“Why do you kill, Zaid?”… Todenhöfer has the answer

By Islam Mohamed

“Why Do You Kill, Zaid?”; German author and member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany Jürgen Todenhöfer’s book tells the tale of a young Iraqi citizen, “Zaid”.

Zaid was in his twenties; he loved soccer and always dreamed of joining one of the famous soccer clubs in Germany, but eventually, a certain turn of events forced him to take up arms against U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The book attracted wide attention in the Western community, not just for the controversial ideas it presented, but also because Todenhöfer himself embraced these ideas.

Before writing the book, Todenhöfer went to Iraq in the middle of the war and spent five days there, during which he wrote about his interesting journey and his encounter with members of the Iraqi resistance.

The writer tried to present a neutral point of view to interpret the phenomenon of extremism and terrorism through actually living with fighters of the Iraqi resistance.

Neither “Zaid”, a made-up name, nor his family had any relations with the Iraqi resistance, which started after the U.S. invasion in Mar. 2003, even after his brother was killed during a U.S. bombardment.

One day U.S. soldiers stormed into Zaid’s neighborhood and imposed a curfew. Along with his family, Zaid stood helplessly and observed his second brother getting shot by U.S. snipers and bleeding until he caught his last breath.

This was enough reason for Zaid to join the Iraqi resistance to avenge his brother; as the writer points out in his book, actions of the U.S. occupation left him no option but to seek vengeance.

Todenhöfer goes on in the book about further bloody facts that lead to the same idea, which is that invading Islamic countries and provoking civilians results a state of anger and revenge against Western interests, especially with feelings of suppression and persecution.

Todenhöfer’s theories:

The second part of the book compares between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism and looks into the three texts to conclude the idea of rejecting discrimination against Muslims, or the phenomenon of Islamophobia.

The book reviews the modern history to infer that Islamic countries did not commit a single attack against the Western world during the last period, except for the Turkish invasion in Cyprus in 1974; on the contrary, Western countries would often provoke Islamic countries.

Todenhöfer holds the West accountable for the deterioration in relationships with Islamic countries.

According to Todenhöfer, global terrorism is the repercussion of an arrogant U.S. policy, which initiated numerous wars and left behind many victims, in either Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.

Moreover, the book included pictures from his trips to some of the countries that witnessed Western invasions. Todenhöfer points out that the European masses do not know the full truth, as they only hear about terrorist operations in Iraq, which only represent a part of a horrendous bloody scene that includes attacks launched by U.S. or Iraqi resistance forces.