Posted on 09/17/2001 1:17:01 AM PDT by aculeus
THERE'S a famous photo of a Japanese-owned grocery store in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, with these words emblazoned across the front: "I am an American." It accurately encapsulates the way many of us in the Islamic and Arab community in America feel at this hour.
As it becomes ever more apparent that our co-religionists have visited slaughter upon our compatriots, so many of us want to declare from the rooftops our allegiance to this great nation, to show our solidarity with our fellow citizens, and to join the fight against our common enemy.
Despite their demonstrations of patriotism after Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were thrown into internment camps. This is not likely to happen to us. President Bush, Colin Powell, Ted Kennedy and countless pundits have bent over backwards to make sure Americans know that not all Arabs are to blame, and to explain that Islam and Islamic fundamentalism are not the same thing. They are correct, and it is good to hear them say it, because even I need to be reminded sometimes.
In fact, I wonder, when I hear these words of ecumenical brotherhood, whether Islam and Muslims are not getting a bit of a pass on this one. When I read Muslims posting messages of joy on internet newsgroups, declaring that the chickens have come home to roost, I wonder where these people come from. Are they the people I pray with at the mosque? Are they the New York cabbies I greet with a hearty salam alaikum and who in my mind have always been models of hard work and the American way? Could it be that Islam is not the religion of peace that I've been telling everybody it is, but instead a faith of bloodthirsty fatwas that exalts murder and suicide? Is it conceivable that Muslims are not the noble people I believe them with all my heart to be, but rather the kind of monsters who celebrate death and destruction?
No. It cannot be. But if I - a man born and raised into the faith, with Arab parents and a deep love for the culture of the Arab world - can ask these questions, what questions must my Protestant and Jewish and Catholic friends be asking? And how can I, as a Muslim, give them an answer? I certainly cannot look to the national leadership of the Islamic community in America for guidance. The American Muslim Council tells us to be careful, to be on the lookout for suspicious and anti-Muslim behaviour, presumably by other Americans seeking revenge. The Council on American Islamic Relations even sent out an e-mail with a handy form for reporting hate crimes against Muslims. I wonder if these groups are oblivious to the fact that it is Muslims, with names such as Mohammed and Abdullah and, yes, Tarek, who have committed the greatest hate crime in American history?
As the nation mourns, as foreign countries pledge support and offer condolences, American Muslims are strangely absent from this tragedy, save the occasional press release. The only Muslims that America sees are Osama bin Laden and the mugshots of Tuesday's suicide bombers.
Already we can hear rumblings in the Muslim community about the need to keep fighting against "profiling" - the practice of singling out Arabs and Muslims for increased scrutiny at airports. They had been making headway - both presidential candidates denounced profiling during the 2000 campaign - and now they fear that public sentiment will slide in the other direction.
But Tuesday's events should have demonstrated the folly of their position. How many thousands of lives would have been saved if people such as me had been inconvenienced with having our bags searched and being made to answer questions? People say profiling makes them feel like criminals. It does - I know this firsthand. But would that I had been made to feel like a criminal a thousand times than to live to see the grisly handiwork of real criminals in New York and Washington.
I can hear my co-religionists arguing that Muslims bear no special responsibility for these attacks, that a community of six million law-abiding Americans should not apologise just because a few of them committed a crime. Perhaps they are right. But looking at the images of shattered buildings and dead bodies, of people jumping to their deaths and of planes wielded as instruments of death, how can we not apologise, knowing these images were brought to us by people who claim to act in the name of the faith we call our own? An apology would be little to ask. Instead of jealously protesting our innocence and guarding against repercussions, we should be asking, "What else can we do to help?"
Like the New Yorkers who even now are volunteering in greater numbers than relief workers can make use of, it is time for American Muslims to start acting like Americans.
Tarek Masoud is a graduate student at Yale. This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal
This man -- no, this AMERICAN! -- has put them to shame.
Try and get a paperback of their so-called holy book.
You can't.
That's because it is probably jam-packed with anti-infidel rhetoric.
Americans who think this is just extremists supporting this are wrong. Mainstream muslims are ok with what happened.
This author is sickened because he knows that, for years, his community has tacitly endorsed this type of thing. Now he's scared, because we are furious.
Notice his comment about the chat-rooms.
The chickens have come home to roost, indeed.
If this sort of activity is not endorsed by their religion, then what does the word 'Jihad' mean? Why is there a word for the systematic, religiously-endorsed killing of infidels?
Americans need to wake up and smell the coffee.
'But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)'
See, their religion endorses slaying 'pagans'.
That would be us non-muslims.
Strange but true.
That's why the crusades were crusades, they were really one religion against another, not mere fights about land, or about some king dissing another.
This is indeed a crusade.
Let's roll.
Yale should kick this guy and all the other muslims out.
Then the INS should put their asses on a dirty pork-transport ship and send them back to their hell-hole, lice-endemic countries.
Too little and too late for your crybaby editorial dude.
I understand why this guy feels this way, but I have a serious problem with his use of the word co-religionists .
I am a Christian and would never consider the sects of the Aryan Christian Nation as co-religionists.
We are being lead to believe that Bin Laden are the "Aryan Christian Nation" of Islam.
Being from Yale surely he knows the difference.
I still do not see the comdemnation of
That is true if you happen to be a short, fat, bald, white guy, like me, driving through a minority neighborhood. Or a poor hispanic driving a dilapidated vehicle through an upscale neighborhood.
It is fair to be suspicious of those who might resemble a bad guy. It is fair to be on heightened alert to their actions. It is not fair to act on that suspicion without proof that the individual is, in fact, a bad guy.
It would also be nice if some Arab-Americans would go to Langley and tell the CIA they want to get involved with the war on terrorism. In WW2 many ethnic Japanese, German and Italian young men put aside the bigotry of their countrymen and fought for the USA. Lets hope those in the Arab community can do the same and achieve the same integration that Japanese, German and Italians now enjoy.
The WTC attack did not occur because Americans have too much freedom.
It occurred because:
The fact that William Cohen, Dick Gephardt and other statists propound that the only solution to terrorism is to "trade freedom for security" betrays the reality that their true agenda is to curtail freedom.
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