{"id":1467,"date":"2017-08-12T21:40:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-13T02:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/?p=1467"},"modified":"2017-08-12T21:50:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T02:50:49","slug":"virginia-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/virginia-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlottesville and Minnesota: Yup, It&#8217;s Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>In the Name of God: The Eternally and Extremely Loving and Caring<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The situation was ripe for disaster, and indeed, disaster struck. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/257\/2017\/08\/3a311663-9bbd-49ae-bbe7-e2decbdeb765-5175-00000af4b21ec121.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>A 20-year-old man <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/news\/346359-horror-and-hate-in-charlottesville\">intentionally rammed his car<\/a> into a throng of anti-racist protesters, killing one and injuring dozens of others. This happened amidst a rally by White Supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia where hundreds of counter protesters also showed up to voice their opposition. <\/p>\n<p>While scenes like these have occurred in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/amp\/s\/amp.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2017\/jun\/22\/finsbury-park-attack-victim-makram-ali-died-of-multiple-injuries-postmortem-finds\">multiple places <\/a> around the world, it is shocking to see the same happen here in the United States. I am deeply pained by what happened, and my thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and all of the Commonwealth of Virginia tonight. <\/p>\n<p>This latest attack comes in the wake of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/amp\/s\/amp.cnn.com\/cnn\/2017\/08\/05\/us\/explosion-reported-minnesota-mosque\/index.html\">bomb attack at a suburban Minneapolis mosque<\/a>, which occurred on August 6, 2017. Suspects are still at large in that attack. <\/p>\n<p>The President issued a statement in response to today&apos;s attack:<\/p>\n<p><i>We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It&apos;s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Yet, what should have the President called this terrible event? <\/p>\n<p>Terrorism, plain and simple. <\/p>\n<p>There are some who have done just that, including former homeland security adviser for George W. Bush, Frances Townsend:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/frantownsend\/status\/896497039558799360<\/p>\n<p>But more need to do the same. <\/p>\n<p>What happened in Charlottesville and Minneapolis was terrorism. People may be splitting hairs about the dictionary definition of the word &quot;terrorism,&quot; but it is as clear as day: the people behind these heinous acts of violence were seeking to terrorize their victims. It is wanton violence against the innocent. That&apos;s terrorism. <\/p>\n<p>Let&apos;s think about this for a moment: had this murderer in Virginia been a Muslim; if there had been Muslims who firebombed a church, do you think there would have been this extended debate being played out now on cable news about whether or not this is terrorism? Absolutely not. <\/p>\n<p>Well, we need to call a spade a spade. For far too long, the word &quot;terrorism&quot; has been associated only with violence against the innocent by Muslims. And make no mistake about it, what happened at Westminster Bridge, as an example, was a clear act of terrorism. <\/p>\n<p>But so was what happened in Minneapolis last week and Charlottesville today. The double standard has to stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What happened in Charlottesville, just like in Minneapolis the week before, was terrorism, plain and simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[475,854,855,18],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-common-word","tag-attack","tag-charlottesville","tag-double-standards","tag-terrorism-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Charlottesville and Minnesota: Yup, It&#039;s Terrorism - Common Word, Common Lord<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Charlottesville and Minnesota: Yup, It&#039;s Terrorism - Common Word, Common Lord\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What happened in Charlottesville, just like in Minneapolis the week before, was terrorism, plain and simple.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/virginia-terror\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Word, Common Lord\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-13T02:40:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-08-13T02:50:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/files\/2017\/08\/3a311663-9bbd-49ae-bbe7-e2decbdeb765-5175-00000af4b21ec121.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hesham A. 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Hassaballa","description":"Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago doctor and writer. He has written extensively on a freelance basis, being published in newspapers across the country and around the world. He has been a Beliefnet columnist since 2001, and has written for the Religion News Service. He is also a columnist for Patheos. His articles have been distributed worldwide by Agence Global, and he was also a guest blogger for The Chicago Tribune and has blogged on ChicagoNow\" . In addition, Dr. Hassaballa has appeared as a guest on WTTW (Channel 11) in Chicago, CNN, Fox News, BBC, and National Public Radio. Dr. Hassaballa is co-author of The Beliefnet Guide to Islam (Doubleday), and his essay, \u201cWhy I Love the Ten Commandments,\u201d was published in the award-winning book Taking Back Islam (Rodale). His latest book, Noble Brother, is the story of the Prophet Muhammad told entirely in poetry, and it is now published in its second edition. In 2007, his blog \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" was nominated for a Brass Crescent Award for a blog that is \u201cthe most stimulating, insightful, and philosophical, providing the best rebuttals to extremist ideology and making an impact whenever they post.\u201d \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" has also received an award for being one of the \"Top Muslim Blogs for 2010\" by Awarding The Web. In addition to writing, Dr. Hassaballa helped found the Chicago Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and currently serves on their board of directors. He also co-founded the Bayan H. Hassaballa Charitable Foundation and now serves as its Treasurer.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/GodFaithPen"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/author\/hhassaballa\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1473,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions\/1473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}