The Major

No postscript to this short essay. Putting my “fifteen years later” thoughts front and center.

The political divide has only worsened since the original version of this post was included in the November 2009 newsletter of the Center for White Rose Studies. Back then, we were dealing with obstructionism and racism towards a newly-elected Black president.

And in 2009, Islamophobia dominated the news in red, southern states like Texas. Muslims contended with pig’s blood dumped on their mosques, on the doorsteps of their homes. What would be manifested as Muslim travel bans in Trump’s first administration saw, as 2009 predecessor, vicious hate crimes against Muslim Americans. If you don’t remember, just Google.

But November 2009 also predated the horrific violence of October 7, 2023, perpetrated by Hamas.

If anything, hate crimes have ballooned out of control. No longer is Islamophobia the headline of the day. Antisemitism seems to have come back in style, on both the left and the right side of the political spectrum. (I would caution Palestinian Americans, and other Muslim Americans: Don’t get too comfortable. The same rightwing violence you experienced in 2009 didn’t vanish on 10/7/2023. You’re not “safe” just because of an election-year blip.)

In remembering “The Major” — Nidal Malik Hasan — remember too that we are all responsible for one another. When we see hate, we must speak up, we must speak out, we may not keep silent.

Anyone who thinks it’s cool to double down on Muslims, or Jews, or Blacks, or Asians, or The Other whom you happen not to like “today” - remember that you may be next. That’s the way history works.

At some point, the hate, the violence, the senseless destruction needs to stop. Otherwise, we will destroy one another, and no one will be left.

I have struggled more with this short essay than with any other. As imperfect as the words may be - and they are - they must be said. I cannot keep silent.

Fifteen years ago this week, we reeled at news of a tragic, horrific shooting spree at (then) Fort Hood, Texas. “Remembering” must send the same shudders through our (and the world’s) American-born Palestinian community, the same way that Herschel Grynszpan’s November 7, 1938 assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath must have sent shudders through the Jewish community in Germany.

In November 2009, far right-wing, radical groups in the United States reacted in much the same way the National Socialist government did in 1938. Instead of seeing the murders as the work of an isolated gunman, they transferred Nidal Malik Hasan’s guilt onto an entire religion and ethnic group. Just as Nazis turned the act of a 17-year-old into a crime attributable to a global Jewish conspiracy, bloggers in 2009 saw terrorists in every Middle Eastern face. If that face happened to wear Islamic garb, all the worse.

I would hope that all of us as Americans would step up and stop the violence before it begins. Nip it in the bud. Demonstrate solidarity with those in the American-Islamic community who – like us – seek peace. Show the world that tikkun olam - repairing the world - applies to the whole world, not just the world that looks like us and “believes” like us.

Does this mean we tolerate radical Islamic extremism? Terrorists like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iranian-sponsored terrorists who seek the overthrow of the American government, and all other Western powers? Absolutely not! No more than we should tolerate homegrown, “good old boy” domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh.

It does mean, however, that we should not limit our efforts to eradicate terrorism to radical Islam. We should and must attack home-grown terrorists just as hard, just as fast. Those like McVeigh and Benjamin Nathaniel Smith who would kill or deport every non-white. Those like Jerome Corsi and Debbie Schlussel and the rest of the media who fanned the flames of hate in 2009, and still do so in 2024. Not unlike Goebbels, who famously said that anti-Jewish demonstrations should not be organized by the NSDAP, but if they erupted “spontaneously,” they shouldn’t be stopped.

That same tone pervades blogs and newscasts on Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, and right-wing blogs across cyberspace. If anything, it has worsened in the fifteen years since Hasan killed thirteen fellow soldiers.

As we look back on the eighty-sixth commemoration of Kristallnacht, the November pogrom that became the irreversible turning point in the horror we know as the Holocaust, we should work with every fiber in our being to silence the voices of hate. Regardless of their source.

Now more than ever.

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Image credit: The U.S. Army - Preparing the wounded for transport at Fort Hood. U.S. Army photo/Jeramie Sivley, November 5, 2009. This file is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain in the United States.

No part of this post may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the “fair use” of quotations that are properly cited and credited, including identification of the translator if applicable. No part of this post may be included in any Large Language Model without proper licensing from the copyright holder, Denise Elaine Heap.