J.K Sheindlin - The People vs Muhammad - Psychological Analysis

When I was young, I was completely oblivious to what Islam was. Even though I was somewhat aware of its existence, and the fact that it was regarded as a religion, I hardly ever heard the name spoken and neither did I know what exactly a Muslim was. From my limited knowledge and out of sheer ignorance (due to my peaceful and accommodating western upbringing), I believed that Christianity, Judaism and Islam were virtually identical in belief. For all I cared, all three faiths worshipped the same god, though had different, albeit minor interpretations of theology in general. Nonetheless, I still regarded Islam as a benign religion, which like Judaism and Christianity, preached about bringing peace, harmony and cohesion to the world. Surely, Islam was a faith bound by commandments to love thy neighbour and respect all human life?

I was incredibly naive.

I was in my early 20s when a particular incident occurred which changed the worlds trajectory to spiral into the state of paranoia and fear it has become today. On September 11th - 2001 , I vividly remember sitting up in bed late one night watching TV. I reached over to my lamp, just about to turn off the light when suddenly a news bulletin flashed across my television set - America under attack! My heart raced, and my stomach sank as I witnessed those two magnificent skyscrapers, invariably icons of American freedom and financial success - crumbling before my eyes. The news anchor forced back her tears, which proceeded with an ominous silence which spoke more than she could ever say. It was horror. Pure horror.

Still in shock and processing the images in my mind, I quickly woke everyone in my house to give the dire news. In less than a minute, my entire family all met in the living room, faces pale, astonished, struggling to comprehend the tragedy. The unspoken question which was on all our lips.... why? We stood together, shaking our heads, trying to articulate coherent sentences to describe the savagery unleashed on those poor innocent civilians.

We stayed up all night anticipating the worst. And within hours, we received an explanation from the American news networks which all confirmed our suspicions - the attacks were the work of terrorists . I was adamant the event would spell the end of world. My mind began to play out a series of catastrophic events - war, famine, a total apocalypse. For the most part, I was fortunately wrong. Yet, we did go to war. And we spent over a decade hunting down the illusive mastermind, Osama Bin Laden .

And for the first time in my life I was witness to the beginning of an endless war with an enemy we ultimately could not see. The media called it a War on terrorism , when really it was the inevitable confrontation with true Islam . After the invasion of Afghanistan, and as the immense clean up of the WTC began, embarrassed world leaders scurried to find a tangible and palatable explanation for the attacks, and how their security protocols could have been compromised so egregiously. Likewise, it was abundantly clear that mainstream media were forbidden from using the word Muslim , Islam in direct regards to terrorism; lest we be profiled as bigots or racists . Yet, how could we deny that Islam did play a substantial part in the attacks when all of the 19 hijackers were Muslim .

Still, much to our own detriment and naivet, our leaders exercised a deplorable use of political correctness, as it seemed that the governmental echelon were terrified of upsetting and offending future Muslim terrorists. Presidents and Prime Ministers alike, all emphatically pontificated that the Saudi Arabian Muslim terrorists did not represent any nation or ideology . And despite their futile fumblings, politicking, and attempts to bolster diplomacy with an Islamic oil rich country, who many suspected had connections with those who funded the attacks - ultimately, the public grew weary, distrustful and more suspicious of the powers that were. Nonetheless, for the rational few who were awake during this tumultuous time - it was abundantly clear - we were in the midst of an Islamic offensive.

Over the coming months, the majority of western governments all continued to propagate the same sickly sweet message of political correctness to avert worldwide unrest, and especially any criticism towards the Islamic ideology. Without a doubt, a liberal agenda was on the rise. The results were polarizing as the line between naive idealism and patriotic conservatism began to broaden. Firearm sales went through the roof and make-shift end of the world survival kits were unleashed onto the market, exploiting our greatest fears. Thankfully however, the world did not end that year. Yet, our way of life did change for the worst.

We lost faith in our national security and the intelligence community. Likewise, with the rise of conspiracy theories we didnt know what to believe, or who to trust. And despite the list of unsuccessful post 9/11 attacks (the shoe bomber, Brooklyn bridge plot, Virginia jihad network), which were all orchestrated by Muslims , world leaders still continued to emphatically reject they were linked to Islamic terrorism.

A couple of years later, I had remembered that some time before the WTC attack, a friend, who was a Christian Bible student, had warned me that, Islams only desire is to take over the world. To be fair, I initially rejected the notion, still believing that all religions were benign in nature. After 9/11 however, that statement continued to haunt me. Yet, my only explanation was that the terrorists were nothing more than radical Muslims, a misinformed group of murderous and disenfranchised zealots, who had hijacked their religion for political purposes...

I was incredibly uninformed.

Many years later, after the allied forces finally withdrew from Afghanistan and Iraq, I still continued to witness an exponential growth of Muslim hatred towards the USA, but this time especially for the west in general. What perturbed me was that the majority of Islamic countries, who had never been occupied or attacked by America or its allies, demonstrated a public outcry for the total annihilation of the west. Ironically, countries like Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen and even the Gaza strip (of which none of them had strong diplomatic ties with each other), all proved to be a greater threat to western ideals than Iraq ever was.