An American Muslim Journal

A Patriotic American-Muslim

Three years ago I wrote an essay entitled “What’s there to celebrate this 4^th of July?”  It was a personal reflection of my life in America starting from childhood  to adolescence and through young adulthood.  My focus was on things that are wrong in our country – the torture, the bigotry and erosion of civil liberties.

Thankfully my outlook has changed.  There is so much we need to celebrate this 4^th of July.  For me birthdays and anniversaries are a time to look back, to reflect and to plan for the future.  That is precisely what I’m doing this 4^th of July.

 

In looking back I see kindness triumphing over hate.  Growing up in Hoffman Estates, Illinois in the 1970s my family was one of only a small handful of non-white, non-Christian families in the area and the only such family on our block.  We endured racial epithets like “sand nigger” and “camel jockey” walking to Churchill Elementary School and during one particularly nasty week in 1979 we were bombarded with prank calls and our home was vandalism.

 

But the neighbors to our right and to our left were different.  They were extremely kind.  Both families were White, Christian, working class folks and they treated us to smiles, friendly waves and from time to time some small talk on the front lawn.  It was nothing big but today, standing in the shoes of my parents, I understand the value of having good neighbors.

 

From elementary school I remember my 4^th grade teacher, Ms. Mueller, and the kindness she showed me as I tried to adjust in my class.  My most vivid childhood memories begin in the 4^th grade.  I was the only “Junaid” in my class (gasp!) and it made me feel awkward.  It didn’t help that I was also the only non-white student in the class and that a classmate derisively referred to me as the “Puunjaaab”.

 

I began using a nickname and signing my homework with it.  My father was concerned about this and I presume he spoke to Ms. Mueller about it.

 

One day Ms. Mueller sat down next to me in class and quietly whispered to me that I should be proud of my name.  She related to me and said that her last name was not so common either and that we should both be proud to have unique names.  I’m not sure if it was the message or just the kindness with which it was shared with me, but it is a memory that has stayed with me all my life.

 

Today I reflect back on these moments in my life as a father and as a community servant and I realize that every step of the way, even when it got really ugly (i.e. the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Beirut Marine-barracks bombings) there were always good people who reminded us through their deeds that, on balance, Americans are a welcoming and kind people and that America’s ideals of pluralism and equality and justice are truly valued and that America continues to strive to live up to these ideals.

 

There are few places in the world today where I can enjoy the freedom to raise my children to be good Muslims within a good Muslim community where they can see firsthand God’s commandment for the nations and tribes of mankind to come together to know one another being played out every day across the country.

 

Three years ago I was focused on combating Islamophobia and defending Muslims and Islam against the slanders of bigots and the crimes of criminals acting in the name of Islam.  It was and is important to do this, but a single-minded focus on these negative events can be hazardous to one’s outlook.

 

This 4^th of July and hopefully for many holidays to come I will use the anniversary of our independence to teach my kids about the freedoms they enjoy.  I am going to point out the mosques, the churches, the synagogues, the Jain center, the Buddhist temple, the Shinto center and the Hindu temple right here in our local neighborhoods to illustrate the religious diversity and tolerance we enjoy.  We will share meals and conversations with our neighbors and I will point out to my children in the quiet moments just before they doze off to sleep following a frenzied and hot day spent in the backyard that we are blessed to live in a community and in a country where people of all colors and religions and nationalities can be friends if they want to be.

 

Looking ahead on this 4^th of July holiday I know that I’m going to have to do more as a community servant to insure that the lessons I want to teach my kids are real.  The diversity, peace, tolerance, understanding – the common good in this world - doesn’t just happen.  We need to work hard to make it a reality.

 

Happy 4^th of July!

 

(This essay first appeared in the July edition of the Chicago Crescent and can also be found on the website of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago).

The unequal treatment of two religiously motivated crimes

by Junaid M. Afeef

This essay original appeared at AltMuslim.com.

Two men, one Christian and the other Muslim, commit murder just one day apart in the United States. Both appear to have been motivated by their religious beliefs. The Christian murderer is Scott Roeder and his victim is Dr. George Tiller, a physician from Wichita, KS who performed late term abortions. The Muslim murderer is Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad and his victims are Pvt. William Long and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula who were new U.S. Army recruiters.

These two murder cases expose the media’s and our legal system’s bias against Muslims. Both crimes seem to fit the definition of terrorism motivated by religious extremism. The media and the legal system, however, are treating these alleged murderers and their crimes very differently.

The Muslim murder suspect, Mr. Muhammad, is charged with terrorism along with first degree murder. Mr. Muhammad’s faith has been front and center from the very earliest news reports. The American-Muslim community’s almost immediate repudiation of Mr. Muhammad’s murder was and still is largely ignored.

On the other hand, the Christian murder suspect, Mr. Roeder, is not being charged with terrorism. His faith has not been the focus of news reports even though there seems to be ample evidence to suggest that Mr. Roeder espouses extreme, right-wing Christian beliefs. And lastly, the media is giving anti-abortion groups ample opportunity to distance themselves from the murderous actions of one of their own.

Let’s start with the terrorism charges. Domestic terrorism is defined as an act that is dangerous to human life (guns were fired in the direction of the victims – this requirement is met) and which is a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or any State (both shootings fulfill this requirement) and which appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion or to affect the conduct of a government by, among other things, assassination (an argument for this element can be made in both shootings).

Mr. Muhammad is charged with 15 counts of engaging in a terrorist act. This is in addition to the murder charge. Mr. Roeder is charged with murder but there are no terrorism charges. On the face of both cases there seems to be ample indications that these men committed murder with the objective of intimidating a civilian population or with the intention to influence a government policy.

So, why a terrorism charge in one case but not the other? Both cases are heinous. Both local communities surely want to send the strongest message possible to the public that these crimes will be punished to the greatest extent of the law. And ultimately a judge or jury will decide whether the charges are proven beyond a reasonable doubt so the prosecutor runs little risk by adding the appropriate terrorism charge.

The disparate treatment of these two murder cases began right from the first media reports. Most major newswires and major newspapers focused heavily on Mr. Muhammad’s religion very early on.

The Associated Press reported on Mr. Muhammad’s crime by stating that a “Muslim convert with political and religious motives” shot two uniformed soldiers. The New York Times described Mr. Muhammad as “an American convert to Islam.” CNN reported that Mr. Muhammad is a “Muslim convert”.

Let’s compare the reporting by these same news sources on Mr. Roeder’s murder. The Associated Press is mum on Mr. Roeder’s Christian faith. Ditto for the New York Times and CNN. None of theses same news sources make any mention of Mr. Roeder’s religious affiliation or the obvious role his extremist religious beliefs may have played in the killing of Dr. Tiller.

What exacerbates this obvious bias in reporting is the willingness of the media to offer the anti-abortion groups immediate opportunities to distance themselves from Mr. Roeder’s murder while none of them provided a similar opportunity for the American-Muslim community even as they reported that Mr. Muhammad is a Muslim. Major national and regional American-Muslim organizations issued almost immediate statements condemning Mr. Muhammad’s murderous actions so the excuse cannot be a lack of public condemnation of the murder from the American-Muslim community.

To the American-Muslim community this unequal treatment is at the very least annoying and more likely very troubling. The bad news is that this situation is not going to change in the immediate future.

Not enough Americans know what real Muslims are like. There are up to 7 million Muslims living in America. By contrast there are a few hundred million Christians in America. Suffice to say that Americans feel more familiar with Christian values than they do with Muslim values. They don't realize just how similar these values are - both faith traditions abhor the killing of innocents and neither faith condones the actions of Mr. Muhammad or Mr. Roeder. Plus, the steady stream of news about Muslim extremists killing others and themselves in suicide missions overseas certainly doesn’t help.

There is only one way for American-Muslims to sway Americans’ opinion of Islam. More Americans need to know what real Muslims are all about. While the media can do its job better by giving a voice to the American-Muslim community, American-Muslims need to take matters into their own hands.

American-Muslims need to become civically engaged. They need to get involved on issues of the common good and not just special interest issues. It has to be at the grassroots level with one on one interactions predicated on substantive work that gives non-Muslim Americans a chance to see firsthand what American-Muslims are all about.

President Obama’s message to the Muslim world, including his numerous nods to American-Muslims was great, but American-Muslims need to do some serious, old school, grassroots relational work of their own.

The Case for an American Madrassah

By Junaid M. Afeef

This essay originally appeared on AltMuslim.com.

The dearth of American Islamic scholars in America is palpable. This is a real problem. Islam and the Muslim world have both become critically important in the national and international affairs of America. The lack of American Islamic scholars creates a barrier to properly understanding Islam and its relationship to modern American society.

Once upon a time, perhaps as recently as 20 years ago, it was enough for medical doctors and engineers doubling as mosque presidents and imams to also be the official purveyors of Islamic knowledge at the grassroots level. There was much less of a need for “scholars” in the interfaith arena back then. Things have changed.

I was recently at a benefit dinner for a medical charity and one of my wife’s colleagues asked me what I did for a living. “I’m the executive director of a Muslim non-profit” I answered.

“Oh,” he responded, clearly not expecting that answer from the guy he just spent the last 20 minutes chatting with about golf and football. He asked me what my “Muslim” non-profit did and what I did for it. I told him that we organize mosques and other Muslim institutions and we work to build their capacity and work in interfaith collaboration with other faith-based organizations on public policy issues.

He politely listened to my answer but when I finished he got right to his next question. “Islam is not a religion so much as it is an ideology, a way of life, right?” he asked. Huh? I did not expect that response!

We talked some more and he mentioned some things he had read about Ibn Taymiyyah, shariah laws and the supposed incompatibility of Islam with Western values. Mind you, this fellow was neither a religious scholar nor a Muslim. It was unsettling because I was just barely equipped to engage him meaningfully.

This is not how it used to be. Just a few decades ago a lecture on Islam delivered by an civil engineer to a church group with an emphasis on Muslim belief in an afterlife, angels, the Virgin Mary and the miracles performed by Jesus was more than enough to leave the audience feeling like they learned something useful.

Today non-Muslim Americans are more skeptical of Islam. Non-Muslim Americans want to know about Wahhabism. They ask challenging questions about taqiyya, jihad and dhimmis. Many times they ask about these concepts having already studied these concepts to some degree. To make matters worse, Islamic scholars overseas and some who now reside in America, openly question the legitimacy of lay interpretations of Islam by American Muslim leaders as well.

This is the void that institutions like Berkeley, California's Zaytuna Institute must fill. There are many who perceive (incorrectly in my opinion) Islam as incompatible with American society. There are some that even see America as being at war with Islam (which it is not in my view). These (mis)perceptions are held by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

These are religious questions that require a deep understanding of Islam and a deep understanding of America. An American Muslim taught in America under the rigors of traditional Islamic study by qualified American Muslim scholars is the best situated to dispel these misperceptions. To this end, Zaytuna is proposing the establishment of a "Muslim Georgetown," a four-year accredited college open to all faiths and genders.

Whether the institution is called a college, a university or a seminary is not important. What is critical is that the institution be accredited, that it maintain high standards for admission and retention, that its instructors have the necessary traditional religious training themselves and that there be, among others, a course of study that confers an American-Muslim graduate with the requisite knowledge and skills to authoritatively opine on, among other issues, the compatibility of Islamic values and American values.

That such an institution is open to non-Muslims and is not exclusively an imams’ training institution could actually be an asset to all who matriculate from its programs and particularly for the Muslim students who are in an imamate track. Being exposed to thinking and analysis from a non-adherent’s perspective can create added depth to a Muslim student’s understanding of Islam and of the opportunities and the threats surrounding Islam’s hoped for integration into American society.

There is nothing unrealistic about this idea. Scholars like Zaid Shakir, Hamza Yusuf, and Umar Faruq-Abdullah have the unique mix of an American upbringing coupled with classical Islamic training to make this form of education a reality.

One of the bigger challenges will be in securing adequate funding that will allow the institution to maintain a high standard for the prospective students and in attracting high caliber students to this field of study.

Along the way Zaytuna Institute or any other organization that undertakes this important work of institution building will encounter the accusations of being an “American madrassah” in the vein of those institutions that are producing Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This challenge is neither here nor there. It is the reality of being a Muslim in America.

Individuals, irrespective of whether they are Muslims and or scholars, may draw their own conclusions on whether or not Islam and America are compatible. However, in order for American-Muslims to dispel the misperception of incompatibility it will take American Islamic scholars who have the educational and intellectual gravitas to go toe to toe with foreign trained and overseas scholars.

American-Muslims cannot continue looking overseas only for Islamic scholars. American Islamic scholars need to be nurtured and trained in America.  And while institutions like Zaytuna Institute work on launching new educational institution, the rest of the American Muslim community needs to work concurrently to create professional opportunities for these future American Islamic scholars within our mosques, think tanks and other Muslim institutions.

Recognizing the Real Situation of Muslims in India

It is a shame that American Muslims regularly ignore the plight of 150 million Muslims living in an increasingly hostile communal society in India.  I think it is particularly shameful that more American Muslims of Indian origin are not involved in understanding the often dire circumstances of their fellow Muslims in India.  I admit to being one of those persons who has, heretofore, been woefully negligent in understanding the increasingly difficult situation of my co-religionists in India.

I have always looked upon my Indian heritage with pride.  India is the world's largest democracy.  It is a nuclear power.  It is a multi-cultural society with an innovative constitution that affords wide latitude in personal laws of its many religious minorities.  India has a western-based justice system.  India is the home of Mohandas Gandhi.  And over the past several years it has become an economic powerhouse. The idea that India was now "modern" and that pictures of India were of hi-tech office parks and fancy, modern homes and of booming western franchises rather than huts and beggars was gratifying.

I am a bit embarrassed to admit this but my ideas of religious tolerance were for the longest time colored by Feroz Khan and Vinod Khanna singing the title song of the 1980s' Bollywood movie "Qurbani".  Back then, in my high school years, I saw Bollywood movies on our beta-max vcr which had Muslim heroes and leading actors with Muslim names and scenes with mosques.  It was idyllic - sort of.

And when the Babri Masjid was demolished by Hindu extremists in 1992 I vaguely remember the muted voices of my Indian friends Ani and Reddy at The American Unversity in Washington, DC.  They were Indian attorneys in the U.S. pursuing their LL.M degrees.  At the time I was too preoccupied with my own studies to really think about the implications of the Ayodhya crisis.  I guess I just assumed that they were as shocked as I was to see such communal strife in our India.

I've lost touch with Ani and Reddy over the past decade and a half so I cannot ask them what their thoughts were at the time.  However, I do know that over the years I have become a bit more aware of the challenges faced by Muslims in India.

One of my first exposures to community activism came when the American Federation of Muslims from India (AFMI) asked me to give a speech on T.A.D.A. (an anti-terrorism and detention law in India that violates the writ of habeus corpus) at a dinner for the Indian ambassador to the United States.  This was back in 1993 or 1994.

I was a new attorney at the time.  I did some research on this very new thing called the "internet" and on infoTRAC at the local library and was shocked that democratic and pluralistic India could have such a law.  Still, it just did not seem significant relative to the plight of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and of other Muslims elsewhere in the Muslim-majority world. 

I continued to ignore it.  Over the years I have written about and worked on issues related to Palestine, Bosnia, Kosova, Iraq and other places where Muslims are suffering, but still I continue to ignore the challenges faced by Muslims in India.

Hopefully I am beginning to change.  I am trying to make more of an impact on the issues and challenges faced by Muslims in India.  I am going to try to get more involved in advocacy and education aimed at retaining India's characteristics of secularism and democracy.

This excerpt from a recent Reuters article sums up what I am now beginning to understand:

India is officially a secular nation and its top woman tennis star, its vice president, and its richest men are all Muslims as are several top Bollywood stars and federal ministers.

But such high-profile success stories may mask the real status of Indian Muslims, who are often held responsible for the partition of the country into Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan in 1947 at the time of independence from Britain.

Muslims account for less than seven percent of public service employees, only five percent of railways workers, around four percent of banking employees and there are only 29,000 Muslims in India's 1.3 million-strong military.

Alienation of Muslims has partly been fueled by communal riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002, when around 2,500 people, mostly Muslims, were hacked and burned to death. Little has been done to catch the culprits despite a national outcry.

The marginalized status of India's Muslims is also documented and examined in a 2007 report by the Council on Foreign Relations entitled "India's Muslim Population" and authored by Carin Zississ.  The report asks the question: Are Muslims marginalized in India?  Here is the answer:

Yes. The Muslim literacy rate ranks well below the national average and Muslim poverty rates are only slightly higher than low-caste Hindus, according to a November 2006 government report (PDF). Muslims—mostly Sunnis—make up 13.4 percent of India’s population, yet hold fewer than 5 percent of government posts and make up only 4 percent of the undergraduate student body in India’s elite universities. The report also found that Muslims fall behind other groups in terms of access to credit, despite the fact that Muslims are self-employed at a far higher rate than other groups.

I'm sure there are several organizations in the U.S. working on various issues pertaining to India's Muslims.  I know of AFMI, IMRC and of many individual and small group efforts to help Muslim families and students secure better educational opportunities and so on.  These are wonderful.

One organization that I've discovered which I think is doing good work and has a lot of promise for doing more good work in the future is the Indian Muslim Council -USA (IMC-USA).  IMC-USA is an education and advocacy organization that is committed to promoting peace, pluralism and social justice in India.

IMC-USA is hosting a fundraising dinner this Saturday - May 2, 2009 - at the Islamic Center of Des Plaines in Des Plaines, Illinois.  More information can be found about the dinner on IMC-USA's facebook events page.  Dr. Muqtedar Khan, an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware, will speak about ant-terrorism policies and their impact on religious minorities.

Dr. Khan's address promises to be particularly engaging as his ideas and strategies can be considered in both the Indian and U.S. context where Muslims face similar challenges.  I am going to attend this dinner as part of my commitment to get more involved in the issues of Muslims in India.

We Owe It to the Uighurs to Resettle Them in America!

Seventeen innocent Chinese Muslims - Uighurs - who have been held in Guantanamo since approximately 2002 and who were cleared of being "enemy combatants" over four years ago look to be getting some measure of justice - finally.

According to the Chicago Tribune President Obama is planning to release these innocent men into the United States because they cannot be sent back to China and no third nation has been identified which would take these men.  These men cannot go back to China because they would likely face severe persecution by the Communist Chinese government.  They were cleared of being enemy combatants long ago, and as such, their continued incarceration is a gross injustice.

Not surprisingly some "lock'em up" types are upset.  Andy McCarthy of the National Review does not like this idea one bit.  Even though these men are innocent of any wrong doing, have been detained unlawfully for all these years, have been subjected to very harsh detention conditions and have absolutely no where to go after the ordeal our government has subjected them to, these men are, after all, Muslims and since their beliefs don't gel with Mr. McCarthy's it is, in his view, a bad idea to let them live in America.

According to McCarthy, these men smashed a television during the latter part of their detention (apparently their quarters were upgraded from deplorable hell holes to standard issue port-o-prison cells with, oh my gosh thank you, tv) and this strikes Mr. McCarthy as evidence that these men cannot be assimilated into American society or that they are a threat to our way of life.

Hmmm?  Don't you think the crazy detention conditions and the torture might make some folks more than a little unsettled and erratic?  I'm not a psychologist but I'm guessing the conditions at GITMO can have a very bad effect on a detainee's mental health.

And what exactly is the alternative?  Since these men are not guilty of anything and since they have no place else to go thanks to us, are we to just keep them locked up for life?  I'd like to hear the alternatives for these 17 Chinese Muslims from Mr. McCarthy's point of view.

Is the alternative just killing them as Glenn Beck suggested:

Tony Blair Says Fundamental Islam is Peace

Speaking in Chicago on April 22nd to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Tony Blair, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, addressed religion and politics in world affairs.  The religion he focused on was Islam.

 

Blair said early on in his speech that "fundamental Islam is the opposite of what extremists preach" and that the Quran, Islam's holy text, is full of progressive, humanitarian principles. 

Still, the sense that he was singling out Islam was palpable.  Blair noted there are jihadist extremists fighting in not only Afghanistan and Iraq but also in smaller, more remote, rarely heard of regions throughout the world.  Blair further noted that jihadist extremists all have three characteristics in common: (1) they are relentless, (2) they believe they are fighting in the name of true Islam, and (3) they use terrorism to create chaos in the world.

Although Blair prefaced his comments with factual statements about Islam and the Quran, his remaining comments about Islam, albeit one particular interpretation, were framed in terms of war, battles and a long-term struggle.  He further stated that the challenge of confronting jihadist extremists' interpretations of Islam is the responsibility of Muslims worldwide who practice true Islam.  It was disconcerting to hear Islam being praised while, in almost the same breath, there was a call for a long and hard battle against it.

Blair's speech included some questionable assumptions and wrongly called out Islam only.  Furthermore, Blair offered no concrete solutions on how Muslims can practically challenge jihadist extremists.

In analyzing the challenges posed by jihadist extremists Blair made assumptions that were clearly self-serving in the sense that they absolved Western powers of any responsibility for creating environments that ultimately created incubators for extremism.  Blair himself identified several policy blunders such as empowering the Taliban to fight the Soviets, ignoring the long-term impacts of having a generation of children educated exclusively in madarasas in rural Pakistan and supporting a dictator in Iraq to keep Iran in check.  Blair pointed to these situations as mistakes in policy but still asserted that only the terrorists are responsible for terrorism. 

In other words, no matter what the West has done, terrorism cannot be blamed on anyone but the terrorists.  This was an applause line that delivered.

While there is no justification for terrorism, it would be wrong to ignore the socio-economic-political factors that push people towards terrorism.  For example, having one's family killed in a missile strike on a residence in Gaza does not justify an aggrieved parent or sibling strapping on explosives and blowing himself up in a vegetable market in Israel.  However, understanding the factors that drove the man to become a suicide bomber can help policy makers devise strategies to eliminate the underlying causes of terrorism.

Blair's speech focused entirely on Islam.  Instead, what he should have focused on was extremism.  Had his focus been on extremism as a global threat he would have been justified in confronting extremist interpretations of Islam.  However, in order to be balanced and accurate in identifying extremism as a global threat to peace and stability, Blair should have looked at extremism in Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism too.

During his speech Blair pointed out that although the Holy Land is a very small parcel relative to other nations, a resolution to the conflict in that region is essential for creating a more peaceful world.  This is probably true, and the hold up in achieving peace in the Holy Land is due in part to extremist Jewish ideology that calls for the taking of all the lands that are a part of "Greater Israel".

Blair conveniently omitted any mention of extremist Christians who are fomenting conflict in the Holy Land in order to accelerate the coming of the Messiah or of fascist Hindus in India who are actively seeking to subjugate India's Muslim and Christian minorities.  Both of these two groups (extremist Christians and fascist Hindus) are as much a threat to global stability as are jihadist extremists.

Blair's speech identified six solutions to addressing the challenge of jihadist extremists.  One of the solutions required Muslims globally to confront extremism within Islam from the inside.  This is a good idea, because any efforts by adherents of other faiths to interpret or explain Islam to Muslims would be ill-conceived and poorly received.

But this is easier said than done.  Muslims worldwide, in order to confront jihadist extremists' ideology, must have the space and the resources to put forward a countervailing understanding of what is authentic Islam.

Such a space hardly exists.  So many Muslims throughout the world are refugees and are among the poorest of the poor.  Afghanistan, Iraq and Somali are among the leading countries of origin of refugees. 

The second largest population of Muslims in the world is in India.  There are 150 million Muslims in India and they are a marginalized minority.  According to a report by Carin Zississ for the Council on Foreign Relations, Muslim literacy rates in India are well below the national average while Indian Muslim poverty rates are only a tad bit higher than low-caste Hindus.

As a consequence, the best hope for combating perverse, extremist interpretations of Islam lay in the West with American and European Muslims.  However, Western Muslims seem to be so preoccupied with securing their own status as equal citizens in the face of discrimination and gross civil liberties violations as a result of overreaching, overzealous and unconstitutional laws and law enforcement tactics, that there is little energy, no resources and hardly any credibility to wage such a battle.

Suggesting that Muslims must confront jihadist extremism from within Islam is not a solution.  Rather, it is an objective.  The solution is the amalgam of means for empowering Muslims to attain this objective.

Some of the components of this solution include: (1) halting the vitriol against and demonizing of Muslims and Islam by politicians and pundits who seek to profit from Muslim-bashing, (2) ending the civil liberties abuses that sap the Muslim communities' energies, resources and international standing and (3) enabling Muslims through concrete financial assistance to develop the mechanisms for dialogue, civic engagement and a rigorous contextual religious exegeses.

Despite the shortcomings of his speech he still dazzled some of the Muslims in the audience.  What probably hooked these Muslims was the conciliatory tone Blair took towards Islam.  It is such a rare thing to hear national and international leaders make such statements.  These platitudes about Islam clearly beguiled some of the Muslims in the audience, but by and large, the shortcomings in Blair's policy speech were clear to those who were intent on really hearing his message.

AG Lisa Madigan to Fight Worker Abuse in Illinois!

 

On Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan visited with members of the Illinois Coalition on Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) to hear first hand experiences of immigrant workers being cheated, abused and physically harmed.

One worker described how a wealthy home owner hired him and a few other immigrant workers to do 3 weeks worth of labor around his home.  The worker described the home owner by name and described him to be a "millionaire".  When the work was done the home owner refused to pay for the services of the workers.

Ms. Madigan brought attorneys from her office to meet with victims after the conclusion of the testimonials.  After the formal program concluded I had a chance to meet with Ms. Madigan.  I was introduced to Ms. Madigan by Joshua Hoyt, Executive Director of ICIRR, as the Executive Director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.

I spoke with Ms. Madigan about similar abuses within the immigrant South Asian communities involving nannies and housekeepers.  These workers are regularly overworked and underpaid.  Whereas the workers in the live testimony today were Latino men, the South Asian workers are often women.

The Illinois Attorney General should investigate this type of case as well.  Of course, the challenge will be getting victims to step forward.

Here is a snippet of the testimony:

U.S. Congressional Black Caucus Gets It Right on Racism

There is an international conference on racism and discrimination this week and President Obama decided the United States will not participate.  That's odd.  Why would our first African-American president, a man who experienced racism first hand during his childhood, pull us out of a forum where we should be taking the lead?

The main reason is Israel.  The first conference on racial discrimination in Durban, South Africa in 2001 focused on Israeli racism against the Palestinians.  Eight years later the Israelis lobbied hard to keep other nations away from the follow-up U.N. sponsored conference in Geneva.

The lobbying effort worked in the U.S. (as well as in Canada, Germany and some other European nations).  In a U.S. State Department press release dated 4/18/09 our government reasoned that the Durban Declaration and Programme of Actions from the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa prejudices issues that should be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and therefore the U.S. will not participate in the conference.  With regard to Israel, the press release also noted our objection to singling out Israel in the conference document.

There is nothing wrong with addressing issues pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in multiple forums where the nations of the world can weigh in on the issues.  It would be helpful to get other nations' perspectives on the issues of racism and discrimination in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  After all, this is not a subject or topic we hear about very much from the media.

Also, there is the issue of the absence of negotiations.

In lieu of negotiations the Israelis are engaging in a lot of bombing, shelling and killing of Palestinians (thousands of Palestinians were just killed - many women and children - during Israel's latest Gaza assault earlier this year).  True, the Palestinians have been firing homemade rockets into Israel too, but the carnage and suffering inflicted by Israel against the Palestinians far outweighs the deaths and the inconveniences inflicted by the Palestinians as a result of their katyusha rockets.

Given that Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas (as much as one may deplore Hamas' acceptance of targeting civilians and question their refusal to recognize Israel as a state, it remains that they are the freely elected political party of the Palestinian people) it seems laughable that we would point to using negotiations as a better forum for vetting the vexing issues of Israeli racism against Palestinians.

Furthermore, a U.N. conference on racism and discrimination is the appropriate place to raise the very real issues of Israeli racism against Palestinians.  The unequal treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories is well known, but there is also a great deal of bigotry against Arab Israelis within Israel that does not get covered as much.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged discrimination against Arab Israelis back in December 2008.  Haaretz.com quotes Olmert during a speech to Arab Israeli leaders:

"There is no doubt that for many years there has been discrimination against the Arab population that stemmed from various reasons."

According to a U.S. Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Israel in 2003

“on a per capita basis, the [Israeli] Government spent two-thirds as much for Arabs as for Jews.” 

That's an inartful way of saying the government spent a third more on citizens who were Jewish than on those who were Arab.  Furthermore, the Israeli Civil Service Commission of 2002-3 reported that while Israeli Arabs constitute approximately 20% of the population in Israel, they comprised only 6.1 % of all civil service workers in Israel.

In 2001 Human Rights Watch issued a report on the separate and unequal public education system in Israel which segregates the Jewish Israeli children from the Arab Israel children.  In its summary the report states unequivocally:

"Nearly one in four of Israel's 1.6 million schoolchildren are educated in a public school system wholly separate from the majority. The children in this parallel school system are Israeli citizens of Palestinian Arab origin. Their schools are a world apart in quality from the public schools serving Israel's majority Jewish population. Often overcrowded and understaffed, poorly built, badly maintained, or simply unavailable, schools for Palestinian Arab children offer fewer facilities and educational opportunities than are offered other Israeli children."

This all sounds like discrimination so why should it not be raised in an international conference on racism?  If there had been such a conference during the aparthied era of South African, then one would hope that South Africa would be a focus of the conference.

It is a travesty that President Obama will keep the U.S. out of this week's U.N. conference on racism and discrimination.  Having a U.S. presence would send a powerful message to the world that our nation is committed to ending racism and discrimination.  Being present in the conference would allow us to raise the issue of discrimination in other parts of the world too such as India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states with poor to abysmal records on treating racial and religious minorities and people of lower socio-economic status.

The U.S. Congressional Black Caucus seems to be the lone voice of reason among our elected officials on this issue.  CNN.com reports the Congressional Black Caucus as saying:

"Had the United States sent a high-level delegation reflecting the richness and diversity of our country, it would have sent a powerful message to the world that we're ready to lead by example.  Instead, the administration opted to boycott the conference, a decision that does not advance the cause of combating racism and intolerance, but rather sets the cause back."

The U.S. Congressional Black Caucus is to be commended for taking this strong and principled stand on the issue of racism and discrimination.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage to take such a stand in the face of well organized pro-Israeli political forces in the U.S. which are ever-vigilant about targeting voices that stray from scripted pro-Israeli positions.

American Muslims need to take a stand on this issue.  Regardless of ethnic or racial background, all American Muslims have a duty to call upon our elected officials (including President Obama) and demand that we participate in all future U.N. conferences on racism and discrimination.

In spite of the minority of bigots who cause so much pain, suffering and damage in the U.S., we remain a free society that is reconciling our sordid history of discrimination with the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic , multi-religious diversity that is America in the 21st century.  We are a treasure trove of experience and we owe it to the world to share our experiences and help other nations build equally diverse and peaceful communities just as we have done in the United States. 

 

Call on AG Holder to Appoint Special Prosecutor

On Thursday, April 16, 2009, I participated in a panel-townhall meeting sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.  The panel-townhall was headlined by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who gave the opening remarks and sat as a panelist.

Coincidentally, earlier in the day the U.S. Department of Justice, in response to an ACLU lawsuit, released four important memos about the Bush administration's illegal torture program (click here to read memos).  It was a great backdrop for the panel-townhall meeting on civil liberties.

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky gave the opening remarks followed by presentations from four panelists who each spoke about a different aspect of the Bush administration's civil liberties curtailment over the past eight years.  Congresswoman Schakowsky read from portions of the memo including the names and descriptions of various "enhanced interrogation techniques" (read torture) and she commented that President Obama seems to have signaled that the Americans who undertook the torture upon reliance on these memos would not be prosecuted.

It is great that these memos are finally declassified and available to the public.  According to the ACLU these memos "supplied the framework for an illegal interrogation program that permitted the most barbaric forms of abuse, violated domestic and international law, alienated America's allies and yielded information that was both unreliable and unusable in court."

This, however, is simply the first good step in the right direction.  There must be accountability at the highest levels for these egregious memos and for the unconscionable torture that was inflicted by our government against detainees throughout the world.  Now is the time to call upon Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the interrogation of detainees in the war on terror.  If that investigation turns up evidence of torture and or abuse of detainees in contravention of U.S. and or international laws to which the U.S. is a signatory, then prosecutions must be undertaken.

An independent and thorough investigation, and if necessary, a fair and zealous prosecution that spares no official no matter his or her status, office or power, will help restore our nation's credibility in the eyes of our own citizens and with the world community as well.

Fearmongering Mark Kirk Not Fit to be Governor

Mark Kirk is a congressman from Illinois' 10th congressional district.  He is on record in support of violating the U.S. constitution, his idea for curtailing undocumented persons from entering the U.S. from Mexico is to promote condom sales to Mexicans and according to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Mark Kirk maintains an enforcement only immigration stance.

On Wednesday, April 15, 2009 Mark Kirk announced that he is considering a run for governor in Illinois.  Mark Kirk is not well suited to be the governor of Illinois.  Illinois is a diverse state.  Mark Kirk is a fearmonger and is way out of touch with the rich and varied ethnicities and cultures of Illinois.

In 2005 Mark Kirk told an audience at Northwestern University that:

I'm okay with discrimination against young Arab males from terrorist-producing states. I'm okay with that.

That is a dumb thing to say.  But when asked to retract the statement he refused.  That is even more dumb.

A couple years later Mark Kirk seriously suggested that selling condoms to Mexico as a policy solution to curbing undocumented immigrants from coming to the U.S.  He argued that:

"...a slower rate of growth would also reduce the long-term illegal immigration pressure on America's borders."

Surely this highly educated politician can do better than this, no?

Apparently not.

So, while Mark Kirk was attending a City Club of Chicago luncheon at Maggiano's in downtown Chicago today (4/15/09), a lot of Illinoisans got together outside of the restaurant to enourage him to broaden his thinking and to develop better solutions our immigration challenges.

These are the votes Mark Kirk needs if he wants to become Governor of Illinois in 2010:

 

This diverse group of Whites, Arabs, Latinos, Chinese and Blacks rallied today outside of Maggiano's where Mark Kirk was speaking.

 

This rally, organized by the Illinois Coaltion on Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), was intended to draw attention to Mark Kirk's untenable positions on racial and religious profiling and his inadequate and foolish immigration policies.

I participated in the rally on behalf of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC).  The CIOGC has been actively engaged with the immigration reform movement for several years now.  The CIOGC's past chairman, Abdul Malik Mujahid, was a strong advocate of immigration reform and believed strongly in getting American-Muslims involved in coalitions that worked for the common good.  We are working to continue in that same vein.

Several hundred people gathered and marched and chanted.  The mood was up-beat.

I had a chance to speak at the rally and my message was simply this:

In Illinois we need leaders who reflect values of tolerance and open-mindedness.  There is no place for fearmongers like Mark Kirk in elective office.  While we despise the things he believes in, we are open to forgiving him...so long as he retracts his call for profiling and if he is amenable to a meaningful dialogue on immigration reform.

A reporter from Fox News asked me why a Muslim was out rallying with so many Latinos.

 

I told the Fox News reporter that immigration reform is an that impacts all Americans, that Mark Kirk's ideas and policies involving immigrants reverberate through a wide cross-section of America's immigrant communities, and that his fearmonger has impacted American-Muslims too.

Si Se Puede!

***UPDATE***

Check out Fox News coverage of the Mark Kirk story today - click here.