Curtis' Essential Question Response

Curtis K. 1/8/07
JUA Paper


Most of the world is involved in the war on terrorism involving different extremist groups in the Middle East. They have performed terrorist acts such as 9/11 and others around the world. Why are they doing this and is it just those groups that feel this way or do normal Middle Eastern civilians and Muslim Americans feel this way?
On our JUA trip “which by they way was an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life,” we met with a few different Muslim people from the Islamic Society of Boston. There we got to ask them any questions we wanted, such as about their religion, what they thought of America, what they thought of those extremist groups in the Middle East, and what Muslims in the Middle East thought of the US.
When the average American thinks of the Muslim religion they automatically think of those extremist groups running around with guns killing people praising to their god. When in fact it is very similar to Christianity and religions like that. They believe in one god. They believe man should not kill one another which is a very serious belief to them just like the beliefs of the US.
They think of America as a great opportunity. A great opportunity to get away of the conflict in their countries, and to come over here and be free, practice their religion how they want, to be able to make their own decisions about life and to pursue their dream.
When I asked them about what people in the Middle East thought of the US. They said that they like it, they like our freedoms, and how you can do what you want to do in life while following their humanity rules. On the down side they also don’t like some aspects of the American way. They don’t believe in how we advertise and disrespect our bodies and women especially in the sense of nudity and sexual racism. One thing that they absolutely disregard is homosexuality. That is one thing that they don’t tolerate.
They don’t really know why these extremist groups are doing this. They have a sense to why, and that is because we have all these freedoms to do what we want and to express our bodies freely. Such as nudity, homosexuality, freedom of speech, just all of these they might not like and they want to try to change it.
They said that they don’t think that there is any Muslim Americans that feel this way about America, they all love it here, and just feel so grateful to be able to come here and live a good, free life. If you think about this though, this could be another reason why those extremist groups are doing these acts, because America is influencing the world so much that their people want to move here and get away from their original life’s and start over, and they just don’t like this so this is how they feel they can make a difference.