Mahoning Valley man: Protesters don’t represent average Muslims

By Denise Dick | September 15, 2012 at 12:10a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Ray Nakley of Youngs-town, a member of the Coalition for Peace in the Middle East, said Arab Americans are Americans first and don’t believe that anything justifies the killing of U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans or the attacks on U.S. embassies.

“We are very, very disgusted, disturbed and angered that four of our fellow Americans were killed,” he said.

But situations in the Middle East are complicated.

“Throughout history, we’ve seen a whole lot of grievances pushed off to the side by authoritarian regimes who haven’t cared about the people but who have done our bidding in the Middle East,” Nakley said.

He referred specifically to the regime of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The U.S. didn’t have a problem with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein when Hussein was at war with Iran.

People in Middle Eastern countries, though, like people in the U.S., aren’t monolithic, Nakley said. The majority of the people in the countries that have seen anti-American uprisings aren’t out there protesting and attacking embassies, he said.

In fact, in Libya some residents have taken to standing in the street with signs apologizing to the United States for the murders of Stevens and the other Americans earlier this week.

If a similar situation occurred in this country as has happened in Libya, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries where leaders were overthrown and control was in limbo, people here also might take up arms.

“That’s what we’re seeing in these countries,” Nakley said. “They’re in the process of trying to establish some sort of order — hopefully, a democratic government — but you have chaos and anarchy to some degree.”

He likened it to the people killed during Los Angeles riots after police officers in that city were acquitted in the early 1990s in the beating of motorist Rodney King.

Most people in this country didn’t respond that way, and those committing acts of violence in the Middle East don’t represent the average Arab or Muslim, Nakley said.