Who promotes hatred, revenge, rape, and anger against Muslims in India?

While the mob under the leadership of Hindus belonging to RSS and BJP were moving towards the house of young nine-year-old Azra, the entire family of 10 was trying to locate a safe place in their own home to save it from those who were also its neighbors.  They found kitchen a safe place to hide, but the mob broke open the door and killed members of the family between the ages of 7 and 70. Azra was attacked. Her stomach was slashed with a sickle and her hand chopped. Those who attacked here were all Hindus.

Now she is in Delhi’s prestigious All India Medical Institute and the doctors are keen that she stays in the hospital until she fully recovers. The Majority of the doctors who are dedicated to saving her are Hindus.

This incident took place in September in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. But incidents like these fill the pages of human history. In every community, there are people who are the saviors and there are those who are killers. We are neither born as saviors nor as killers. What makes us what we are and how we behave? Who whispers in our consciousness that we must kill or we must save a human life? Why those who are generally perceived as decent people in society, all of a sudden, act in a manner that betrays their humanity and why others act in a manner totally different than theirs.

One can blame whoever one wants to blame, but someone has to take the responsibility of creating a climate where these brutal acts are played out. We have to admit that there are people and groups who thrive on hatred, anger, and revenge. They attack everyone who is not like them and give a message to their followers that the life of the other is not worth respecting. Thus, at any opportunity they get, they do the unthinkable because they are convinced in their mind that the other has no right to live.

In India, the Rashtriya Swayam Sangh (RSS), the Hindu Vishwa Parishad (HVP), the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the Shiv Sena (SS), the Bajrang Dal (BD) and other outfits associated with these organizations have created a climate of hate on the basis of their biased and distorted narratives of history and society. Contrary to historical facts, they have convinced their followers that the past Muslim rulers of India were brutal to their Hindu community, who encouraged forcible conversion, destruction of temples, raping of women, and the humiliation of non-Muslims in general. They have propagated a false narrative of history that tells the zealots that a Muslim emperor by the name of Aurangzeb used to kill hundreds of Brahmin a day to please his God or Muslim rulers turned most Hindu places of worship into mosques. They have falsely relayed the message that Muslims were responsible for the division of the country and that Muslims desecrate Hindu traditions by slaughtering cows, a symbol of their faith. In fact, cow slaughtering is banned in India except in West Bengal and Kerala. Thus, they have erroneously concluded that the Muslim community in India is an enemy and deserves the same that was done to Hindus by Muslim rulers in the past. They have created hatred and anger against Muslims and they have prepared their followers to commit the most brutal unthinkable acts against people who are projected an enemy". It is this false propaganda the forces of hatred use against Muslims to rally their supporters."

Many of India’s textbooks taught at private and public schools contain these messages. In places of worship, the message is repeated and in political rallies, the sentiments against Muslims are provoked. Obviously, anger and hatred explode at the smallest possible opportunity. 

Not a single day passes without Muslims being told by these groups that they are anti-national and anti-Hindu and they deserve to be uprooted. It’s this climate of hatred that prepares mobs to commit mass rape and mass murder and other brutal unthinkable crimes. It is this climate that created Gujarat massacres and Muzaffarabad killings.

Unfortunately, this brutality and savagery is on the rise. The information that is being circulated by the RSS sponsored or inspired group is all over and not only the Muslim community but the faith of Islam has been demonized. That explains the reason behind the nomination of Narendra Modi for the post of prime minister by the RSS political front BJP, a man who presided the state that witnessed the worst acts of violence against Muslims in independent India. His candidacy is a slap on the face of the nation and an effort to legitimize hatred, anger, and revenge.

But then there are Hindus who do not identify with this philosophy of hatred. They have raised their voices but they lack mass appeal to their message. RSS has penetrated India’s rural areas and its members occupy important positions in India’s army, police, national guards, bureaucracy, educational academy, financial institutions, and relief agencies. It wants to consolidate its power in Delhi and it is willing to do anything about that, even if it means instigating mobs to chop as many heads and hands as it can. The danger is real and not imaginary. Indians, including Muslims, must be prepared to face this danger. What should the Muslim strategy stop the onslaught of RSS is the topic of another article that I intend to pen next?

Lessons from the massacre of Muslims in Hyderabad State in 1948

Those who witnessed the massacres in Hyderabad in 1948 knew that they did take place, but they did not say it aloud, the skills to articulate it and the courage to challenge the silence of the government of India under the world-renowned secular prime minister Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru.
Some 65 years after the massacres, the contents of the report of the committee that was formed by the then Prime Minister to assess the ground realities became known and affirmed what was always known by people.
Some 40,000 Muslims were massacred in what was known the then Hyderabad state.
The army sent to subdue Razakars, a local resistance movement, participated in the killing, looting, and raping of Muslims.
Local Hindus and their religious organizations incited Hindu mobs and terrorized the Muslim population and engineered the massacres.
Secular leaders also did not lag behind as they also joined and incited the mobs killing Muslims. They grabbed the land left by fleeing Muslims and sold it to whosoever offered them cash.
Razakars also engineered the killing of vulnerable, innocent Hindus wherever they could lay their hands on.
The report was suppressed by none other than the prime minister himself. This censorship is a violation of all national and international norms agreed by all nations. Yet, this censorship is always imposed and people discover the truth or partial truth only decades or centuries later.
Here is what we can learn from this latest episode of government secrecy.

1.      People need to develop their own independent channels to document their own history. Don’t rely on governments, however, representative they may be, to document information that goes against it. Without a vigilant population, democracy does not function well.

2.      Muslim in India and elsewhere must ensure that every act of injustice and violence against them is digitally documented and archived.  For instance, it should not be left upon government sources to document the atrocities in Muzaffarnagar carnage; rather, Muslim organizations should document these atrocities and preserve them while publicizing them.

3.      Muslims in India and elsewhere should join the police and army in large numbers to balance those sectarian forces that often use their official badges to intimidate minorities. The presence of Muslims in law enforcement agencies, the bureaucracy, and the army as well as in other sectors of society is paramount to their security. For long, the Muslims have been admonished by many of their organizations not join the government jobs. Such a policy was not only wrong, but it has proved disastrous for the community.

4.      Muslims should have a legal defense committee to pursue their cases. Muslim organizations in Europe and North America and elsewhere should help them pursue the matter at international courts of justice or with Amnesty or Human Rights Watch or the United Nations.

5.      Muslims should strengthen them at the grassroots level by creating open self-defense units to ensure that when they are attacked, they have people to defend them. These groups should be transparent and work within the limits of the law.

6.      Never trust the government or the media fully. Media has its own interests and spins. Muslims have to develop their own institutions to document their plight and sufferings.

7.      Muslims should never defend any incident that violates the law or the fundamental principles of their religion. If Muslims are wrong, they should be able to call a spade a spade. They must ensure that the presence in any village or town is not a source of discomfort. For instance, Hindus in Northern India believes that all Muslims slaughter cows secretly even if it is legally prohibited. Slaughtering cow is not an act that would increase or decrease the faith of a Muslim. For creating goodwill and giving comfort to Hindu neighbors, Muslims must adequately ensure them that they do not slaughter cow or desecrate Hindu symbols.

8.      Muslims should also participate in welfare projects for the good of the common people in their localities to ensure that their areas are clean, peaceful, and respectful of all residents.

9.      Muslims should also involve in local governance through contesting elections at local levels to ensure their presence at all levels. They should join all those political parties that believe in the supremacy of Indian constitution and that are not sectarian in their nature.

10.  Muslims should create an emergency fund to help victims of violence whenever it occurs. They should be ready to face a violent situation in the coming months as national elections are fast approaching and several political parties would use Hindu-Muslim tension to serve their electoral interests.

What if Modi becomes the next prime minister of India?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has ruled over India in the past, and the hell did not break loose. Why would it be different if Narendra Modi becomes the next prime minister of India with his party having a majority in parliament?
Times are different. The BJP of today is ideologically and administratively controlled by the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). During the previous BJP government at the national level and at present through its strong presence in several states, the RSS has systematically acquired position of influence in the army, judiciary, academia and administration at various levels.  The RSS has also created a myriad of organizations around its ideology at different levels. The organizations within the Sangh family include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Vanbandhu Parishad, Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Vidya Bharati, Seva Bharati and many others spread in all parts of society. Numerous other Hindu organizations take inspiration from the RSS's philosophy.
 It is, therefore, not unsound to assume that the rise of Modi as the next prime minister of India might lead to a sea of change in India’s identity as a democratic and secular country.
The RSS is an organization run by secret cells with a mass following committed to the sanctity of Mother India. This para-military organization is no different than what any national army is expected to do. But the army defends the nation as a whole. The RSS is committed to an India that is controlled, dominated and run exclusively by Hindus belonging to a caste hierarchy deemed pure by the standards of Manu Samirti (codes of Manu).   
In its philosophy, organization and strategy, the RSS is not different than that of Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini’s National Fascist Party or that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party.
One of the stalwarts of the RSS, M.S. Golwalkar laid out the foundational principles of his organization when he wrote the following:
“To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.
“The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and languages must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture... in a word, they must cease to be foreigners; Or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment— not even citizens' rights.”
The secret cells of RSS have the expertise of the many former army, police, intelligence and administrative officials who had and still have access to national resources to gather information on anyone. These cells carefully laid plans to help the organization inch towards its goal of total domination of the country. The Gujarat massacres that took place in 2002 provide a glimpse of the tactics used by RSS to serve its interests. The massacres were originally planned to purge the state of Muslims and other minorities.
In Modi, the RSS has found a man who can follow its dictates fully and execute the plan perfectly. With every new day, India is learning the ways Modi manipulated the state resources to fulfill the RSS objectives in Gujarat without being caught by the law. Everyone in Gujarat knows that Modi carried out the RSS plans without leaving any legal traces.
The secrecy of RSS makes it one of the most dangerous organizations in the world. It has its own intelligence, hit squads and international PR groups. Through temples and social service organizations in India and abroad, it collects funds that support millions of its workers and their projects.
RSS views Muslims and Christians as the two influential groups that pose threats to India’s integrity and security. Christians are considered dangerous because of their ties with international Christian organizations in different parts of the world and Muslims because of their faith that gives priority to one God over everything else. In the view of RSS, Muslims and Christians cannot be loyal to India, a land specified by Gods to Hindus alone.
Of course, there exist a vast majority of Hindus that do not subscribe to the ideology of RSS. But the RSS is a very well organized group that exists at every level and has the capacity to mobilize millions any time. It has a dedicated cadre that can carry out its plan without hesitation anywhere and it has a network of secret cells that plans events and has prepared a blueprint for the future of a Hindu India.
RSS plan was to showcase an Indian state-run by the BJP as a model of prosperity and development of the world to prepare the ground for its national government. While, simultaneously, it had also envisaged a state free from all minorities. The 2002 massacres of Muslims in Gujarat were planned to drive minorities out of the state to turn it into purely Hindu state. But the plan did not work as perceived. The response of non-BJP Hindus shocked the RSS leadership. The way India’s federal government responded also surprised many. The RSS had expected the Indian government to ignore the massacres the way it had done so at the time of the demolition of the Babari masjid. But under the intensive persuasive power of India’s non-BJP Hindu intellectuals, the central government took a strong stand and challenged the Modi government. Had the central government kept quiet, RSS could have repeated the plans elsewhere.
RSS has the manpower and capacity to install Modi as the next prime minister of India. However, the only way RSS march can be checked is when the vast majority of India’s non-BJP Hindus come out on election day to cast their votes in favor of non-RSS candidates. India’s religious minorities will not support RSS with the exception of a few individuals and groups who value their personal interests more than the national interests. But rural India can be persuaded on religious issues. The RSS is fully aware of these realities; hence it will try to make religion a dominant factor in the forthcoming elections. It should not surprise anyone if they hear news about increased so-called terrorist activities and attacks on temples and other sacred places before elections. It should not surprise anyone if the country experience a new wave of Hindu-Muslim riots and the world should not be shocked if the plan to rebuild the Ram Temple at the site of the demolished Babari Masjid is unveiled.  The BJP under the influence of RSS has already appointed Amit Shah, a man accused of masterminding the 2002 Gujarat massacres as the election strategist for Uttar Pradesh, a state that is a must for any aspiring prime ministerial candidate.
In the glare of economic development, the world’s investors are ignoring the harsh ground realities in India and some of them under the influence and intense lobbying of pro-RSS groups in Europe and North America are trying to project Modi as a genuine progressive leader without realizing that the hands behind Modi are stained with blood including that of Mahatma Gandhi. The group that can engineer the murder of an emissary of peace, a Hindu from the state of Modi, would have no hesitation to cause genocides against even those Hindus who it considers detrimental to its interests. It is this danger that India is heading to and it is this danger that India must be saved from.

Mission Syria: Capture Asad and try him in the International Court of Justice

The responsibility to destabilize Syria lies solely on the shoulders of Bashar Asad. He is brutal and his regime is murderous. He has usurped the rights of people and denied them their basic dignity. He is staying in power because those opposed to him are not very well organized and those who claim to be supportive of justice have priorities other than justice. Moreover, the dictator has access to weapons of destruction, including chemical gas and no one can stop him from using these weapons as the events of the last week have demonstrated. He is supported by his neighbors such as Iran and Hizbullah because, in his ascendency, they see their interests preserved and protected. China and Russia see him as a pawn to check the United States in this long game of political chess. The people are paying the price. Millions have been killed and made refugees. The agony and pain of those uprooted from their homes are unspeakable.
Syrian Americans, by and large, are seeking US intervention in Syria. A majority of Muslim Americans are also supportive of this action. Depending on the nature and scope of the US mission in Syria, the situation might either bring about the desired change or further destabilize the region.
Let us be very honest about our mission in Syria. We are not going to save human lives. If human life were our concern, we would have supported the Palestinians, the Bahrainis, and the Saudis, to name a few, who have been struggling for their human dignity. Moreover, we are the ones who have often been accused of promoting the culture of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places through our policies that we describe are rooted in our national security interests..
Our argument is that the use of chemical gas is a red line for humanity. Britain and Russia were the two main sources from where Assad obtained chemical gas. If we were really concerned about it, we should have stalled its supply to the murderous regime. We should have acted when the gas was being supplied to the murderer. During the last two years, hundreds and thousands of people have been killed, yet, we remained silent on the situation. What moral right, we have to talk about the chemical gas attack, when we encouraged Saddam Hussain to use it against his own people and against Iran. Moreover, we are the only nation in the world that has used the atomic bomb against its enemies.
So we are not going there to save human lives. We are going there to ensure the following.

1.      We create a regime that we could use for our political purposes in our fight against Iran and Hizbullah.

2.      We could control the supply route of arms to Hizbullah from Iran.

3.      We could use Syria as a base to foment trouble in Iran.

4.      We could also monitor Turkey and check its political strides.

5.      We could provide intelligence information to Israel to serve its political interests.

6.      We could also provide protection to the monarchs of the Gulf against an ever-increasing danger from Iran and Hizbullah.

7.      We could also check the Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Middle East.

8.      We could use, the local regimes in the Gulf to ensure that militancy against the US and Israel is curbed in its infancy.

The Syrian opposition is not mature to take an independent stand on regional issues. Even if it comes to power after Asad, it would indulge in political bickering and fighting on non-issues neglecting the real issues of the people. It is a coalition of people who want revenge, not a coalition of people who want to build a society based on justice and fairness. Obviously, such a coalition has the potential to will become a pawn in the hands of those who would provide it the political support.
So what is to be done?  

1.      Rather than targeting Syrian infrastructure, any military strikes should target the culprits. The mission should be to arrest him and his cronies and try them in the international court of justice for crimes against humanity.

2.      The Syrian coalition should expand its base and move from the tactics of revenge to the strategy of nation-building where everyone should have a share regardless of their sect, religion, and ethnicity. Proportional representation would serve the interests of each religious and ethnic community.

3.      The refugees should be rehabilitated in their homes as soon as possible and for that reason, all the assets of these regimes should be confiscated and the wealth stored in foreign banks should be brought back to the country.

4.      The coalition of Syrians should ensure its own independence and cultivate good relations with Iran and Hizbullah as two important neighbors.

5.      The People of Syria should be taken into confidence by through a process of decentralization of power to allow their maximum participation.

But the number one priority is to remove Bashar Asad. Once he is captured alive, his cronies would be eager to testify against him. This is what we should ask the United Nations to ensure.

Rape is a Norm in India

And yet another 23-year-old girl was gang-raped in Bombay, India on August 22.
In 2010, Indian police recorded some 22172 cases of rape against women nationwide, compared with 84767 cases in the United States. While the US leads India in reported rape by a margin of 25 rapes per 100,000 reported cases, India is described as the rape capital of the world for the simple reason of under reporting.
India is a highly sexually perverted society as a child is exposed to sexual abuse from the very childhood. Boys, and girls, as young as five or even under, face constant sexual abuse at the hands of their immediate family members or friends of the family. Hardly anyone complains about them. Once they go to school, they face another round of sexual assault at the hands of their elders. In religious institutions and seminaries, regardless of their religious orientation, the situation is even worst. Not many children living in boarding houses may escape sexual assault sometime during their stay. Once they grow older and go to colleges, sexual assault increases and the victims exposed to it from their childhood feel ashamed to report it or talk about it. Gang rape, date rape, forced consent rape, deceptive rape, half rape, quarter rape are all common.
India is a misogynist society. Women, by and large, are often seemed to be hierarchically inferior to men. They are considered entirely subservient to men: a girl is governed by her father, a married woman by her husband, and a widow by her sons. Women are also depicted as being impure because they menstruate.

Women in classical religious texts are thus often perceived to be inferior beings, yet there are also images of women, for instance, in Hinduism, in the form of various goddesses, that is decidedly more positive. But it is the image of an inferior, submissive and a subservient woman that prevails the popular culture.

You just need to sit in a male-only gathering and listen to the discussion on women. Regardless of the background of the people in the gatherings, women and their sexuality are often subjects of usual vulgar discussions and no one is safe from the eyes of lecherous. No wonder, India strictly followed the practice of veiling women and still follows it in rural areas. Exposure of female flesh is an obvious reason for sexual arousal and masturbation in public is not uncommon even in buses and trains..

Strict laws are needed. But those who apply and implement these laws are men. Religious teachings focusing on the dignity of women are needed, but those claiming to be religious often violate that dignity first. It is a pathetic situation.

Seemingly, the age of the internet has taken the prevailing perversion to a new peak.  Most seem to be influenced by the culture created by pornography. In this situation, women find them totally helpless and at the mercy of perverted men. Many feel intimidated to speak up of the abuses they experience in their daily life. Many are afraid of being blamed. Perhaps, in this situation, those who veil themselves might find safer. But how would anyone guarantee their safety in places like homes, schools or colleges, which are usually considered safe? Perhaps, we need to look at our educational system, at our religious teachings and at our male dominant ethos that prepares the ground for assault and abuses on women and children.

Is Islam the Priority of Muslims?

Is Islam really the priority of Muslims? Is Muslim leadership really concerned about justice? And does the Muslim world really care for human life? Well, these questions can be raised in almost every religious community? Even in a non-religious community, they are valid.
Egypt saw the massacre through gunfire. Then Syria witnessed the killing through chemical weapons. Afghanistan has been witnessing it daily. Iraq is not behind. Israel has been inflicting death and destruction on the Palestinians. Somalia is volatile. Ethiopia and Thailand are experiencing increased violence and in Pakistan, the state and people have killed more citizens than killed by enemies in wars.
If only 10 percent of the revenue and aid money spent in supporting the armies in the Muslim world is spent on raising the standard of living through education, the situation would have been different today. But that is a different story.
If you read the statements of Muslim organizations and leadership you would easily conclude that they are concerned about justice.
If you hear the speeches of Muslim religious leaders, you would conclude they have the strongest and loudest voices in defense of Islam.
And if you talk to Muslim intellectuals you would be amazed at their commitment to human life and dignity.
So why are things not changing? Why are Muslims so ineffective? Why are Muslims so impatient?
The answers are not difficult to find out.

1.      Sincerity is not a good replacement of effective and efficient strategies.

2.      Dedication and commitment are not substitutes for preparations and planning.

3.      Words may stir our souls, but they do not cause change unless we act upon them.

4.      Scattered voices create noises, but voices in unison create a symphony.

1.1 Every Muslim is sincere in his or her understanding of Islam; there is no mechanism to detect an insincere heart. Every judgment is subjective. The only who knows his insincerity in our human world is the one who is insincere. However, we as a community lacks the skills to put our sincerity in their action. We want every Muslim to act in accordance with our understanding of Islam, yet we fail to develop a mechanism and a civil and peaceful method to communicate our viewpoint. We often resort to violence and defeat the very purpose of our sincere thought.

2.1 Muslim organizations want to change the world, their world in countries where they are active. Yet they are not prepared to plan for this change. They are still not clear what kind of society they want to create and how would they create it. They are not clear about an education system that would prepare the people for the future. Moreover, they have not provided skills to their people to transform their rhetoric into reality. They want to build a just society, yet, they often do violate the principles of justice when it comes to people of other religion or minorities, etc. They are selective in their tears.

3.1 Every Muslim organization and leader talks about unity. Yet few are willing to develop strategies to create unity at a practical level. They all are working for the same goal: to find a respectable status for Muslims and they are even doing identical work, yet they are not willing to come together to coordinate and cooperate.

4. Every one of them is saying the same thing and then squabbling over who said it first. They even fail to recognize the simple fact that a 100-watt bulb is much stronger than a zero watt bulb, even though both have their place in mitigating the impact of darkness.

So what needs to be done at least in America where Muslims are least sufferings the excruciating pains, compared with the Muslims all over the world?

a.       Muslim leadership should show more responsibility towards the people it claims to represent. They should develop effective lines of communication among them. They should communicate with each other on a structured and regular basis on issues Muslims are facing in the US and elsewhere.

b.      They should speak with one voice on issues pertaining to justice, human rights, and human dignity even if the voices challenge the behavior of some of the Muslim groups as well. If they have a national and regional board to coordinate their actions, this purpose can easily be achieved.

c.       At the time of any serious crisis anywhere in the Muslim world, they should release a position paper for our elected officials and public opinion makers to inform them of their perspectives and facts on the situation. This again can be coordinated through a centralized board.

d.       Through their coordinated efforts, they should try to educate their public representatives through concerted lobbying in Washington and States depending on the issue itself. For instance, if they are against the US Aid to Israel and Egypt, they should come up with a position paper and share it as a united voice of Muslim Americans with those who run the affairs of the country.

e.       In matters of relief fund raising, they should develop a national strategy to pool their resources to create jobs and opportunities in places where they want to do the relief work.

f.       This cooperation can even be established at the grassroots levels. Each community can create a network among its existing institutions and organizations and coordinate the fund raising events and other program to effectively use the resources.

The Muslim community has the human and material resources. It even has leaders who can move the people to action. It simply needs a mechanism through which its scattered resources can be effectively channelized for the betterment of people. It is achievable, but there is only one major hurdle, a hurdle that has always been there in all times and all situations. It is our own ego. The moment we can subdue it, we can see a different result for us and our world. However, the rhetoric that we hear from everywhere suggests that even those who are asking us to subdue our egos are victims of their own egos.

Egypt is Burning

The world, in general, has condemned the massacre the brutal Egyptian security forces committed against its own people. Shamelessly, the Egyptian ambassadors around the world have tried to justify the action by saying that the killing was necessary. What else can one expect from those who are paid to defend the killers?
Nothing justifies the killing of peaceful citizens. The barbarism showed by the Egyptian security forces cannot be condoned by any civilized human being. Even beasts show some mercy to their opponents. Without prosecuting those responsible for killing the innocents, the blood of the victims will never dry. Egyptian military and government have lost legitimacy to rule over the country, hence the criminals should be brought to justice under the international court of justice. This is the only way to restore decency and civility in Egyptian politics.
There are individuals and groups who have been trying to diffuse the situation and confuse people by making three specific arguments.
1. If the democracy is restored in Egypt, and Morsi is brought back to power, al-Qaeda will become strong and civil liberties of people will be curtailed
2. The Muslim Brotherhood is responsible for the massacre as they used children and women as a human shield.
3. The Muslim Brotherhood is lying about the number of dead.
Egyptians hard-fought democracy and the will of the people must be respected. Even if the argument that Morsi was not a good administrator and his government was not inclusive, he was still legitimately elected to run the country. Those opposed to him should have used democratic methods to bring him down. They should have campaigned for his recall through the ballot. They did not use it. Rather the opposition leadership conspired with the army to stage a coup. For almost four decades Egyptians were denied civil liberties, yet they managed to overthrow the Mubarak regime. There is no reason to believe that they would not have done the same with Morsi through democratic means. I do believe that Morsi's policies were inept, his style of management was incompetent and his approach to minorities was questionable, yet, the change should have come through the ballot and not through the barrel of the guns. The argument that al-Qaeda was gaining ground in Egypt during Morsi's period is an absurd argument that has no basis in facts. Al-Qaeda is as much an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood as it is an enemy of the west.
The argument that the Muslim Brotherhood used children and women as the shield is also absurd. Women are as much part of the democratic process as men are. Their presence in the streets in defense of democracy speaks volumes of the change that has taken place in Egypt since the ouster of Mubarak. One cannot expect parents to leave their children unattended at home if they were participating in the campaign to restore democracy. The security forces should have shown extra caution while dealing with the situation. Rather than firing live bullets on unarmed and innocent civilians, they should have left the demonstrators to stay where they were. It is their right to demand justice in a peaceful manner. After all, the army was not dealing with the enemies of the state. It was dealing with its own people who are responsible for its continuity and sustenance. But the beastly manner in which the army acted, it has shown that it has no regard for civil liberties and is treating its own citizens as enemies.
The third argument about the number of dead is even more ridiculous. Every human life is sacred and it must be protected. Even the killing of one person deserves to be mourned. The Egyptian army has revealed its Mubarak era criminal nature and contempt for the sacred by committing a bloodbath and burning down a Masjid.
The people supporting the military should take this as a sign that the security forces will take similar action against anyone who does not toe the line of the army. It is this arrogance of power that has no place in the modern world. But the way to deal with such an element is through the peaceful, non-violent method. The Muslim Brotherhood supporters have every right to organize peaceful, non-violent marches and if they commit any act of violence against anyone, then the security forces and the judiciary have the authority to prosecute them, but deny them the right to voice their views openly and kill innocent people is tyranny and a crime against humanity.