The Internet & The Infidel

A reader of the Black Iris shifted my attention towards an article in yesterday’s Al-Ghad about a Palestinian in east Gaza whose Internet cafe was targeted recently by an extremist group calling itself the “swords of justice” or “swords of righteousness”, or whatever latest creative names these goons have come up with. The cafe is frequented by university students and other young people who can’t afford computers, let alone the Internet at home.

The justification this organization has sent in warning messages to various Internet cafes its been targeting in Gaza is naturally predictable: the Internet is keeping young men from worshiping God and instead only consuming their time in doing the bidding of the Jews and the ‘Crusaders’, who technically speaking have been dead for quite some time now (someone should tell them that, any volunteers?).

Their argument is fairly predictable, especially if you’ve paid attention to the line of justifications for other crimes against Muslims that they’ve committed in the name of Islam. Perhaps, caught in the cul-de-sac of their own self-righteousnesses, they’ve failed to realize that the Internet has been one of the biggest training grounds for their kind. From access to extremist literature to the Taliban’s funniest-public-beheading videos, it’s all up there on the World Wide Web, the same virtual world they accuse others of being infidels for using. And I’m betting that some place, some where, one of these groups is planing an operation, with the directions to the target printed off of Google Maps.

A few weeks back a Moroccan blew himself up in an Internet cafe as well, when the owner of the shop tried to stop him from accessing extremist materials. So it’s obviously becoming a trend now.

The situation begs the question: does using the Internet make you an infidel?

Well from the perspective of the Takfiri culture, wearing shorts in your bedroom makes you an infidel. Playing beach volleyball makes you an infidel; but the indoor kind is fine.

I don’t really care to talk about these groups. I think next to Al-Queda, these young poverty-stricken, indoctrinated kids are making the worst appearances in Gaza, Algeria and Morocco. What they believe is pure nonsense. Threatening women to wear Islamic clothing or face the violent consequences is just pure hypocritical and contradictory of Islamic teachings. Again, I’m just so sick and tired of pointing out what should be obvious to anyone with a somewhat average understanding of Islam.

What would be the solution here?

How do Palestinians or Moroccans or any Arab and/or Muslim people face up to this situation?

I can’t recall the specifics but an article I read lately was about the Chinese government installing some sort of technology in Internet cafes to control the usage by teens hooked on games or surfing or chatting. The device allocated some sort of point system, where exceeding to time limit meant losing points. We could do that, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a solution for Islamic extremists if it didn’t come with a boom and a few charred bodies.

The other solution could be that everyone just leaves everyone else alone.

What do you think?