Muslims Address Silence on Europe Attacks

Alia Kdeih, 50, who came to Paris in 1977, at the height of a civil war in her native Lebanon, poses in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris, Tuesday June 20, 2006. Europe's Muslims have remained largely silent in the face of terrorist attacks that have killed 254 people in Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Europeans want to know why. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon) (Jacques Brinon - AP)

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Europe's Muslims have remained largely silent in the face of terrorist attacks that have killed 254 people in Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Europeans want to know why.

Why have so few of them publicly condemned the train and bus bombings in Madrid and London? Why have so few spoken out against the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, killed because his work was considered an insult to Islam?

Talk to Europe's mainstream Muslims privately, however, and it turns out they have a lot to say.

Seek them out in the neighborhoods where they live and work _ in the outdoor markets and butcher shops that sell halal meat, in the book stores that display literature on Islam and the West, in the boutiques that promote Islamic dress codes, in the Turkish restaurants and smoky Tunisian teahouses, in their schools and youth clubs _ and they denounce, the vast majority unequivocally, attacks against civilians in both Europe and the United States.

"Van Gogh was a crazy man, but no one has the right to kill anyone who says bad things about the Quran," said Mohammed Azahaf, a 23-year-old student who runs a youth center in Amsterdam. "If you kill one, it's like killing the whole of mankind," he said, quoting a line from the Muslim holy book.

Why, then, the public silence?

For some of the more than five dozen Muslims interviewed for this story in Amsterdam, Paris and London, it's a sense of shame, or even guilt, that innocents have been killed in the name of Islam; they say those feelings make them seek to be "invisible." For those lucky enough to have jobs, there is little time to protest or even write letters to newspapers. For others, there is fear of being branded anti-Islam in their communities.

Dutch Muslim rapper Yassine SB wrote a song about his anger over Van Gogh's murder but scrapped plans to perform it out of fear of being ostracized by the Islamic community. He also turned down requests by a popular Amsterdam radio station to sing a song against terrorism.

"If you sing that, it's like you choose the Dutch, not Muslims," said Yassine SB _ the initials stand for his surname Sahsah Bahida _ who is popular among Dutch North African youths like himself for his songs against racism.

"People will say 'you are a traitor,'" said the 20-year-old musician.

In the Netherlands, Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali _ who wrote the script for Van Gogh's movie "Submission" _ went into hiding after receiving death threats for her condemnations of Islam. And in the United States, Syrian-born psychologist Wafa Sultan's calls for Islamic reform also earned her death threats.

But there is another reason for the silence _ one that for many overrides all others.