E-Mails with 'Ousama': The Muslims Are No Monolith - a Site Selection Online Insider Special Report

By JACK LYNE • Site Selection Executive Editor of Interactive Publishing

I was very glad over those dead @ the WTC in New York
and hope to see more of them.

Regards,
Ousama Bin Laden

That's an actual e-mail I received this week. Call it a crank e-call . . . from a monster.
It didn't have much to do with real estate, this little unsolicited piece of cyberspace hate. But it gave this writer, at least, some insight into an erroneous assumption that's polluting parts of the American body politic - namely, that the Muslim world is monolithic.
No, I never for a moment thought it was really Bin Laden. Being stupid enough to send out a mass e-mail to probably thousands journalists doesn't fit the modus operandi. E-mails, after all, leave trails.
I stewed for a day, then decided to follow the trail. I wanted to know who "Ousama" really was - or, more precisely, to let his employers (if he had them) know what he was doing.
The electronic trail led me to a company called Servaumatic. Servaumatic is an outfit in the electronics business that's based in Beirut, Lebanon. Its name and e-mail closely resembled "Ousama's."
That, though, was as far as the resemblance went. As things turned out, Servaumatic was a victim here, one hit by a hate monger's hacking.

Our cyberspace search for the source of an e-mail from a bogus "Ousama Bin Laden"
led us to Beirut - and to a kind Muslim who was the antithesis of Bin Laden.

"Ousama" Writes Back

It was after midnight when I sent out an e-mail to Servaumatic. Part of that e-mail read, "I thought it best to let you know [of this e-mail and its recipient address] in case someone is using your e-mail address for purposes of which you do not approve."
At the same time, though, I added a qualifier. After all, perhaps I was being naīve. Perhaps the message had the whole-hearted support of Servaumatic's top executives. For some reason, I decided to be polite about it. "If this message is unrelated to your company or is not a concern, please pardon my inquiry," I wrote. Even now, that strikes me as a strange sentence. And even now, I kind of like it for its stab at basic decency, its refusal to stoop to terrorism's barbaric level.
Decency surprised me. It came back. The next morning I found an e-mail reply. It was from Mohammed Tokko, who said that he was Servaumatic's "computer manager."
Mohammed's English isn't terribly skilled (though infinitely better than my Lebanese), but his heart is good. Here is part of what Mohammed wrote, considerably edited for spelling and readability:

Dear Mr. Jack,
Thank you very much for understanding the situation. Yesterday I received a lot of e-mails telling me something I know nothing about. So I called the ISP and told him what is happening to us, and he told me that someone had sent an e-mail using my account and my address to some people I do not know.
I really was very angry. Also, now that I know what the message contains, I am really very sorry for what has happened. If you can do anything to help me, I would really be thankful to you.
Also, I am Muslim, and I would like to let you know that we are very sad for those who are dead in the United States. I thank you very much.
Kind Regards,
Mohammed Tokko

Justice Requires Careful Aim

So there you have it. A microscopic fragment in a larger -- indeed, massive -- tableau that's straight from hell.
No, this little tale solves nothing. Justice is perhaps the only thing that will.
But for this writer, at least, this modest little exchange underscored the need to aim the armaments of justice at precisely the right targets. Those targets - the terrorist element that plagues much of the world - may be largely Muslim. But they are not the Mohammed Tokkos of the world.