Family of Muslim Marine struggles with their conflicted emotions

Suburban Chicago Daily Herald ^ | March 25, 2003 | Kathryn Grondin

[newgeezer]

Family of Muslim Marine struggles with their conflicted emotions
By Kathryn Grondin Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted March 25, 2003

Atif Mostafa

The Mostafa family experiences a daily tug-of-war of emotions about the fighting in Iraq.

The Mostafas are drawn to the TV coverage of the war, yet they dread it at the same time.

They hope for a glimpse of their brother and son, 21-year-old Atif Mostafa, a U.S. Marine. They dread the thought of seeing him injured or dead.

Mostafa's brother, Emad, chooses to leave the TV off.

"It's very scary and very unnerving," said Emad, who lives in Westmont. "You hear all the crazy stuff going on and you think, 'It's not going to be him. It's not going to be him.' You try to convince yourself and you hope."

Younger brother Amer Mostafa, a Bensenville businessman, cannot bear to turn away from the TV screen.

"I'm so exhausted. I'm dying for a second to see his face," Amer said. "I've been sleeping with the TV on ... I'm just desperate to see his face."

Anyone with a loved one in the war probably shares those feelings. What complicates them for the Mostafas is the fact they are Muslim.

They say their faith sustains them, but it also opens them up to shocked reactions about their brother and criticism from others who are opposed to the war.

Days ago, a man at an Egyptian coffeehouse in Chicago told Amer he should no longer consider himself Egyptian.

When the man found out about Amer's brother, he said: "Shame on you. Your brother is an Arabic Muslim fighting other Arabs, fighting other Muslims."

Amer said he told the man: "It's not a war about religion. It's not over nationality. The war is over freedom."

According to Council on American-Islamic Relations, 15,000 to 20,000 Muslims are in the U.S. Armed Forces, including soldiers, chaplains, doctors and nurses. It's unclear how many them are from the Chicago area.

The Mostafas, who are originally from Cairo and lived in Saudi Arabia before emigrating to the United States several years ago, say they pray for peace, but believe war is justified only as a last resort.

The family, including Atif's parents, six brothers and one sister, all support him. His father, Radwan, who lives in California, opposes the war because he feels President Bush is wrongly serving as judge of the world.

"I'm proud of him but I'm upset that he's in a place he doesn't belong," Radwan said.

Most of the family chooses to believe Bush's motivations are genuine, and they feel Saddam Hussein needs to be removed from power - even killed.

"Sometimes it takes force to keep peace," said Emad, a member of the Islamic Foundation mosque in Villa Park. "This is the price."

Atif, who became interested in the military in high school ROTC, joined because he appreciated the regimented life and the rules, Emad said. Atif wanted to fight for peace and safety. He plans to become a doctor when he completes his service.

"He's a hero already," Amer said of his brother. "He's going to free people who cannot speak on their own, poor people ... He's fighting for human rights."

On another front, the family is confronting stereotypes of Muslims.

Over the weekend, a van sitting outside the south suburban home of a Palestinian-Muslim family was bombed, said Omar Haydar, executive director of the Chicago chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations. Burbank police are investigating what could have been a large firework that went off inside the family's van, but have not yet classified it as a hate crime, Burbank police Capt. Roger Alexander said.

Last week, three other suspected hate crimes were reported in various suburbs, including at the Villa Park mosque.

Then came news that a U.S. soldier suspected in a lethal grenade attack against American troops is a Muslim convert.

"It does nothing but give the wrong message about Islam," Emad Mostafa said. "It's one of the worst things in Islam - to turn on your own people. If he didn't believe in what they were doing, he shouldn't have been there."

Sgt. Asan Akbar was taken into custody following the Sunday attack, which killed one soldier.

"It does make things even more difficult," Haydar said.

Kareem Irfan, executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations in Lombard, said he hopes Americans have moved past the broad stereotypes of Muslims that emerged after Sept. 11, 2001.

"I'm very confident that the vast majority of the American community will recognize this was a misguided attack," he said of the grenade incident, "and should not be attributed to Islam or the Muslim-American community in general."

• Daily Herald staff writer Teresa Mask contributed to this report.

[newgeezer]

It's terrible, it's wrong when any Americans are stereotyped, victimized and persecuted due to their ethnicity or religion. The Mostafas sound like good Americans. But, in Emad Mostafa's own words, his is "the wrong message about Islam." Much as I posted in another thread, they and the rest of the misguided "religion of peace" ignorami need to come to terms with the fact that by definition the Islamic fundamentalists (e.g. bin Laden) -- the ones who read and study and believe their Koran and their prophet Muhammad -- know Islam and its message better than anyone else.

[annyokie]

Family of assasinated Commanding Officer NOT conflicted.

[Bogey78O]

Well this isn't the family of the muslim fanatic who killed the officer.

[newgeezer]

Just to dispel any confusion...

This story is not about that Muslim.

[Illbay]

So what do they think of the Shi'ites who are now, by all accounts, rising (once again) against Saddam?

Saddam is responsible for FAR more deaths of Muslims than the U.S.

Why can't they look at it this way, and stop the hand-wringing?

One thing that makes it difficult for ANYONE to see this clearly is the modern tendency to stick that hyphen in front of the title "American." If you're a "Muslim-American" or an "Arab-American," well, you see which word comes first, don't you?

[PoisedWoman]

CAIR has obviously been sending out PR articles, picked up in this case by smalltown newspaper.

I do not doubt, however, that any number of Muslim servicmen may be loyal to the USA and willing to give their all in battle against Saddam, whom many despise.

[Verginius Rufus]

Saddam Hussein has possibly killed more Muslims than any other man in history, or at least more than anyone since the 13th-century Mongol invasions of the Middle East...yet it is wrong for non-Muslims to intervene to end his tyranny. We had better hope that not many Iraqi Muslims fall into this way of thinking.

[Illbay]

This notion that "bin Laden et al know Islam and its message better than anyone else" is just whack.

ANYONE can pervert a wholesome religion into something twisted and dark, as Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Bhagwan Rashneesh should tell you.

I know many Muslims. They are not monsters, much as too many bigots on FR would like to assert. Their religion is DIFFERENT. It is STRANGE to us, but it has a noble history as well as--to a limited degree--an ignoble one.

There are no religions in this world that can claim any different.

[annyokie]

I stand corrected. Note to self: Read more carefully.

[viaveritasvita]

I don't believe a word of it -- good article, though, for gin-ing up the emotions of fence sitters and those who have no understanding whatsoever of the warfare between islam and Christianity. One is either with us or against us. Being a member of the Islamic cult is, by default, against us.

[P-Marlowe]

Where is the conflict. When these Muslims have not been too busy killing Christians and Jews, they invariably turn to killing each other. Killing Christians and Jews has always been more or less a diversion to take their minds off how much they hate and want to kill each other.

Were these people conflicted when Iraq invaded Kuwait or Iran? Are they conflicted because Turkey wants to kill all the Kurds?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

So I guess Christian fundamentalists know the religion better than anyone else?

[TADSLOS]

Days ago, a man at an Egyptian coffeehouse in Chicago told Amer he should no longer consider himself Egyptian.

When the man found out about Amer's brother, he said: "Shame on you. Your brother is an Arabic Muslim fighting other Arabs, fighting other Muslims."

And this, ladies and gentlemen, precisely demonstrates the nature of our problem with Islam in the United States. Muslims in this country consider their religion, one that espouses destruction of the very people who allow them safe harbor and freedom to worship as they please, to reign supreme over the land that they either claim to be citizens of or wish to be as an immigrant. They are out to dismantle the very government that wraps them in the freedom and security that they could not know under a theocratic Islamic regime and that they wish to ultimately secure here on our shores. It's a sick form of schitzophrenia and it is a danger to us all.

[joesnuffy]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...this is a basic tennet
Bin Laden was confronted by Saddams murder of muslims in Iraq and Iran
Bin's advice was to fogetaboudit...water under the bridge....Saddam is fighting satan and thats all thats important and that all of Islam should support him...
The consensus of the pureists...

[Bogey78O]

It's an "O" not an 0

I think I'd get pinged more if FR let me register my usual handle.

[annyokie]

Sorry. I should know better. FReepmail your "regular" handle and I am sure I will remember!

[Kevin Curry]

"It's one of the worst things in Islam - to turn on your own people."

Just everyday life in Iraq.

[Valin]

Your brother is an Arabic Muslim fighting other Arabs, fighting other Muslims."

This idiot really needs to look at a history book.

[Ronin]

If I were a soldier in Iraq I know, not think -- KNOW, I would be extremely nervous if I knew the man in the hole next to me was a Muslim.

That may be prejudice, but it is also a fact of life. I would be wondering where his loyalties truly rested. I would spend a lot of time keeping him in the corner of my eye -- so much time that maybe an Iraqi could lob in a gernade.

This Marine may be everything that Marines should be -- but even so -- he does not belong in this fight. Not until universally recognised Muslim religious authorities make it clear by fatwa that they are as religiously obligated to follow their military oathes as any Roman Catholic who is ordered to fight in Spain.

Until that happens, there are plenty of other hot spots. Korea comes rather quickly to mind. Send him there.

[WaterDragon]

Frankly, the families of killers just have to deal with it however they choose. Their grief is to me far less to be honored than the grieve of the families of the killer's victims, as well as the grief of the public, mourning the slaughter of good men, men important to us and our security.