By now, most of you are aware of the attempted murder of a 43-year-old NYC Muslim cab driver, Mr. Ahmed Sharif, by 21-year-old student, Michael Enright. Yesterday, I published a diary about the details of the incident which took place on Tuesday, August 24.
Today more details surrounding the case and Mr. Enright's background and possible motivation are emerging as the rise in anti-muslim rhetoric and hatred continues...
While we still don't have a really clear picture of Mr. Enright, his political or religious motivations/leanings we now know, as reported by TPM, that he was impacted by what he experienced during his 5-week visit to war-torn Afghanistan, and had developed anti-Muslim sentiments - sentiments which he documented in a personal diary he carried around with him:
[Enright] had been embedded with Task Force Leatherneck in the Helmand province for five weeks during April and early May 2010, a military official said. Enright was registered as working for TV-Worldwide, and was filming his documentary on the 1st Battalion/3rd Marines home-based in Hawaii, Lt. Cmdr. Katie Kendrick, a public affairs officer with the British Royal Navy, told TPMMuckraker.
When he returned from his trip, Enright was different, a neighbor and longtime friend identified as Jesse told the New York Daily News.
"He said it was chaos," said Jesse. "He did mention that they lost a few troops over there."
By the time he was arrested on Tuesday in midtown Manhattan, Enright had a personal journal on him that was filled with pages of "pretty strong anti-Muslim comments," a police source told The New York Daily News.
His diary equated Muslims with "killers, ungrateful for the help they were being offered, filthy murderers without a conscience."
It certainly seems, according to friends' accounts and the timeline of events, that Michael Enright became embittered by events he witnessed in Afghanistan, but we have yet to get a clear understanding of when and why those feelings developed to the point of such hatred for Muslims that he would be willing to throw his life away in an attempt to murder one.
I am, however, convinced that the recent rise in anti-muslim sentiments, fueled by the right-wing and the MSM, played a role in the escalation of Mr. Enright's emotions and even created the tipping point for him.
Contrary to some people's opinion, Enright's actions are not isolated. Anti-islam/muslim incidents are on the rise all across this country. Islamophobia is becoming the new anti-semitism. Muslim is the new 'N' word. Media Matters has chronicledthe rise in anti-muslim rhetoric and attacks on Mosques all across the country. Just last night, some fool forced his way into a Queens, NY Mosque, peed all over the prayer rugs and called the worshippers "terrorists."
The right-wing is demagoguing the issue of the Park 51 cultural center/mosque purely for political gain and riling up people's irrational fears and xenophobia just weeks away from the mid-term elections. Republicans started a war against Islam 9 years ago. They mean to see it through and will do and say anything to distract us from their real goal.
NYT columnist, Frank Rich, was a guest on Rachel's show last night discussing this very issue:
Things are going to get a whole lot worse, and we need to stay focused and start pushing back on the hate speech and speaking out for Muslim brothers and sisters. We certainly can't do that when we're constantly being distracted by the latest slight by some politician or political operative (social security is going nowhere regardless of who sits on some commission).
If we don't act now, the next Michael Enright might be successful. If we don't speak out against the hate, violence, and manipulation of ignorance and paranoia by the Ministry of Right Wing Propaganda, the next pipe bomb might actually go off and kill some innocent child inside a Mosque.
We need to consider this a checkpoint and stop the madness before it gets worse.