What follows is part of a personal letter from a 38-year-old Karachi businessman to a fellow Pakistani friend in the Washington area. Americans have heard innumerable warnings that we shouldn’t fault Muslims as a whole—but almost no testimony from the communities whose hospitality was abused by the terrorists. This letter (excerpted here unedited) is a refreshing exception. —David H. Bass, deputy publisher I am at loss for words. I am shamed to be associated in any way, no matter how distantly with what has happened. I am a Muslim and I am a Pakistani, by Birth and by Choice. But today I am shamed of my unwilling complicity to this death and devastation. I am shaken by the enormity of what I am an involuntary part of. What has happened is barbaric and it questions our existence as a nation and in our beliefs, even though the work of fanatics should not be representative of who we really are, what we stand for and all that we believe in. We will all individually, as well as collectively as a nation, have to work twice as hard for as long as it takes to remove this stigma that will now be associated with us where ever we go and what ever we do. Whether we are attacked or nuked or not is now irrelevant. We have already been destroyed. Whatever credible reputation we may have achieved in the past 54 years crumbled with those towers. This is a prejudice that we will have to face for as long as we live. We must all try to rise above this unwelcome branding that we are now cursed with due to the work of some zealot’s twisted logic. What God would be appeased by the devastation and murder of such apocalyptic proportions? Not the one I believe in. The God that we believe in teaches things quite contrary to murder and destruction. Whether we like it or not, our lives, beliefs and who we are have forever changed. All I can hope is that you didn’t lose anyone close to you in this tragedy and that you are coping with this shock like the rest of us. Look after yourself and God be with you and your family.
