Fort Hood Shooter Elicits Enabling Responses

Nidal Hasan’s killing spree at Ft. Hood along with most responses from secular and Muslim institutions underscore a thesis posted at http://www.atfp.org/articles/9 that violence done in the name of Islam is like alcoholism in a codependent dysfunctional family. Both systems feature excuses, denial, and enabling behaviors of people inside and outside of the systems.

Neither justice nor excuses for violence done in the name of Islam are deterring it. Underlying enabling systems and attitudes must be addressed and changed. If public opinion starts deriding this kind of violence done in the name of Islam as a disease like alcoholism, then Muslims themselves may work harder to address it than they are working to excuse it.

Nothing impacts alcoholics and their dysfunctional families like a reformed alcoholic, and nothing changes an alcoholic better than prayer. Similarly, no one can preach better against violence done in the name of Islam than a reformed terrorist, and nothing can change these deranged people better than prayer. Pray for the miracle of seemingly impossible changes in these desperate lives and their dysfunctional system.