{"id":1265,"date":"2011-09-17T06:40:40","date_gmt":"2011-09-17T10:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2011-09-17T06:40:40","modified_gmt":"2011-09-17T10:40:40","slug":"i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html","title":{"rendered":"I will not condemn Islam or America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A commentor (and person I consider a friend) took serious issue with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/9-11-after-10-i-resolve.html\">my 9-11 tenth anniversary post<\/a>, commenting:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have to say I am quite disappointed by this post. It seems you just want to sweep the horrors of the last decade under the carpet, so long as the victims are not American.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I must say, it&#8217;s exactly this sort of demand for ritualized condemnation that I had in mind when I wrote the post. Whether it comes from critics on the left or right, the insistence that American Muslims apologize for this or condemn that is a game I won&#8217;t play anymore. Especially things that I really have absolutely nothing to do with, bear no responsibility for, and completely opposed in my writings over the past decade, like terrorism, or the Iraq War. <\/p>\n<p>Islam is not terrorism, and America is not Empire. I&#8217;ve learned that these associations are burned into the mind of the Islamphobe\/Americaphobe. Ten years after 9-11, I&#8217;ve given them enough attention. <strong>It&#8217;s not about them<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>What the critics really want is for me to condemn an apologize for Islam\/America itself and that I will never do, and wear my refusal to do so with pride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A commentor (and person I consider a friend) took serious issue with my 9-11 tenth anniversary post, commenting: I have to say I am quite disappointed by this post. It seems you just want to sweep the horrors of the last decade under the carpet, so long as the victims are not American. I must&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[160,200,294,24,33,28,71],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-identify-yourself","tag-9-11","tag-america","tag-iraq-war","tag-islam","tag-muslim-americans","tag-muslims","tag-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I will not condemn Islam or America - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I will not condemn Islam or America - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A commentor (and person I consider a friend) took serious issue with my 9-11 tenth anniversary post, commenting: I have to say I am quite disappointed by this post. It seems you just want to sweep the horrors of the last decade under the carpet, so long as the victims are not American. I must&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-17T10:40:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I will not condemn Islam or America - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I will not condemn Islam or America - City of Brass","og_description":"A commentor (and person I consider a friend) took serious issue with my 9-11 tenth anniversary post, commenting: I have to say I am quite disappointed by this post. It seems you just want to sweep the horrors of the last decade under the carpet, so long as the victims are not American. I must&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2011-09-17T10:40:40+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html","name":"I will not condemn Islam or America - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-17T10:40:40+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-17T10:40:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/09\/i-will-not-condemn-islam-or-america.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I will not condemn Islam or America"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}