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Chronology of Islam in America (2011)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
December 2011 - Page Two
It's a Gray Area: Muslim Americans deserve our understanding
Dec 2: Recently I attended a fundraising dinner for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel. This stimulating and uplifting event involved more than 1,800 mostly Muslim people celebrating the theme of "Making Democracy Work." Had you been there, you would have been just as proud of these loyal Americans as I was. The program was based upon the fact that a real and common enemy of us all continues to be fear, intolerance and ignorance. And in fact the enemy of radical Muslims is not so much America as it is moderate Muslims, and other moderates all around the world. Many of the Muslim speakers went on to say that, "We don't want sharia law either!"
We heard presentations from an elderly man of Japanese ancestry who had been interned as a child at Manzanar during World War II, as well as representatives from the Latino and black communities. All of them discussed their experiences while being on the receiving end of actions and programs in our great country based upon fear, intolerance and ignorance. Other speakers reminded us that the Constitution of our great country was not created by the Founding Fathers because we are perfect beings. To the contrary, it was created because we are imperfect. So with that in mind, we must continue to be vigilant in protecting our sacred liberties for Muslims, along with everyone else. This is our common battle.
I confess that I often do not understand the Muslim faith, and sometimes I have been intimidated by the "foreignness" of the Arabic language, as well as some of their customs and apparel. Upon reflection, this is probably a normal reaction for most of us imperfect beings. But are you aware that more than half of the dialects of the languages of the world make no distinction between the word for "stranger" and the word for "enemy?" That means that in those societies anyone who is a stranger is automatically their enemy. We must not allow ourselves to fall into that trap.
All of this is not to say that we should lower our guard regarding security at our airports or anywhere else. And I also reaffirm my wish that moderate Muslims everywhere would be more vocal in condemning all atrocities from whatever source — and several times I have told them so. But CAIR is working for us all by being on the front lines of protecting Muslims from discrimination in our country. And that discrimination can be appreciable, because there are still many people in our country who automatically think of all Muslims as terrorists or at least terrorist sympathizers. Honestly, I am not familiar with all of the activities and involvements of CAIR, or all of the issues it is working on. But nevertheless, I donated some money to the organization. If the good people I know who are working with CAIR are considered to be terrorists, then I publicly want to be considered to be a terrorist right along with them. And our ranks would probably be joined by two sitting members of Congress as well as Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca, who were all in attendance at the dinner.
I know that there are many radical Muslims in the world today who actually are terrorists, and they have done some truly cowardly and hideous things. But so have many radical people of other religions as well, or even people of no religion at all. So let us not stoop to the view that all strangers are our enemies. If any people violate our laws, they should be prosecuted and appropriately punished if convicted. But otherwise the struggle for equal rights and fair treatment of people who happen to be from the Middle East and/or Muslim is the rightful struggle of all good Americans. In summary, we must remain forever mindful that if we give in to fear, intolerance and ignorance, and thereby diminish our freedoms, we will be giving up our soul that makes our country great. And that will in turn allow terrorists to win. We have given in to these influences in the past, with some Japanese, Latinos, blacks and others in our country, so let's learn from our mistakes and put an end to this present fear with Muslims. By JAMES P. GRAY, a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "A Voter's Handbook: Effective Solutions to America's Problems." [Daily Pilot]
Republican Presidential Candidates on Islam
Dec 2: As republican voters near the time to elect their presidential candidate for the 2012 election, the candidates' respective religious perspectives become significant to many. One topic that does not escape public scrutiny is the candidates' stand on Islam and Muslims in America. It has become an important issue that calls the attention of both Muslim and non-Muslim voters. Noticeably some candidates appear not to realize that the American Muslim community has a significant number of political conservatives sympathetic to many issues within the Republican Party platform. The GOP presidential hopefuls' stand on Islam and Muslims has been varied. Their stands have ranged from being thoughtful and considerate to being discourteous, rude and unappreciative of the history, losing potential support. Some candidates have clearly opted to try to win votes by denigrating Islam and disparaging Muslims. Taking the lead in the anti-Muslim frenzy is Herman Cain, who has consistently held a hostile discourse on Islam, belittling almost anything or anyone resonating muslim. Among many instances we may take as example Cain's opposition to the construction of an Islamic Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., unreasonably arguing that it's not religious discrimination for a community to ban a mosque. On this same line, Cain has also affirmed that he wouldn't appoint Muslims to his cabinet and even suggested to impose a loyalty test on any Muslim before allowing him to serve in his administration. His anti-Muslim rhetoric returned recently when he expressed that more than half of American Muslims are extremists based on a "trusted adviser" who informed him so.
Mitt Romney's relations with the American Muslim community have not been smooth. Recently, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) asked the presidential hopeful for the ouster of Dr. Walid Phares a recently appointed foreign policy adviser to his team. Phares authored "Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America" and also acts as an advisor to the U.S. Congress on the Middle East. According to CAIR he worked as an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian militia, and other militias that reportedly took part in various massacres of Muslims. The controversial appointment has certainly created a wave of controversy within the American Muslim community that waits for Romney to take their concerns into consideration. Newt Gingrich's stance on issues related to American Muslims and Islam has been scornful. Falling victim to the Muslim hysteria on the debate on the Ground Zero Mosque, Gingrich compared the Islamic Community Center project to building a Nazi monument outside the Holocaust Museum. This was clearly a very insensitive position that will take more than a simple apology -- not that it is expected -- to amend. Michele Bachmann has not demonstrated a capacity to engage the American Muslim community neither shown capacity to understand and respect diversity. Her comments on the civil uprisings that took place in France back in 2005 were very discomforting: "Those who are coming into France, which has a beautiful culture, the French culture is actually diminished. It's going away. And just with the population in France, they are losing Western Europeans, and it's being taken over by a Muslim ethic. Not that Muslims are bad, but they are not assimilating." Rick Santorum has joined Gingrich's Islam-bashing team, expressing misleading comments on the question of sharia taking over the U.S. court system. On the most recent debate Santorum was even more assertive on his opinion on Muslims. When asked if he would support ethnic and religious profiling he replied: "The folks who are most likely to be committing these crimes ... obviously Muslims would be someone you'd look at, absolutely."The comments and actions that vilify Islam and Muslims -- or any other religion and its practitioners -- by the Republican Party presidential hopefuls show an evident betrayal of commitment to the freedom of religion consecrated in the U.S. Constitution. Exploiting Muslims for political gain will undoubtedly alienate them from a significant section of the voting public who hold religion dear to their hearts. [Huffington Post]
Muslims Compared to 'Cockroaches' at Missouri hate group’s event
Dec 3: About a dozen people attended an event in the Crestwood aldermanic chambers called "What America Must Learn from the Fort Hood Massacre." The St. Louis chapter of ACT! for America, a Florida-based, anti-Islam group that calls itself a National Security Organization, organized the meeting, which featured the screening of an hourlong DVD lecture by the organization's executive director, Guy Rodgers. The event was advertised in a weekly newspaper. Referring to the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a rampage in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, the ad copy said, "It is essential that Americans understand why homegrown Jihadists like Nidal Hasan do what they do." Political forces set on eliminating a particular religious or ethnic group often use propaganda to convince the masses of their righteousness. A key device of persuasion is the systematic dehumanization of those in the target group.
Genocide scholar James Waller writes that dehumanization occurs after the target group has been defined as what sociologists call the out-group. When the in-group exaggerates the differences between itself and an out-group, it creates a bias "toward information that enhances the differences" between the two groups, instead of the similarities, writes Waller. In Rwanda, Hutu ideology defined Tutsis as alien to the country despite their long history as natives. The Nazis assigned an imaginary hereditary superiority to Aryanness, and defined Judaism as anathema to that superiority. Nazi Germany is seen as a chapter in history. The massacre of nearly a million Tutsis over 100 days happened in Africa, far from suburban St. Louis. The dehumanization of a religious group, an initial step toward the moral disengagement that leads to radical evil, couldn't happen in 21st century America, right? Unfortunately for American Muslims, we are about to enter a presidential election year, during which groups like ACT! for America and the Clarion Fund have historically spread anti-Islam messages that promote fear of "the other." Both groups formed in the wake of the unprecedented attacks on the United States by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. It's a message that has been trumpeted from Crestwood City Hall before.
Last September, a group called the New Gravois Township Conservative Republican Party showed a film called "The Third Jihad" in a City Hall meeting room The film was produced by the Clarion Fund, an organization with historic ties to Aish HaTorah, an orthodox Jewish education network based in Jerusalem, and claims that terrorists have infiltrated the United States with the intent of "eliminating western civilization from within." After receiving complaints about the video, the city decreed a policy forbidding political and religious groups from using City Hall's meeting rooms. The city's aldermen suspended the ban two months later after strenuous opposition from members of the New Gravois Township Conservative Republican Party. Roy Robinson, Crestwood's mayor at the time, apologized to the Republican committeeman for the ban. The DVD lecture on Wednesday evening in Crestwood was a walk through the Quran's violent passages, which Rodgers depicted as coming from the latter part of Muhammad's life. He said that Islam's prophet gained more followers with violence than he had with an earlier, more peaceful approach to spreading the faith. [Salt Lake City]
85-year-old grandmother 'humiliated' after subjected to strip-search at JFK Airport
Dec. 4: An 85-year-old woman said she was injured and humiliated when she was strip searched at an airport after she asked to be patted down instead of going through a body scanner. Lenore Zimmerman said she was taken to a private room and made to take off her pants and other clothes after she asked to forgo the screening because she worried it would interfere with her defibrillator. She missed her flight and had to take one 2 1/2 hours later, she said. "I'm hunched over. I'm in a wheelchair. I weigh under 110 pounds," she said from her winter home at a seniors community in Coconut Creek, Fla. "Do I look like a terrorist?" But the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement Saturday no strip search was conducted. "While we regret that the passenger feels she had an unpleasant screening experience, TSA does not include strip searches as part of our security protocols and one was not conducted in this case," the statement read. The private screening was not recorded. [NJ.com]
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