hatred of Modern Church.”  “Anders Breivik is not Christian but anti-Islam.”  “Norway attacks: We can no longer ignore the far-right threat.”

The above are headlines of articles dealing with the horrific attacks in Norway. The headlines focus on categorizing the identity of the killer. Is he Christian? Anti-Islam? Rightist? These questions come to mind in an effort to figure out his motivation for the attacks.  Does it really matter? Terrorism is atrocious no matter which group one claims to belong to or unfortunately represents. That is why we see Christians rightfully attesting his acts to be outside the pail of the teachings of Jesus. After all, a Christian reader of the stories must feel disgust to see his or her religion being attributed to such inhumane acts.  Apply this to the wicked attacks on 9/11. That same disgust is how Muslims all over the world feel when their religion is wrongfully ascribed to terrorism.

My point therefore is that terrorists don’t represent anyone but their own twisted viewpoints. So take the Christian out of ‘Christian-Fundamentalism’ and Islam out of ‘Islamic-Fundamentalism.’ The hyphen unjustly connects blameless believers to terrorism.