Posted on 11/10/2001 10:34:43 AM PST by white trash redneck
Here's what ails Muslims in U.S.
BY ZAFAR A. HASAN
Since Sept. 11, many Americans have questioned the agenda of immigrant American Muslims in the international arena. While there are many subtle differences of opinion among immigrant Muslims, the vast majority seek to relieve the Muslim world of tyranny and to eliminate its military conflicts. They seek the restoration of Islamic civilization, which is currently in ruins.
This is an admirable agenda. Yet, this same group of immigrant American Muslims has responded to the Sept. 11 attacks in a wholly unsatisfactory manner. Many commentators have criticized American Muslims for responding to the attacks without appropriate sensitivity, rejecting the evidence against Osama bin Ladin and overstating the role of American foreign policy as a contributing factor in the attacks.
How does a community with noble aims provide such an inadequate response? There are innumerable reasons. Chief among these is poor leadership. Many immigrant American Muslim leaders exhibit deep psychological baggage, which prevents the problems of the Muslim world from being properly diagnosed and treated. Included among these traits are:
**Defeatism. Many American Muslim leaders believe that their destiny is controlled by forces such as American foreign policy. Implicit in this view is the notion that the Muslim world does not control its own fate--a notion that exemplifies defeatism.
**Numbness to tragedy. This results from immigration from war-torn or impoverished nations, where innocents often die en masse. As a result, immigrant Muslims are desensitized to tragedy and provide subdued reactions. This creates suspicion among other Americans, who are quite sensitive to such horror.
**Mistrust of government. This results from Muslim immigrants' interaction with government in the Muslim world, where tyranny and corruption define government. This mistrust results in paranoid concerns that the American government manufactures evidence to justify Muslim oppression.
**Deep kinship with fellow Muslims. Without strong leadership, this otherwise admirable quality leads Muslims to extend the cloak of brotherhood to undeserving Muslims. Because Muslims fail to understand the horrific agenda of such people, they unwittingly sympathize with the terrorists' causes while condemning their means.
Thus, this psychological baggage results from broken social relations in Muslim countries. It is clear that American Muslim responses reflect a battered mind-set, not a moral deficiency. Unfortunately, it is equally clear that many Muslim immigrants are ill-equipped to address the most rudimentary challenges of modernity.
These circumstances demand strong leadership, which can convince our community that:
**The catastrophic state of Islamic civilization results primarily from the breakdown of social relations within Muslim societies.
**While Muslims may benefit from a change in American foreign policy, this solution will not address the real problems of the Muslim world. For example, the establishment of a Palestinian state will not solve the problem of illiteracy in Pakistan. Nor will it solve the problems of the Palestinians themselves, who will still have to confront the challenges of modernity.
* Both the ends and the means of groups like the Taliban betray Islam. While the American Muslim agenda is enlightened, Taliban's ultimate aim is to spread its own brand of tyranny. The Taliban's pattern of intolerance has already been established: brutality against women, incarceration of proselytizing Christians and destruction of Buddhist statues.
Strong leadership could also comfort our community by explaining that the Muslim world has the means to address its problems. The Muslim world has wealth and natural resources as well as noted scientists, jurists and educators. Muslims only need leadership to coordinate these resources and to confront corruption. This is an important message for a community drowning in defeatism. It conveys a sense of empowerment.
Finally, there is hope for immigrant American Muslims. That generation will soon pass the mantle of leadership to its children, who have been raised in a society with credible social relations and without the baggage of the generation that precedes it.
Like the Orthodox Greeks, Irish Catholics, European Jews and other people of faith who came before us, this generation of American Muslims will establish a respected place in the social fabric of America.
They seek the restoration of Islamic civilization, which is currently in ruins. This is an admirable agenda.
Admirable? Why? I fully disagree. It's anacronistic and aggressively promotes iconoclasm.
**Mistrust of government. This results from Muslim immigrants' interaction with government in the Muslim world, where tyranny and corruption define government. This mistrust results in paranoid concerns that the American government manufactures evidence to justify Muslim oppression.
I doubt this. They left those old tyrannical countries and came here. They knew exactly where they were going. When they got here, they found it to be TOO free. And they know damn well America is not tyrannical or duplicitous; they simply succumb to that age-old Muslim compulsion to lie, even to the point of self-delusion -- and it's all because we favor Israel.
**Deep kinship with fellow Muslims. Without strong leadership, this otherwise admirable quality leads Muslims to extend the cloak of brotherhood to undeserving Muslims.
With this, I agree. And what a disservice it is to America. Their brotherhood needs to be with America and her interests, far in advance of old kinships. The fact that this conflict in affinities breeds intense disloyalty makes me think these folks need to go back to their kinships and leave us a better, safer place.
Finally, there is hope for immigrant American Muslims. That generation will soon pass the mantle of leadership to its children, who have been raised in a society with credible social relations and without the baggage of the generation that precedes it.
I think not. It is that very danger (that young immigrant Muslims may become acculturated here, and, worse yet, "convert" or cease to practice Islam) which has Muslims so in a tizzy worldwide. Hence their strident efforts to recruit numbed youth for the jihad, and to ostracize and intimidate all who fail to fall into line.
The rest of what he had to say, I pretty much agreed with, but I thought it was fairly watered down. And for that, like another respondent said, his life may be in danger. These guys are a scourge.
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I see no such similar actions on the part of Muslim Americans. Indeed may express that their first loyalty is to their "brother Muslims" not to the country that genersouly took them in and allowed them to start new lives for themselves and their families. There are of course some patriotic Muslims serving in the armed forces, but the Muslim community as a whole has yet to show any desire to prove their patriotism. Weasel-worded messages of sympathy for the 911 victims are not enough. Until the Muslim community as a whole loudly and proudly puts patriotism before religion, and fully supports our war effort, they will be rightly viewed with suspicion by the American people.
If you are not 100% with us, do us all a favor and leave before we show you the door.
Muslims better continue looking inward, and be ready to strike down any psychotic elements spawned by their ideology.
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