It embarrasses me that in more than 60 years we have apparently not learned a thing.

In the midst of World War II, thousands of Japanese-Americans were ousted from their way of life because Japan had bombed PearlHarbor. By the time they were released, many families had been separated and nearly all of the captives had lost their homes,businesses and way of life.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, a group of Muslim extremist fundamentalists rammed two commercial jetliners into the WorldTrade Center, bringing down the twin towers, and plowed a third plane into the Pentagon. Thousands were killed.

In retaliation, people across the nation have begun pointing their fingers and placing blame on Muslims and people of MiddleEastern-descent. Mosques have been firebombed, businesses vandalized and Muslims beaten.

My God, someone please tell me we learned something in the past60 years. Surely in America, one nation under God, we have the moral strength to resist succumbing to what is best termed as acts of terrorism against fellow Americans.

It may be that America has learned it can’t gather up allAmericans of a certain descent and confine them to cages, but if people continue to do so individually have we really progressed?

Islam, like Christianity, is essentially a peaceful religion. It is only those who can be termed fanatics that prove to be dangerous. And that could be said of any religion.

A quick glance through the annals of history will show that no religion is without fanatics who have perpetrated atrocities in its name. It is the misguided souls of the fanatics that must be blamed for these atrocities, not the religion.

I believe Americans as a whole find these acts against Muslims and others of Middle Eastern-descent as deplorable as I do, but it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the crop. Let’s remove the bad apples and leave the tree intact.

Scott Tynes covers Lawrence County for The Daily Leader.Write to him at P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, Miss. 39602.