Certain to not get nearly the amount of attention as those hoping to attack the Islamic religion based on the behavior of its extremists, this story from AP, in the wake of last week’s tragedies in Paris…
Bathily was in the store’s underground stockroom when gunman Amedy Coulibaly burst in upstairs, according to accounts given to French media and to a friend of Bathily’s who spoke to The Associated Press. Bathily turned off the stockroom’s freezer and hid a group of frightened shoppers inside before sneaking out through a fire escape to speak to police. Initially confused for the attacker, he was forced to the ground and handcuffed.
Once police realized their mistake, he provided them with the key they needed to open the supermarket’s metal blinds and mount their assault.
“The guy was so courageous,” said Mohammed Amine, a 33-year-old friend and former coworker of Bathily’s who spoke to him about the assault on Saturday.
Washington Post’s account of the story explains that, after he slipped out, “Bathily spent the next 90 minutes in cuffs before he managed to convince authorities he was who he said he was. He told the cops he wasn’t alone. There were more than a dozen other hostages locked inside the store’s freezer.”
Apparently Bathily’s quick thinking and acts of courage at the kosher supermarket where he worked saved the lives of at least seven Jews at the store, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu who cited him over the weekend.
One who didn’t make it, who was killed when Coulibaly entered the market, was 22-year old Yohan Cohen, who Bathily’s friend Amine described to AP as “someone amazing, friendly, who likes (and) who respects people.”
“I’m Muslim and he’s Jewish,” said Amine, an immigrant from Morocco. “But there’s such respect between us. We’re like brothers. They took my best friend.”
Seems like that’s all worth mentioning here.
It is worth mentioning and thank you for doing so. There are kind, good hearted Muslims the world over, and I bear none of them any ill will. I do believe that the non crazies have a collective responsibility to stamp out extremists of their own faith lest their own faith veer ever more towards the precipice. Jews and Christians have done this. Now it’s time for the Muslims to do the same. That includes stamping out governments that support extremists. I am encouraged by any Muslims who speak out against militants, but speaking out needs to be coming from religious figures and it needs to be followed by action.
I hope you’ll let Dr. Tiller and the others who continue to be killed and threatened every single day simply for doing their job, that Christians have managed to “stamp out” the crazies in their religion.
(Also, tell the other abortion doctors in the state of Kansas the same thing — oh, wait, there is not a single one anymore, due to the decades long, very successful Christian jihad against them.)
Thank you for sharing this. The fundamental human decency of a Lathana Bassily often seems to get swept away by the coverage of the homicidal nuts.
I guess I understand why the attention goes to the homicidal nuts, but, still, What a strange species we are to focus on the maniacs.
Brad – I’ve been with you for ten years and look to your wisdom for guidance on 99.9% of all topics on the table, and I find your work invaluable. I remain in disagreement with you on the scale of what is happening with Islam currently. The murder of Dr. Tiller was a horrible tragedy, but that was five years ago and his killer is behind bars. This is NOT the same as ISIS executing hundreds at a time, it is NOT the same as Boko Harum using little girls to blow up marketplaces. While we disagree with the abortion situation in Kansas, it is incumbent upon us to change the laws in Kansas. Most anti-abortion protestors just yell at clinic workers, they don’t throw rocks at them and they don’t shoot them. And the Supreme Court has supported their right to do so.
I am encouraged that the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and other prominent Muslims (including the head of the Paris Mosque who made an excellent appeal to Muslims to “stamp out the crazy”) making statements decrying terrorist actions. I hope it turns into action diminishes the impact of extremist groups. However, while entire governments (Saudis) are extremist, I am skeptical. (Were any of the Saudi royals at the Paris peace march?)
While this is a story of hope and courage, it should not be overlooked that Mr. Bathily was detained for 90 minutes before police were willing to listen to him, and use the key and information he was trying to provide to them.
It’s a good thing one of the police didn’t decide to put him in a choke hold for “resisting arrest” by insisting he wasn’t a terrorist…
Re Soul Rebel @1 & 3:
I would respectfully take exception to your suggestion that what happened to Dr. Tiller entailed an isolated incident that occurred five years ago or that there is truly a substantive distinction between the fundamentalist Muslim fanatics in ISIS and other fanatics who murder innocents in the name of their professed faiths, be it the multitude of Christian religions, e.g., the Protestant/Catholic disputes in Northern Ireland, the never-ending Israel/Palestine conflict or the Muslim-Hindu conflicts in India.
The death toll from the recent, Muslim fundamentalist connected events in France, for example, pales in comparison to the 2011 assault by a right wing Christian in Norway that left at least 92 people dead.
People have been slaughtered in the name of religion for centuries, e.g., the 11th Century Crusades. They were also subjected to unspeakable tortures in the name of religion, e.g., the Spanish Inquisition.
What Ernie @6 said.
Nine Christian terrorist attacks involving murder in the United States:
1. The murder of Denver talk show host Alan Berg, June 18, 1984.
2. The murder of Dr. John Britton, July 29, 1994.
3. The Planned Parenthood clinic murders of two receptionists and the shootings of several others, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1994.
4. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing which caused the death of two people and the injury of 111 others at the Summer Olympics, Atlanta, July 27, 1996.
5. The Oklahoma City bombing where 168 people were killed, including 19 children in a day care center, and more than 680 were injured. Before 9/11 it was known as the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, April 19, 1995.
6. The murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, Oct. 23, 1998.
7. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church shooting where 2 people were killed and seven injured during a children’s play, July 27, 2008.
8. The murder of Dr. George Tiller. To start things off in 1986, his clinic was firebombed. Then, in 1993, Tiller was shot five times by female Christian Right terrorist Shelly Shannon. Dr. Tiller survived, but was later killed by another Christian terrorist on May 31, 2009
9. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre where six people were shot to death and four others wounded, Aug. 5, 2012.
Ok. I’ll concede. All religious fanatics are equally dangerous. I am equally prejudiced against all extremists. Perhaps my time living in Cairo and witnessing the ritual oppression of women has jaded me to Islam in particular.
“The French government announced it will award French citizenship” to Bathily and that he “will also be given France’s highest honor, the Légion d’Honneur.”