Shakira Hussein on The Stump today:

More and more often, I find myself remembering the scene from Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in which an Indian Muslim family waits for the radio news to announce the name of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin:

“Thank God,” Amina burst out. “It’s not a Muslim name!” And Aadam, upon whom the news of Gandhi’s death had placed a new burden of age: “This Godse is nothing to be grateful for!”

Amina, however, was full of the lightheadness of relief, she was rushing dizzily up the long ladder of relief. “Why not, after all? By being Godse he has saved our lives!”

Ander Behring Breivik. It’s not a Muslim name — and this Breivik is nothing to be grateful for.

Contemporary Australia is far less fragile than India in the aftermath of partition, but like Amina, I wait to hear the name of the perpetrator of each atrocity. I brace myself against the backlash if it should be a Muslim name.

And like Aadam, when the the name is not Muslim, I cannot see it as a cause for gratitude.

Read the rest here. Considering the knee jerk coverage of the Norway massacre from some of the world’s media outlets over the weekend, it’s worth the click.