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Pantagraph – Sept. 10, 2006
Phobias against Muslims and Islam are a reality
By Steve Arney
In 2002, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported 602 cases of civil rights abuses against Muslims in the United States. In the most recent year of reporting, 2004, it reported 1,522.
CAIR Chicago office spokesman Sultan Muhammad doesn't doubt that reporting frequency has increased somewhat, but he said the overwhelming proof is that segments of America are finding ethnic and religious profiling acceptable post-Sept. 11.
There have been educational efforts to distinguish Muslims as a whole from radical terrorists, but Muhammad fears the message largely is lost amid daily world news, where voices of violence and radicalism gain more attention than voices of condemnation, and in domestic political rhetoric.
He said, "The majority of the impact has been embedded phobia against Muslims and Islam. Islamaphobia is a reality."
In a 2006 poll CAIR found one in four respondents believe Islam is a religion of hatred.
That number may be conservative.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll asked, "Do you think mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims or is it a peaceful religion?"
Thirty-three percent said it was violent; 54 percent said peaceful; 13 percent were unsure.
In another poll, 39 percent of respondents admitted feeling some prejudice against U.S. Muslims. . .
Among Muhammad's biggest concerns is that people in positions of leadership feed into the situation, by endorsing racial profiling and making sweeping remarks, some of them highly offensive to Muslims, turban-wearing Sikhs and others. He cites two examples in the following reporting from Associated Press:
o Rep. John Cooksey, R-La.: "If I see someone come in and he's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked."
o Paul Nelson, Wisconsin congressional candidate: "Racial profiling is one way that we can cut down on security risks," Nelson said in an interview with WIXK Radio in New Richmond. When asked how to tell what a Muslim male looks like, Nelson replied, "Well, you know, if he comes in wearing a turban and his name is Mohammed, that's a good start."
http://www.pantagraph.com/features/feat091006.shtml
Pasadena Weekly – Sept. 8, 2006
Prejudice against Muslims shows who we really are
By Hussam Ayloush
After 9/11 I could see the looks, especially when I was with my wife, who wears a head dress. I know it exists. Polls show us many people do hold feelings of prejudice toward Muslims.
Deep inside, people are saying we should subject Muslims to extra searches at airports; some would rather not have a Muslim neighbor. Fortunately, only a small number of people take action based on those feelings.
The growing anti-Islamic sentiment in this country was reflected in the unfortunate use of the offensive term "Islamic fascist" by the president. Regardless of his intentions, and no one can truly know another's intentions, what matters is it was perceived by Muslims as an unfortunate link between the peaceful teachings of Islam and the evil ideology of fascism.
The concern we have is that such rhetoric alienates the very same people whose hearts and minds we are trying to win - the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world who we need as partners to alienate and challenge the minority of extremists among them.
The looks and the comments you sometimes hear are people making the assumption that Muslims do not belong in America. Compared to the amount of positive remarks and gestures I've received from people, those negative incidents are insignificant. I try not to dwell on the negative few. I'd rather celebrate the positive many.
The source of most hatred and prejudice is ignorance, and the only way to fight that is through education. That, unfortunately, takes time and patience. I do have faith that this state of misperception of Islam will come to and end, judging by our country's history toward all other religious and ethnic minorities.
Yes, there has been an increase of Islamaphobia and an increase in the number of hate incidents against Muslims. However, the bright side of this tragic increase of anti-Muslim sentiment provides and opportunity for Muslims to reach out to their fellow Americans and show them who they truly are and what they truly believe.
[Hussam Ayloush is executive director of the Southern California Council on American-Islamic Relations.]
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/article.php?id=3819&IssueNum=36
Baltimore Sun – Sept. 6, 2006
Keeping the faith:
Since the attacks, local Muslim-Americans have seen
the best -- and the worst -- of their countrymen
By Jonathan Pitts
They begin arriving early - the slightly rusted Toyotas, the spiffy VWs, the purring BMWs - filling the hillside parking lot under a gleaming afternoon sun. An old man in billowing white robes and silver beard looks more Bedouin chief than parking attendant, but with elegant sweeps of his arm guides his brothers and sisters into their spaces. By a quarter to 1, the lot is jammed.
It's Friday, the afternoon for congregational worship in Islam, and a community is coming together. Women in headscarves tow grade-schoolers, boys in thobes (Saudi-style robes) greet each other with whacks on the arm, and men in taqiyah (flat-topped skullcaps) trade smiles and firm handshakes. They move in a merging stream toward the Al Rahmah masjid (mosque) in Windsor Mill, to an otherwise ordinary gymnasium that serves as worship and community center for the Islamic Society of Baltimore, the largest association of its kind in Maryland.
More than 1,600 will show up for this day's Jumu'ah, the weekly gathering at which Muslims hear a brief sermon, pray aloud and affirm, in Arabic call-and-response, their devotion to Allah, to one another and to a humble way of life.
That's barely a sliver of the 7 million Muslims said to be living in North America, let alone the 1.4 billion who practice Islam worldwide. But it's more than enough to cram the gym shoulder-to-shoulder, men of all ages standing in orderly rows, establishing the physical configuration Muslims believe will crowd out the devil if only they are devout enough.
Long before that terrible, smoke-filled morning five years ago, before the skyscrapers burned and the Pentagon smoldered and all Muslims came under a cloud of suspicion in the West, those who practiced Islam in America found the United States an ambivalent host - a place where they could pursue their dreams and worship, however they pleased, yet whose natives sometimes saw Islamic practices as alien, impenetrable, even vaguely threatening.
Take Muhammad Jameel, 61. At Jumu'ah, amid the hundreds gathering in their Punjab-, Arabian- or African-inspired garments, not to mention many in jeans and T-shirts, he's the guy in the gray business suit, his tie loosened a few notches, with wire glasses on his nose. He flits from one person to another, touching shoulders, shaking hands, making eye contact, speaking encouragement.
He learned the need for such exhortation 36 years ago, shortly after moving to the United States from his native Pakistan. A midlevel executive for a U.S. shipping company, he settled into his new job in Baltimore, only to be asked by his superiors to change his "foreign-sounding" name….
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-to.muslims06sep06,0,6348133.story
St. Louis Post-Dispatch – Sept. 7, 2006
Interfaith partnership celebrates 20th anniversary,
amid protests
By Tim Townsend
More than 400 people gathered Thursday evening at the Frontenac Hilton Hotel to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Interfaith Partnership of Metropolitan St. Louis.
Outside the hotel, about a dozen people gathered along Lindbergh Boulevard to protest the group's choice of speaker, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Foxman was unable to make the dinner and was replaced by the league's deputy national director, Kenneth Jacobson.
The protesters, who included Christians, Jews and Muslims, said they felt that the Interfaith group had been insensitive to some in the Muslim community by inviting a representative of the Anti-Defamation League to speak on the topic, "Building Bridges: The Power of Interfaith Alliances, at Home and Abroad."
"If this organization is about building partnerships and bridges, don't bring to town people who are very one-sided and practice broad-brush rhetoric," said Bill Ramsey, one of the protesters. "It doesn't help, in the present global environment, to denigrate the faith of Islam."
Another protester, Margaret Hamra, said she'd come because, "Mr. Foxman often mistakes feelings against Israeli policy with feelings of anti-Semitism."
Inside, Muslim leaders said their community - 70 strong at the dinner - was diverse and did not stand as one on either side of the Foxman issue.
One group, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, had considered calling for a boycott of the dinner but decided it would be better to be a part of the evening, said the group's local spokesman, Kamal Yassin….
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/D8D0A7D94311BDB7862571E300174172?OpenDocument
Crimson White – Sept. 7, 2006
Give Mohammed a chance
By Kristen Trotter Chick
I took a class on terrorism last semester. It may sound like we assembled vests with bomb pockets or learned how to fly jumbo jets, but we studied the theory, not the tactics, and learned what makes terrorists tick.
At one point during the class we considered whom the FBI might have under its terrorism microscope right here in Tuscaloosa. One student raised his hand.
"There's this guy that works in the convenience store behind Crimson Cafe," he said. "I think he's from Afghanistan."
He suggested that the man might be a terrorist or a terrorist suspect on the FBI's list. All he knew about the man, from trips into his store to buy cigarettes, was that he was supposedly from Afghanistan. That was enough, however, to make him a terrorism suspect.
The man's name is Mohammed. He owns a store on 13th Avenue called Kerdassa, and he is not Afghani but Egyptian. He moved to the United States from Alexandria, Egypt, years ago and his son graduated from the University of Alabama. Mohammed is also one of the most kind-hearted men I have met in Tuscaloosa. He never grumbles about discrimination, because he doesn't like to complain, but when I told him about the comment in my class his mustache drooped.
Mohammed is not the only one; I've heard from Muslim women in Tuscaloosa whose head coverings attract strangle looks like a magnet. People won't take them seriously, they said. One of my good friends my freshman year, a Palestinian whose arm bore a scar from an Israeli bullet, no longer lives in Alabama because of the way he was treated in Tuscaloosa.
In a conversation the other day about the recently uncovered London terrorist plot, a friend argued for implementing racial profiling in the United States If most terrorists are Middle Eastern, he said, then naturally we should focus airport screenings on Middle Easterners. Sure, that makes sense, I said, but it also creates a lot of resentment and humiliation for the thousands of Arab Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism.
"Humiliation?" he asked. "Resentment? Why should they be humiliated? I wouldn't be."
His response illustrates our failing as a community to step outside our small perceptions of the way things should be and consider the other side of the story, how our actions, individually and collectively, make a physical impact in other's lives. If even for a moment we contemplate how we might feel if we were constantly suspected of a horrible crime simply because of our skin tone and facial features or religion, we might begin to understand the consequences of our actions….
http://www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/07/44ffc77bb833b
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