'Adel Darwish, a columnist for the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote that the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks were the product of the mentality, media, and education in the Arab and Muslim world, and berated the Arabs and Muslims for not learning a lesson from the attacks and working to fix these flaws, instead of clinging to conspiracy theories about 9/11.[1]
The following are excerpts from his article:[2]
"Most Muslims and Arabs Have Not Thought to Derive Any Lesson [at All] From This Event"
"Western intelligence and security apparatuses, especially British ones, are still studying [9/11], and have admitted they were wrong to focus, in their response [to it]... on the security aspect instead of the ideological and cultural aspect... However, I think that most Muslims and Arabs have not thought to derive any lesson [at all] from this event and [its repercussions in] the years that followed...
"Some British Muslims, who are a minority [in Britain], provoke the non-Muslim majority [by] using loudspeakers in mosques and residential areas. Some isolate themselves from the society [of the country] to which they immigrated of their own free will [by shutting themselves] in a cultural ghetto... Some call to implement shari'a law in Britain, the most recent [example] being a Muslim academic who spoke this Thursday on the BBC. The polite British presenter did not ask him why he left a country that does implement the shari'a and immigrated to a country whose citizens he accuses of licentiousness.
"This insolent thinking harms the Muslims in two ways: it provides ammunition to the right-wing organizations... and portrays the Muslims as people of weak faith... who need a law in order to follow [the commandments of their religion] and look like Muslims."
"The Political Conduct of the Arab Governments and Press is Even Worse"
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"The political conduct of the Arab governments and press is even worse... Instead of admitting that there is a basic, historical flaw in the operating system of the collective [Arab] mind – [namely] in the curricula, the press, the tools for shaping public opinion, and the beliefs prevalent in the countries from which the 9/11 gang originated – and instead of reprogramming [this system], the press has published [statements] by [religious] streams that took public opinion hundreds of years back.
"One does not need to be a psychologist in order to identify the bug in the mental operating system of those adults [who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks]... How did [their mentors] – ignoramuses who never left the confines of the Taliban's seminaries, and who do not [even] know Arabic, the language of the Koran – manage to convince a university graduate like Muhammad 'Atta, who was well-versed in Islam, to head the gang [that carried out the 9/11 attacks] and perpetrate mass-murder on their behalf?
"Before [boarding] the plane... he wrote a will in which he provided instructions for washing his body and preparing it for burial, specifying that no woman must see his naked [corpse]. [What use] is an education system that produces [a man with] such a mind, who is preoccupied only with the concern that some woman might mock him and insult his manliness, and [moreover], is convinced that his body might emerge intact after [the plane] crashes [into the tower]?..."
"Those Who Spread [9/11 Conspiracy Theories] are a Product of an Education System that Never Taught Them to Think"
"Mubarak's NDP party did not form a committee of psychology and education experts to conduct an in-depth investigation into the mental and psychological state of the Egyptians who took part in the 9/11 gang, in order to fix the [Egyptian] education system so that it does not produce any more [graduates] of this sort. On the contrary, it utilized [9/11] to blackmail the U.S. into giving more aid to the [Egyptian] regime... [and help it] continue its tyranny...
"There is a crowd that insists on denying [that Muslims were responsible for 9/11], by means of television programs, articles, and conferences devoted to denying the authenticity of the events and claiming that the images shown [on TV] were created using computer programs for producing science fiction films.
"There is another crowd, quite similar, that accepts [the attack] as real, but claims it was carried out by the CIA so that the weapons industry could make profits from the ensuing war, or else blames the Israeli Mossad, claiming as evidence that half the Jewish employees in the World Trade Center did not show up for work [that day].
"Those who spread this fairytale are a product of an education system that never taught them to think... They are ignorant about the [holidays] of the monotheistic religion closest to Islam. It is a well-known fact that dozens of Jews did die in the attack, and that those who were away [from work] were religious [Jews who stayed home] because September 11, [2001] coincided with the Jewish New Year [sic]... Yet another crowd says that the attacks were justified because of America's pro-Israeli bias.
"Ten years have passed since 9/11, and the Arabs and Muslims have wasted them on silly stories, conspiracy theories, and [attempts to] justify [the attacks], instead of learning a lesson and fixing the flaw that brought about this crime which affected so many."
[1] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 4123, "Ten Years after 9/11, Arab Press Continues to Disseminate Conspiracy Theories," September 9, 2011, Ten Years after 9/11, Arab Press Continues to Disseminate Conspiracy Theories.
[2] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 12, 2011.
