It's a Sunni Day
The Hidden Columnists--Tom Friedman Edition (16 Nov)

In which Mr. Friedman takes on the Sunnis again (here's the link to the full column for subscribers to Times Select):

We are so bombarded with news of terrorism lately that we don't even notice anymore when a fundamental line has been crossed. The last few weeks was one of those times. At the start of the Muslim holy month, Ramadan, a Sunni Muslim suicide bomber walked into a mosque in Hilla, Iraq, and blew himself up in the middle of a funeral. Just after the close of Ramadan, a Sunni Muslim suicide bomber walked into the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, Jordan, and blew himself up in the middle of a wedding reception.

Terrorists willing to blow themselves up at funerals and weddings of their own faith are individuals who have become completely disconnected from humanity. They feel no moral restraints. And this is the real problem in the Sunni Muslim world today: there is no controlling moral authority. Any event can be a target: funerals, weddings, anything. Maybe next week the jihadists will blow up a maternity ward.

Yes, there is a civil war going on in the Sunni Muslim world today, a civil war between jihadist fundamentalists on one side and a generally moderate majority on the other. There's just one problem - only one side is really fighting this civil war: the jihadists.
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But here's the protest call the world needs to hear from the Sunni Arab street: "Why anyone?"

Suicide bombing is an abomination. It is sick. You cannot build a healthy state from suicide bombers. Imagine what your national museum would look like: "Here's Ahmed - he blew up 52 Muslims at a wedding." "Here's Muhammad - he blew up 25 Shiites at a funeral."

So why don't more people in the Sunni world speak out against the Sunni Arabs doing this? In part, it's because feelings of powerlessness and humiliation are rife in Sunni Arab society, so there is some grudging respect for suicide bombers who are ready to give their lives to resist outsiders or the authoritarian regimes that Arabs blame for keeping them down.

It's also because the Sunni silent majority isn't all that upset when suicide bombers blow up Jews, Christians or Shiite civilians. The Saudi press often extols such suicide bombers as "martyrs" or "the resistance."
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The Sunni world would do well to reread the famous poem by the Rev. Martin Niemöller, a German pastor imprisoned in World War II: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

A civilization that does not delegitimize suicide bombing against any innocent civilian is itself committing suicide. And that is exactly what the Sunni Muslim world is doing when it does not consistently teach its children that suicide bombing against civilians is always wrong - and that all who engage in it do not go to heaven, but straight to hell.