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The horrific event of 9/11 gave
the western media an unparalleled opportunity to turn the world
against the Muslims and their faith, Islam. Anyone who was in the mood
for flag-waving, breast-beating about the Doomsday, and moaning about
Muslim activists in their backyard demanding fairness, there was no
need for him to travel all the way to New York to join in the
cacophony. All that he was to do was to shout at the top of his lungs:
"With you, America."
A few crafty news-masters like
Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes started using 'Arab', and 'Muslim' as
the qualifiers for the extremist elements in the PLO in 1970s. Soon
the two words received acceptance among western policy makers as very
few protested the stereotyping of the Arabs and the Muslims. By 1993
WTC bombing "Islamic' became a permanent fixture to all events
and every Muslim group anywhere in the world in which Muslims
protested or reacted against blatant violations of their basic human
rights. Nobody ever dared
to use 'Buddhist', 'Jewish', 'Hindu', 'Christian', or any other
religious denomination as a qualifier for terrorist activities around
the world. Sri Lankan Tamil human bombs, Hindu mobs burning Sikhs,
Christians and Muslims, Baruch's massacre in Ibrahimi mosque, Serbs
slaughters in Bosnian villages, Russian killings of Chechens, Irish
bombings, etc. caught the media attention, but it never mentioned the
religion of the perpetrators, or accused their faiths for inciting the
lethal hatred against innocent victims. It is only the Muslims who
were always singled out as the perpetrators. Now their faith is blamed
for fueling hate and a global terror against the rest of the world.
Without sounding preachy, one may remind that the first act of nuclear
terror was committed by those who identified themselves as Christians.
Just as it would be unfair to blame all Christians for the actions of
whoever shares their faith, the same should apply to Muslims.
Western media is also very adept
in highlighting its slanted views and repeating its conjectures as
facts again and again until it is quoted as God's truth. Friedman's
'War of Ideas' column (NYT 6/6/02) is an excellent example of how the
media pundits twist events. The
Muslim bashers always claim that their conclusions are based on sound
reading. They always say that they distinguish "information"
(also known as "facts" or "evidence") from
"analysis" (also known as "speculation" or
"connecting the dots"). In this simplistic model, you gather
the information to carefully pick only the dots that complete your
pre-conceived picture. In the present hoopla of blaming 9/11 on
intelligence failure, Friedman wanted the readers "to remember
something: not all the signals of 9/11 were hidden. Many were out
there in public, in the form of hate speech and conspiracy theories
directed at America and preached in mosques and schools throughout the
Muslims world." Friedman, by quoting Zacarias Moussaoui, made his
subtle message clear: the Muslims are out to kill all Americans, and
they "pray to Allah for the destruction of the United
States."
War on Terrorism
America's response to 9/11attack
was shaped by catchy words like "war on terrorism" and the
phrase: "with us or with them". Without defining
"terrorism", and without any moral justification for lumping
Muslims' struggle against repressive regimes the US government
initiated its war. Peter Beinart (The New Republic 4/22/02, p.6) tried
to spell out what the US keeps shrouded to assemble its grand
alliance. According to him, "Terrorism" meant violence by
individuals or groups (but not governments) against civilians, no
matter what the cause. "War" didn't connote a merely
military effort, but it suggested a broad struggle with the urgency,
and Manichaean clarity, of a battlefield campaign.
One
is not surprised that something strange happened. The phrase "war
on terrorism" caught the imagination of all repressive regimes.
Other governments also wanted to invest their conflicts with moral
justification the Bush Administration sought. All of a sudden, Russia
was fighting a 'war on terrorism' in Chechnya: India was waging one in
Kashmir; Israel was waging one in Palestine; Philippine was waging one
against the Moro bandits; China was waging one in Sinkiang, and of
course, several Muslim and south American countries against their
restive population. What is unusual is that almost all the Muslim
regimes from Malaysia to Morocco are also singing in unison about the
need to eradicate this global menace of 'Islamic terrorism'.
Axis of Evil
Is the U.S. fighting a "war
against terror," or a "war against Islam and Muslims?"
And how to subdue this 'Islamic monster'? Ann Coulter's notorious
post-Sept. 11 column for National Review Online -- in which she
suggested that the proper U.S. response to Muslim terrorists was to
"invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity" -- is still making waves six months later. Friedman
believes that to win this war against
'Islamic terror' the West must adopt Fortuyn's idea of forced
assimilation, or expulsion of the Muslim living within its borders,
and teaming up with moderate Muslims to make Islam go through
"Enlightenment or Reformation, which separated church from the
state in the west."
Muslims, Islamics or Islamists
CNN's Lou Dobbs spent much time
telling viewers of his show, "Moneyline," that the war on
terror should be renamed the "war on Islamists… We are fighting
a war against extreme, radical Muslims, who are trying to destroy us,
our society, our economy, our way of life. They're called Islamists
not Muslims or Islamics, Islamists. They are the enemy,".
Not surprisingly, Muslim groups
were not pleased by his comments. They say that Mr. Dobbs "has
taken the definition of Islamist from bigots and is trying to apply it
to the war on terror." "The bigots of the world say if you
are an Islamist, you want to kill all who are non-Islamist. They
define almost every Muslim activist as an Islamist," Mr. Hooper
of CAIR said. But an aide to Mr. Dobbs said his statements generated
more than a thousand calls from viewers, most of them favorable. In a
telephone interview, Mr. Dobbs defended his use of the term "Islamist"
to define what he called "radical, fringe elements of Islamicism,
not Islam." He cited several Muslim scholars, including author
Salman Rushdie, who he said agree with his definition of Islamists.
Blurred lines
Dobbs stressed that this was no
war "against Muslims or Islam or Islamics," just a war on
"Islamists" and their allies, and that "if there
were ever a time for clarity, it is now."
But let's see. Not Islam or Islamics, but "Islamists."
How that's clarity? This is one fallacy that deserves to be buried,
swiftly. Trying to sever "Islamists" from Islam and Islamics
may give people "the wrong idea" by appearing to indict all
followers of Islam as terrorists. In other words, as another
commentator noted, Dobbs can parse all he wants, but most viewers
hearing "Islamists" will think "Islamics," and
extend that to every Muslim.
In the post-9-11 world, all
understand the need for increased security. American Muslims, like all
other citizens, want to prevent another terrorist attack in the United
States. Unfortunately, policies that single out particular religious
groups create a false sense of security and end up further damaging
America's image around the world. Recent policies targeting Muslims
and Arabs, including the interviewing of 8,000 legal visa holders, the
detention without due process of some 1,200 individuals, the targeting
of Muslim and Arab 'absconders,' the use of secret evidence, the raids
on Muslim homes and institutions, and the new FBI guidelines allowing
surveillance of mosques engaged in legal activities, all failed to
result in a single terrorism-related arrest. Law-abiding residents in
this country should not be made the scapegoats for past intelligence
failures.
Blame Islam for Global
Tensions
One of the big lies that Israel
uses in its nonstop barrage of slander against Palestinians is that
families teach their children to hate Jews. Media not only endorsed
Israel's blatantly false premise but added its own voice to spread it.
Media closed its eyes to see the naked fact that it is Israel's
racism, land confiscations, destruction of villages, agricultural
lands and orchards, deprivation of Palestinian water rights, beatings,
torture, illegal arrests, extra-judicial killings and assassinations,
settlements, collective punishments, home demolitions, curfews,
roadblocks, administrative detentions, expulsions, bypass roads and
refugee exclusion among other things that teaches hatred to children.
Palestinian children see their parents' humiliation, degradation and
deaths. They don't need parental instructions to learn hatred.
Every day WCBS (news radio88) the
New York area radio station engages in anti-Muslim propaganda. On June
4th, 2002, David Gilbert, the Jerusalem correspondent for WCBS news
radio interviewed an "expert on Islam" from Israel about
Kashmir. The
"expert" blamed Islam and Muslims for the rising tensions on
the Kashmir border, saying, "Muslims can not live under
non-Muslims". He
went on to say that the Muslim belief of imposing "Allah's rule
over the infidels" is the cause for terrorism all over the world.
It was a crude attempt to malign a religion. These are just a few of
countless examples from the last week.
Security Measures
In the 'war against terrorism',
Bush administration has adopted "possibility", not
"certainty" as the operative principle. Basic human rights,
conventional and constitutional rights are violated with impunity. For
example, from now on, visa holders from countries considered terrorist
friendly (Muslim and Arabs) will get special attention --fingerprints,
photographs, and tracking while they remain in the U.S. Residents of
Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan were already required to go though the
process. Now most Muslim countries have been added to the list. Is
this idea good, bad, and if so, whichever way could it be effective?
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) strongly opposed
the proposal. This measure is a false solution to a real problem.
It offers little protection against terrorism while subjecting
individuals who come to this country to a lengthy and complicated
procedure that will not make us safer.
In fact, it will subject innocent people to humiliation, arrest
and deportation for failure to report on time. It also will waste
precious resources because it would be applied to people who already
have been screened and determined to be admissible to the United
States.
War of Ideas
Is it a war of ideas? Many
western analysts have portrayed it as a holy war against western
secular democratic ideals. Do the Muslims really hate democracy and
freedom that the West enjoys? A
USA Today CNN Gallup poll (5/31-6/02,2002) shows Americans "are
increasingly pessimistic about the war against terrorism after a week
of revelations about missed clues and warnings of likely future
attacks. The latest "capture of a known terrorist (NYT 06/11/02)
who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological
dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb' in the United States" may
galvanize Americans once again behind the President and the notion
that the country remains at war, but it will also further erode the
public confidence and increase the hostility towards the Muslims and
Islam. The Muslims in
America have lost very precious time for presenting Islam as the real
solution of the global moral decadence and resulting imbalances. The
Americans are yet to see the true Islamic identity in a positive
light. There is no Islamic model to compare with what the modern world
has. If Muslim don't have
any political weight, or a strong media presence, then who is to
blame? Even after 9/11 they have not evolved a unified strategy to
face the grim situation. They have to convince a 'terrified' world
community that Islam is not the threat, but the soothing balm. Muslims
have to convince the world that separation of "church" and
"state" is not the panacea, but the root-cause of all ills
that have afflicted the humanity. A peaceful global society will
emerge only when 'belief in God' means 'human accountability to God'
as well. Laws are not enough to control human turpitude; God
consciousness is. Muslims
have to present Islam not as the cultural baggage of the Middle
Eastern society or impoverished Muslim lands. When Muslims talk of
"establishing Allah's Deen" it is nothing other than
"establishing God's kingdom on earth." It is not a theocracy
where a few ignorant Mullahs deliver Fatwas, but a just society where
an old poor lady demanded her rights from the most powerful person
without fear of reprisal, and the ruling head bowed down. Jihad is not
killing the infidels, but creating a God-Conscious society.
Islamic state is not a utopia,
but a reality that the Muslims established, and where all, Muslims and
non-Muslims alike, shared God's bounties equally.
Muslims should stop whining about
their present calamitous conditions, and about conspiracies to hold
them down, and start taking positive action. Talk doesn't win the day,
action does.
June
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July 2002
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