Speaker on Terrorism

Earlier this week, several members of the GRCC College Republicans joined the College Republicans at Calvin College to listen to a speaker on the topic of radical Islam. The speaker was one Kamal Saleem, and had been a PLO terrorist before converting to Christianity and abandoning his terrorist ways.

Saleem had many good insights into Islam, particularly in its radical forms. He did not speak at length of the 85% of Muslims who are not radical much because his point was that we must be prepared to deal with the radicals. He was careful to mention, however, that only 15% are radicals who want to kill us. Saleem detailed his youth and upbringing in violent ideology as well as his time in America, which he spent converting people here to his version of Islam.

His message was that we must understand Islam and that we must as Christians, show love to Muslims. He stressed that returning hatred with hatred will solve nothing. Now clearly, not all those who agree with his views on Islam are Christians as he is now, but he spoke in a Christian context because not only is he a Christian, but he was speaking to a Christian school.

Saleem’s twofold message of the need for readiness to deal with a bloodthirsty enemy and the need for love for our enemies was particularly impressive. He was not telling anyone to despise Muslims or even that all Muslims are radical. He was simply exhorting us to deal with a dangerous situation appropriately.

Many people misunderstood his message as a message of hate, or a message that Islam is evil. Perhaps part of this is that he was speaking in a Christian context to a Christian school, but mostly I think it is a misunderstanding due to his emphasis on the radicals among the Muslims who are the ones we need to worry about most. There is a lesson here. When someone speaks for any cause, we must see the true motive and discern very carefully whether it is a message of hate, or rather something else. We must be wise and unbiased when we listen to people