ademsblog

Who's a Fascist? Follow the Money

2007-09-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Emerging from the mosque, quiet and subdued after Tarawih prayers! The crowd leaves, drifting down the street, their energy covered, hidden, and simple. Who are these Muslims?

We the Muslims are disguised like actors in a modern play, the Muslims bouncing in hip-hop dress and sideways hats and casual body language join other Muslims wearing Thoba and Fez, guiding families with serious, economical movements like traffic cops.

We Muslims are a crowd, a tribe, coming together, and dispersing. We try to follow the guiding wisdom of Revelation; but our gestures of obedience inspire fear into the hearts of unbelievers. How can they trust anyone who prostrates to the ground?

But what are Muslims obedient to, after the hour of prayer is passed? This crowd could turn around and stone a prophet, same as other crowds. A moment could change everything. Or does prayer really immunize us from infectious hysteria? Does passive acceptance of wisdom teach us to apply wisdom directly to our lives?

As I see us walking, I feel compassion but I doubt our capacity. Living in these modern roles, playing our part in the infomercial of modern life, you and I are not very prepared for another level of being. Are we not still walking in a dream?

Which dream? The American Dream? The dream of Caliphate? How many young searching Muslims are lost in the internet? How many Americans? Humanity is talking fearfully in its sleep –we hear the whisperings from radios coast to coast.

Dreams offer hope as well as fear. But dreams can be useful to the powers that be, adapting to the agendas and needs of the day. Writer Naomi Klein has observed, “If the dream of the open, borderless “small planet” was the ticket to profits during the Clinton years, the nightmare of the menacing, fortressed Western continents, under siege from jihadists and illegal immigrants, plays the same role in the new millennium.”

Fear feeds profits. Klein’s new book explores how war and major disasters have begun to fuel the military industrial complex that increasingly powers this nation. The economy may become to be dependent on these crises, leading to a deepening spiral of violence and oppression. As Klein writes, “The more panicked our societies become, convinced that there are terrorists lurking in every mosque, the higher the news ratings soar, the more biometric IDs and liquid-explosive-detection devices the complex sells, and the more high-tech fences it builds.”

Blackwater maintains a private army of 20,000 high-paid soldiers in Iraq; they are not accountable to taxpayers when abuses or deaths take place. Lockheed Martin tripled its stock price after the year 2000; overall, defense stocks rose 76 percent in the last 5 years, while other stocks declined by 5 percent. Oil companies have made record profits (40 billion by ExxonMobil in 2006) and the economy is becoming dependent on this privatization of services.

Klein points out that both Blackwater and Halliburton give over 93 percent of campaign contributions to the Republicans. Like Christian Zionists, these groups align almost exclusively with Republican interests and will lose vast amounts of political influence if Democrats win next election. Lobbyists and ideologues have infiltrated the US government, the courts, and the media to ensure this does not happen. They work hard to privatize services to keep them in control.

As Klein observes, “When the contractor infrastructure built up during the Bush years is looked at as a whole, what we see is …a corporate shadow-state …built almost exclusively with public resources, including the training of its staff: 90 percent of Blackwater’s revenues come from state contracts, and the majority of its employees are former politicians, soldiers, and civil servants. Yet the vast infrastructure is all privately owned and controlled…. The actual state, meanwhile, has lost the ability to perform its core functions without the help of contractors. Its own equipment is out of date, and the best experts have fled to the private sector. When Katrina hit, FEMA had to hire a contractor to award contracts to contractors.”

Muslim Americans have long endured weak, decentralized Muslim leadership fragmented on ethnic and racial lines. But on the other hand, many of us retain a sense of obedience to a larger order, and many of us come from cultures with strong authoritarian traditions. Does that make us real or potential “Islamofascists?” The Right likes to point to our authoritarian regimes and even to our religious obedience to make the case that we are a threat. Their pundits label everything “Islamofascist” they do not like or understand.

Last year President Bush also began to use this terminology as well, to please his political base. ISNA President Ingrid Mattson criticized this use of the term, and Journalist Eric Margolies agreed: "There is nothing in any part of the Muslim World that resembles the corporate fascist states of western history. In fact, clan and tribal-based traditional Islamic society, with its fragmented power structures, local loyalties, and consensus decision-making, is about as far as possible from western industrial state fascism. The Muslim World is replete with brutal dictatorships, feudal monarchies, and corrupt military-run states, but none of these regimes, however deplorable, fits the standard definition of fascism. Most, in fact, are America’s allies."

But if Fascism stands for militarism, elitism and nationalism, contempt for democracy and a manipulation of national humiliation, we can say that George Bush is a fascist. Not only does Bush push to maximize the power of the presidency, he seeks to weaken controls on Big Business and to feed the engines of war at every opportunity.

“War on Terror” Judge Michael Mukasey is currently expected to replace Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General. This is yet another troubling indication that neo-fascist tough guy Rudolph Guiliani will strongly influence the coming election. Mukasey and his son, Marc, are advisers to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. Marc also works at Giuliani's law firm. Michael was the judge who swore in Mayor-elect Giuliani in 1994 and 1998. Wake up Muslims! Pray for Peace! Organize for Justice! And yes-- down with fascism!

Community of Interest, Community of Others

2007-09-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

Ramadan is coming. What will it bring? How will it be different this year? What will we each learn as a member of the community and what as an individual?

The train stops at the subway station. An unknown person boards the train, clutching a black bag, wearing dark sunglasses and a coat –despite the heat. Then one perhaps notices the skin is fairly dark, hard to know what ethnicity. It is even hard to know the gender of this person, who sits just across from me. I recall the warning: “If You See Something Say Something.” Oh dear, I cannot even see the eyes or what this person is looking at.

Of course I think of the descriptions of suicide bombers dressed in bulky garments, and sniff the air for the smell of manure or other explosive materials. What to do? Shall I stay seated or move my seat to the far end of the train?

Just as I am about to move my seat, I realize that this person is not a terrorist. Rather, this person is homeless, clutching a few pathetic worldly possessions and prepared to sleep with dark glasses protecting against the glare of the train lights. This person is wearing protective covering almost like a person in hijab. Could someone like me have reported this person as a national security threat?

We all know that over six years have passed since the terror attack of 9/11. During this time there have indeed been other terror attacks around the world, and a variety of plots and conspiracies. However, right wing agitators have fanned a fear of Muslims way out of proportion to any existing threat. We have become the new “Other.” Through the internet, a range of misguided vigilante groups are able to spread fear and misinformation just as other extremists do. This fear is helpful to maintain pressure on the government to maintain the neo-conservative agenda.

In Germany last week, some young Muslim converts were arrested as terrorism suspects. While it is too early to judge the relative strength of this case, or assess the role informers apparently played in this plot, one noted with some surprise the news reports that 32,150 German residents are categorized as radical threats, but only 100 of these are considered dangerous. Assuming this categorization even makes sense, one might indeed agree to the surveillance of a few. But then how does one treat the so-called “threat” of the much larger number? Do they all lose a certain number of rights? We have heard that the German government is using this opportunity to ask for surveillance of all Muslim converts. And what rights are we losing here? What is the standard for surveillance? In New York City, we have been asking such questions following the recent publication of the NYPD report on Muslim radicalization, indicating a very wide net of planned surveillance.

And throughout the USA, the telephone and communications companies have been providing information to the Federal Government not only on persons of interest but on “communities of interest.” Recent reports indicate that data mining is affecting enormous numbers of people associated or casually connected with radical Muslims. Since “radical” is a rather subjective term, it seems that we are all in this community of interest. Data mining is all fairly automatic intelligence gathering. It is not very intelligent. The computer does not judge us—it simply looks for links. We are all connected— a new reflection on the slogan of AT&T.

Perhaps we perceive the rationalizations for surveillance of the entire Muslim community. Perhaps this wide-angle focus goes towards understanding why so many millions are on lists to be flagged at airports. But in the process we as Muslims are being made to feel homeless and suspect in our own country. And some of us also see Non-Muslims as “others” as well. Therefore we all become “Others.” And as Americans we are all wearing dark glasses, blind to the reality in front of us.

This reality cannot be known through ideology alone or understood through fear. So how to understand each other in a more comprehensive way, to move beyond the clash of extremisms and media hype? We may study anthropology and psychology to know the “other” as ourselves. And insha'Allah religion may help us understand. Along with other tools, music and art may embody and express deep human knowledge and open our minds and hearts to larger realities.

Even through their artifice, theater can prepare us to better see reality. And as theater, our public rituals represent and even transform a community’s collective identity through negotiation of symbol and space and power relationships. And parades and conferences provide multicolored mirrors for us all—out in the open for all to see.

At New York’s Muslim day Parade yesterday thousands of Muslim men and women turned out to show their pride in face of attacks by the right wing. Walking past the counter protestors with their misleading signs and hateful cries, many of our brothers and sisters became energized and glowed with light. It was, as one speaker observed, a wonderful opportunity to show our better side to those who fear and even hate us.

On the other side of the street, as a mirror image of the counter-protestors, the Islamic Thinkers group hoisted their provocative signs, separate from the main parade celebration. But Messages of hate and Holocaust denial have no place at such an event. Extreme views, like support for 9/11 terror, should have no place in the wider Muslim community either.

This Ramadan let us be careful not to drink the Kool-Aid of extremist political ideology of any flavor. Instead, this Ramadan we as a “community of interest” will come together to quench our deepest thirst in positive and fearless ways, not as Others, but as our deepest selves. Insha’Allah, in this world of injustice and confusion, we will find someone “other” to whom we give the last word; we will find an “other” to love; and Creation will smile back at us all.

Beyond Rainbow Colors: Flying in the Clarity of Faith

2007-09-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

“Nobody told me when I was born/ that my life would be harder than my father’s and son’s lives. Nobody told me when I was a child/ that life was full of pits and tunnels and trackless labyrinths. Nobody told me when I was a youth/ that my homeland was not a homeland and that my enemy and friend are aligned against me/ and my lover would be as fickle as a chameleon.”

Uncertainty as a way of life comes as a surprise and a form of suffering. So observed the Iraqi poet Hashem Shafiq several years before the fall of Saddam. But could he have imagined how his words would ring in the silence of depopulated and dangerous Baghdad streets? How could he have dreamed that his own Iraqis would end dispersed in labyrinthine exile throughout neighboring nations-- almost like the Palestinians?

As a student of intellectual history perhaps Hashem had realized such displacement and loss was possible, though he tried to avoid facing the possibility—for, as the poem continues: “Nobody, except Brecht, told me when I was a young man that exiles are the shoes they wear, and only Sartre told me that political parties are religions, and only Abu al-Atahiah told me that mankind is a curse. And when I became an adult, I did not tell myself: beware of tomorrow.”

Beware of tomorrow? True, for the displacement of millions of men, women and children will continue. Beware of today? Now in Darfur, Arab tribes murder and drive way Arab tribes. As Jeffrey Gettleman writes in the New York Times this week, “Darfur is beginning to resemble Somalia, the world’s longest-running showcase for AK-47-fed chaos. Highwaymen in green camouflage…routinely flag down trucks and drag out passengers, robbing the men and sexually assaulting the women. Newly empowered warlords are exacting taxes…”

And these empowered men are Muslims? These heavily armed Arab tribes Terjem and Mahria, that earlier raped and pillaged together as Janjaweed in Darfur, have they now turned on each other as well? And this “Arab-Arab bloodshed, fueled by an overflow of guns in Darfur and a breakdown in the traditional order, seems to be spreading faster than anyone can control. Several tribes have recently fought over land, livestock and the right to extort money along certain trade routes. Among those fighting: Hotiya versus Rizeigat … Rizeigat versus Habanniya; Habanniya versus Salamat.”

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend. I have seen this mindset in action even in the socially mobile neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I have seen versions of it divide and oppress both immigrant and former slave. In many Muslim American communities no one truly trusts the other, or speaks the other’s language, and here we are all fallen and in exile. Things Fall apart, the Center will not hold. While officials sleep in soft white beds, tribal loyalties haunt the house like mice, increasing in number and increasing in hunger too. Where is Islam? Is it only a dream?

This week Felix is yet another hurricane name. But long before Islam arrived in Yemen in 630, Arabia Felix--or Happy Arabia—was a group of wealthy kingdoms selling incense and spices along the Camel routes of the Indian Ocean. Oh where are they now, with their famous hydraulic technology for wells, their fabled wealth? Where is Saba, Ma'in; Qataban, Hadramaut? Where is Zufar? Hardly anything about this kingdom is known, no texts have been found. However this region has also been linked to Ubar and Iram, mentioned in the Quran as a splendid city punished for wickedness; 89.6-13.

Empires fall, and drag down millions into misery. Empires promise peace, but there is a price. But can Empires really keep out the chaos of factions and tribes? The Iraqi Poet Hashem also considered another colonial power that tried to do such a thing, observing the wall of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, constructed in Britain: “In the first century, There was a Roman King -- to whom the stones submitted, And the Rebel land yielded. And the sea And the blue color of these skies… What kind of plundering King is this who chases out of his capital all the "Barbarians" of the world and builds this steady wall in the face of older times, against the wind, against spears plotting elsewhere?”

One might ask these questions to Israel, to the USA, about any colonial power, any utopian oppressor. And yet even when a system is unjust, it is not impossible to mitigate oppression. For example, as they tried to colonize Morocco, the French faced resistance in the Bled el Siba –the countryside traditionally characterized by dissidence and anarchy and tribalism. These days such violent tribes would be condemned as terrorists like the Taliban.

In 1922, Abdulkrim El-Khattabi declared the formation of an “Independent Republic,” a confederation of tribes with an impressive force of about 120,000 guerilla troops. However, the combined French and Spanish colonial armies — using, among other weapons, mustard case against the population— defeated the forces of Abd el-Krim and he was forced into exile.

However after their submission many tribes (such as the Beni Mtir) were allowed to keep customary law and tribal council, easing the way for their slow economic integration. If we accept that collectively we are part of an existing empire then it might be wise to learn from earlier examples of patience and mercy.

However, many Muslim nations do not learn from history, and seem caught in a terrible cycle of action and reaction, between anarchy and authoritarian control. Visionaries and careful administrators are both needed, at least if they are able work together in the spirit (and not just the law) of our religion.

The lawless and violent present seems ugly indeed, but it is also time for creative initiative. This year let us pray for peace based on human initiative and faith not founded on fear.

The new morning air is fresh. Morning glories open starry eyes. All nature is opening. All nature is enjoying its break fast. Even in this city of the Empire State, dandelions come before deadlines. Even here the phone lines resemble musical scores, and like soaring notes the birds fly up from along the lines into clarity; birds fly beyond the rainbow of our tribal soul. Why-- oh why--- can’t we?

The Way Through Walls Without Explosives

2007-08-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

Roots shatter concrete through their persistent striving, vital force. Even small, determined flowers may find a way to rise from pavements’ desert of stone. Will you, surrounded by walls on every side, be and become a conscious light coming to fruition on the other side?

God knows best what the wall builders of our cities have in mind for the grassroots. Gentrification as usual and people priced out of their homes. Foreclosures increasing. High rises rising on foundations of sand and shifting business alliances. Fault lines everywhere. Everything is constantly changing. We must move ahead not blindly but riding the earthquake with agility and awareness.

As the fifteenth of Shaban arrives, we learn that Alberto Gonzalez has stepped down. We may give thanks and pray in our fasting and reflection that the next Attorney General is very different and actually respects human rights. Let us be skeptical that will happen but be open to the possibility!

Insha’Allah some day soon Mr. Gonzalez will be in jail along with recently departed Karl Rove, and most of the current administration. But like the despots of Muslim nations that settle for sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, they will probably be allowed a comfortable exile, where they will hope that former Mayor Guiliani gets elected and brings them back to power. They will then try to active their own grassroots—or at least the astro-turf of well-paid lobbying firms.

Private arms of the current neo-conservative ruling class are becoming desperate. To try to create resistance to “multicultural” acceptance of Arabs as well as Muslims, well-paid provocateurs have been bugging the meetings of our coalition to Save the Khalil Gibran School in Brooklyn, New York—they have posted their tapes on their website. Even Nixon’s folks never did that.

Within the rising walls around us, the “War on Terror” has a widening network of whispering underground and overhead. The current “anti-Terror” database contains over 235,000 entries now. Moreover, according to a notice in the Federal Register last week the government said private-sector entities with a "substantial bearing on homeland security" could also gain access to the data, which is kept for 99 years. It is not clear if that would include Daniel Pipes’ affiliated groups or not.

Such private vigilante groups have also been going after interfaith partners and colleagues including sympathetic Rabbis. Moreover, Islamophobe David Horowitz plans a week of anti-Muslim “terror awareness” programs on campuses around the nation at the end of Ramadan. These are also designed to attack the idea of Global warming and other issues the corporate backers of the Christian Right would rather not hear about.

What is clear is that the Right is desperate and will use national security as an issue from now until Election Day 2008. They will continue to try to scare the average citizen. Will Americans finally get tired of fear for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Of course, there are many reasons for concern, at home and abroad. A pair of synchronized explosions tore through a restaurant and a open air auditorium in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 30 people and wounding 60 others. Violence echoes from wall to wall.

Another concern: a United Nations report due this week will announce that Afghanistan is now producing nearly 95 percent of the world's opium, up from 92 percent in 2006. This marks the sixth straight year of rises since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001. At the same time, a new 'super-weapon' being supplied to British soldiers in Afghanistan employs technology based on the "thermobaric" principle using heat and pressure to kill people across a wide area by sucking the air out of lungs and rupturing internal organs. So it the drugs don’t kill you…. Nice British soldiers will.

In their own ways, the Taliban and the allied Occupation would each like to minimize violence through control, but there is so much corruption and so little useful investment. What is the 20-year economic plan and how are Muslim nations helping? Is there no public discussion of this in Muslim-Land? Is that some vast murmuring, or is it just the sound of a billion heads turning to look the other way?

US tax money continues to flow to the usual suspects. Overseas, 30 billion is proposed to assist Israel while 20 billion is proposed for Saudi Arabia. This is political pork for Muslims and Jews. And at home, pork is produced for local consumption: since the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the number of local earmarks jumped from 4,155 valued at about $29 billion in 1994 to 14,211 worth nearly $53 billion 10 years later, according to the Congressional Research Service."

How about our halal dollars, what will happen this Ramadan? Since 9/11, over six charity groups have been shut down, accused of providing aid to groups and individuals included on the U.S. terror list. Often the closure is just before Ramadan. However it may be that the current trial of Holy land Foundation will send sufficient political message this year. It may be that a fast food diet of entrapment cases will keep the public sufficiently paranoid of “Islamic Terror.” And yet, Muslims must give.

These highly wired Walls of Fear should be seen as a political liability like Rove and Gonzalez. That perception might actually lead to some change. And as we share our positive insights with others, our faith can see us through these walls. Faith is not rational or reactive. Nor need it be blind. We sense the sunlight on the other side of the concrete; we smell our mother’s cooking. We are called. God is where freedom is, as we move from isolation to connection to greater being.

The earthquake is the way concrete opens all around us. We cannot do it from ourselves in a violent angry way. It is finally an earthquake of Love that we need, here in the world-- dear reader, determined flower pushing through into the light.

A High Wind in Jamaica

2007-08-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

The hurricane arrives in empty evening streets like drunken fool alone. Or like a demented preacher, promising ruin and retribution. Here in Jamaica, Abdullah el-Faisal might come to mind, as one such violent force of nature. Deported from Britain after years as a lay preacher at the Brixton mosque, el Faisal gave lectures telling his audiences to kill Hindus, Jews and other non-Muslims like "cockroaches". Bookstores sold tapes of him declaring, "This is how wonderful it is to kill a kuffar... You crawl on his back and while you are pushing him into the hellfire you are going into paradise." Germaine Lindsay, one of the UK suicide bombers of 7/7, attended his lectures and listened to his tapes.

Now at home, families wait by fragile candle light, listening to the wind increase in violence outside the walls, wondering how well constructed they really are. The Jamaica Building Society has published phone lines in the US to help family members call home (954 535 5761 and 954 535 5762) and begins to prepare for new building orders. Perhaps the phone lines will work. Members of the Muhammad Mosque in Kingston prepare food distribution and anti-looting patrols.

As the hard heavy, salty rain comes down through darkening air the old man raises an eyebrow. “That house pass through two hurricanes with hol heap a leakings, “ he says to the local newsman; “and neither the state nor fishery do nutten fi help me still.”

I do not know much about the relative capacity of the Jamaican government, let along its budget for disaster response. But we can recall how the US government has failed again and again to assist the thousands of victims scattered by the winds and floods of Katrina two years ago.

In combining the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management, the US government has also brought disaster preparedness and crime prevention into strange proximity. How the government deals with the threat of natural disasters depends on weather forecasts, risk analysis, federal funding and local organization. But the government seems to hope that the threat of terrorism can be dealt with through similar scientific models as well. And it almost does seem they have given the job to the Department of Fisheries; since law enforcement depends so much on fishing expeditions to get their materials.

Both the recent NYPD report on terrorism and the current Holy Land Charity trial in Texas have thrown the nets of suspicion over our community quite broadly. The trial has named 300 “un-indicted co-conspirators” including most leading national Muslim American organizations.

In an interesting Newsweek article earlier this month, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball quote an unnamed government official who admits that this is merely tactical; “By listing the groups, it makes it easier for prosecutors to introduce documents, tapes and other evidence mentioning them and which relate to what the government charges is a wide-ranging conspiracy to raise money in the United States in support of Hamas.”

The government is following the Daniel Pipes theory that our leading institutions are all arms of a vast conspiracy. In this theory, Hamas itself is the “Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Conservative Islam is seen as a monolithic and coordinated threat, like Communism was seen to be during the wonder years of the Cold War—yes those were the good old days!

However, leading Muslim American groups have been complaining. ISNA issued a strong statement condemning both terrorism and the misuse of law to slander Muslim institutions. Similarly, Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR denounced its listing as an "unindicted co-conspirator" as "completely unjustified." He added: "When you're named in this way, you have no legal recourse."

The recent NYPD report shares the burden of justifying the War on Terror. Perhaps understandably, it seeks to answer the question how diverse and “unremarkable” men become jihadists; but it illustrates its premise with a range of real and imagined plots. Instead of actual social context and psychological detail, it creates pseudo-scientific models. Nothing is said of prevention or of community relations with Muslims. Instead, young men “searching for meaning” are seen as The Threat.

So the feds throw nets to snare the threat. And the cops send their shadows over the waters of our community as well. In this context last week, our brave and glorious lawmakers once again realized that they, “in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.”

So the War on Terror trawls the internet; while other nets of extremism move through as well, may Allah protect us all from the shadow passing over us. And some media continues to manipulate fears, catching good people in lies and misrepresentations. The political storm is destructive; but the Building Society moves in its wake, arranging funding, offering loans. Perhaps you and I should join that caravan.

But I feel better in the storm. There is an eye to a hurricane, midway through the wind. It is a wonderful moment of blue sky, fresh air and the silence of humbled humanity. But then the winds begin again.

How does one stand in a storm? Others have shown me by example. There are ways to dance with the wind, as there is also the dignity of lamentation. I have been swimming in a hurricane twice, fleeing the nets like a fish, freedom in shining white trembling waters. But each time was after the main winds had passed, with just the occasional loud snap and crash of a tree as a reminder.

There is the eye, midway; but also the “I” within. There is the storm of others; racism, injustice, war, materialism, untruth and waste; there is the storm of self, delusions, desires, fears and dissolution. Sans eyes sans teeth we stand like Lear howling in the heath in the night wind. No guarantees, only loans and groans. But like the mad preacher of the wind we will have our say.

Darkness Spreading—A Call to Action

2007-08-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

What is the analogy for news? Is it food, or a product of profit? If it is food fit for human beings, it should nourish and inform us with accurate information, not sugary and artificial entertainment.

Or to change the metaphor-- doesn’t the news help construct the community space around us, as humans, as Muslims? Then the foundation should rest on solid ground. Are we buying a prefab home in the Potemkin village of propaganda? Is the news merely color coordinated ideological furniture? Or is light coming in the windows, so we do not fall over all the furniture inside?

Contrary to its name, the New York Sun adds more furniture to fall over, not more light. The New York Sun is a right wing oriented newspaper with a very strong pro-zionist line. They have been targeting local Muslim colleagues in smear campaigns filled with lies and distortions. This is not news.

Two years ago year the favorite target was CAIR New York president Omar Mohammedi, who nevertheless overcame this to become a New York City Commissioner of Human Rights. Last year this and other New York papers vilified a new Muslim Fire Department chaplain, hounding him out of office after some ill considered remarks about 9/11 created a frenzy in the media. They also vilified the Muslim Correctional Department Chaplain, who managed to survive a similar situation with just a two-week suspension. In these two cases, the tabloid press challenged the right of city employees to political speech. In the case of the Correctional Chaplain, his remarks were in his personal time.

Now the Muslim rights to speech and civic engagement have been challenged once again. A close colleague Debbie Almontaser, as moderate and engaged a Muslim as you can imagine, known to many in New York City, was successful in getting an Arabic theme New York City Public School funded and underway. Hamduillah. And Debbie was to serve as first principal, having many years experience as public school educator. Because this was seen as a threat by the paranoid right—and some fearful Jews apparently joined this group as well—she has been vilified in the far right blogoverse since the school was announced earlier this year, with personal attacks leading to false articles and a campaign against her in the New York Sun, and later in the New York Post. How organized the far right can be! Why can’t Muslims be organized?

Instead of supporting Ms Almontaser’s school, many in the Arab community worried why the ADL had sent a supportive letter to the Department of Education—making allegations that Zionist entities were secretly involved in the project. Some of these Arab leaders felt they had not been given a piece of the action. But the ADL was never involved with the project, however. The Department was looking to create a supportive atmosphere for the school and in New York City apparently the Jewish community must sign off on anything involving Muslims. That is certainly how it looks.

The next chapter in this sad story is that a community group used the space in a community organization “linked to Debbie” to hold youth meetings. Unknown to her, this group produced T-shirts that said “Intifada NYC” which were seen by right wing spies attending the local Arab Heritage Festival in July. Soon this had become a scoop for the Sun and the New York Post and the Department of Education was ill advisedly asking Debbie Almontaser to speak with the Post. Debbie explained very clearly that she was against violence but added that intifada in Arabic means “throwing off oppression” which is why a youth group would use it as slogan. Debbie was quoted selectively, the tabloids called her a threat, the community was smeared, the Jewish community leadership withdrew whatever support they had communicated to the Department, and under pressure Debbie Almontaser was forced to resign from her project in order to save it.

The freedom of speech that newspapers depend on has been turned into a weapon against Muslim freedom of speech. Will the South Asians and Africans and African Americans see this as their problem too? We Muslims can be very short sighted as a community but I hope they will. Certainly the New York Post has been very offensive to both these communities. This is a moment of opportunity. There is now widespread anger at this treatment and at the use of power against us.

Therefore, many of us agree it is time to stop selling and buying these dirty newspapers and boycott the New York Post and the New York Sun. You and I should tell our many Muslim grocery owners to stop poisoning minds in Ramadan! Is spreading such evil really worth the five dollars per day? Some would say this is as bad as selling pork and alcohol—in any case, it is clearly not something good. Spreading slander and gossip—you know how clear the Qur’an is on this! That gossip and slander is like eating the flesh of those you backbite. Our Muslim storeowners are selling human flesh!

For a boycott to be effective, imams must give guidance in the mosques. Mosque members must ask imams to take this role. We must work together. This is how progress took place in the American South, with boycotts organized by Martin Luther King. It is our right and if we do not use this right we will lose this right—to organize, as well as speak and worship and be respected as part of this nation of the many.

Muslims should also welcome a chance to challenge power but without resorting to baiting Jews unfairly. Let us challenge their leadership to debate us out in the open, in the light. Just a reminder--there is nothing wrong with selling Jewish papers or Israeli papers when these are honest and intelligent. Muslims can accept different point s of view. It is when people demonize us, spread untruth like a disease that Muslims—and all of us—are at risk. Then darkness spreads—and in the dark, all points of view look alike.

Night Time Wandering in Inner City Streets

2007-08-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

In the dream I walk through a nighttime city of signs and silence. I realize with a tiny shock that I am missing a green dossier. But this is my life. Surely we are all in a state of loss, big and small.

How about you, what have you lost and found today? How do you manage this time of information and disinformation, connection and disconnection? Perhaps you are beside me on the path. It may be me, and my loss, that I can see only the busy dream around us. You, reader, may play a more deliberate game—as others will be quick to remind us, worldly success is not forbidden. But it is also not guaranteed.

Economic Man has a social value, but the unemployed finds his face naked in a crowd, projecting misfortune and weakness. The path of loss is rich in reminders and one begins a process of unknowing and undoing. One begins to see a bit more beneath the surface of human interactions, fears, desires, and imaginings. This is disturbing to the status quo and others may resist or turn away from the question: “What meaning do I retain?” And what meaning does “I” retain?

I do not know. But power abhors a vacuum; and perhaps because our community lacks substance already, we cling to the mundane. Mosque leadership would be alarmed by individual spirituality that cannot be so easily manipulated or controlled. What if we all asked these questions of ourselves! Leaders might be forced to return phone calls and keep regular hours; our community might feel compelled to support services and take responsibilities seriously. But until that happens we will continue to live in a strange dream of Muslim identity. What is real? What works?

My inner reality seems no less dreamlike; a prison, a city of signs. Can I say that I love New York? Not any more than I can truly say I love myself. Instead, I flee bylaws for byways, for cave-like subway stations empty in ruined grandeur, for the song of the naked light bulb by the barbed wire coil in station after station in the outer boroughs.

I feel at home in this city of refugees, fleeing not only violence and oppression in many directions but Soul and God. There is danger in the air like an approaching storm as we flee though dream, towards forgetting, towards who knows what. Along with the Mexicans, the Mormons in their white shirts, the young women in their doll dresses of summer, the tourists still wearing “FBI” shirts, we are lost in dreams of self and success, flight and failure, minds inching though the moment. As Buddhists prostrate their way through space, and as we Muslims prostrate our way through time, as the tiny inchworm moves its sajda again and again along the branch of an enormous tree, we all move through times’ tunnel towards the unknown.

The mind is moved, unsettled, overthrown again and again-- by the immensity, mystery and madness of the current human enterprise. Surely I must look away, towards self and soul. Instead I find myself again in dream of the city, an empty street in Sheepshead Bay. Two immaculately dressed Russian men toss wrappers into the empty street. As I leave, I notice that an enormous, stretch limousine is following me. Turning the corner, I see a towering poster for the military, suspended before me among the liquor stores. Looming above me, a young marine of indeterminate ethnicity projects pride and power with jutting chin and hooded eyes. The ad’s message: “We Don’t Accept Applications-- We Accept Commitment.”

Perhaps this is a useful message for my inner job applicant, but this Marine looks capable of flattening an Iraqi nursery school in democracy’s name and I ask myself: “Commitment to what?” Add a turban and beard, and there’s not much difference in the militant mindset.

Commitment to the Real—what would that be like? Does that mean seeing beyond the rationalizing interpretations of religion and culture, those forces maintaining our prisons in their usual grandeur? How to free the mind? And how to free the heart, in order to see the masses with more compassion? See how they flee to the beaches to burn meat over a fire; the wretched refuse of our own teeming shore. One might see the massive display of human flesh as embodying human dignity as well as vulnerability. God bless the steerage class.

Still, there is something missing. As more and more of us are wired into our own tunes, wired to elsewhere, what is missing belongs to all of us. What is missing relates in some way to the shrinking American heart. So then: how do we collectively reconnect?

One starts within. I may not love my inner marine, my inner detainee, my nighttime traveler, and the refugee. But I would like to at least have a conversation with these shadows within my soul. Yet how?

Psychologist James Hillman has urged his readers to reconnect with their unconscious, their Dark Side, “which leads to a sense of soul, an experience of inner life, a place where meanings home. As those pieces and parts that before lived unconnected are laced together, are deepened and extended, that habitable dwelling place for religious life” can begin to come together.

We might say that this design of living is reality-based but Reality is always more than what we think it to be. Within the mirror are more mysterious signs and meanings, a continual revelation and renewal. One loses self sometimes but finds something else in the intimacy of the night. Like a mysterious green dossier?

May Allah guide us on this path, through self and in deeper communication with other souls. This city of nets, of webs, this prison holds many Muslims known and unknown.

There is a rumor of beauty in the New York night. Our collective dream awaits the light of dawn. How will it come for you? How will you wake up?

Keeping Score in the “War on Terror”

2007-07-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

Goal! Iraq won today’s Asian Cup final. Hurrah for a heroic group effort of Shia and Sunni! But what is the goal, when bombs are bursting in Baghdad and millions have fled the country? Is the goal only a ball flying through the air?

“You know the current situation in Iraq and the difficulties we are going through,” said Noor Sabri, the Iraq goalkeeper and hero of the semifinal victory, before the final match. “Five days before …my wife’s brother died, and my teammate Hawar Mohammed lost his stepmother.” These deaths may have been someone’s goal.

The “difficulties” continue. And in Jordan, the local authorities add insult to injury. As many of the thousands of Iraqi refugees tried to celebrate the win in Amman Jordan, police confiscated their Iraqi flags, declaring them illegal, according to the Times: ‘“How can you do this?” an old man shouted, demanding his flag be returned. The policeman stood stone-faced, the red of the Iraqi flag visible in his hand.’

Is this pointless game of nations and nationalism our game? Or do we prefer sects and sectarianism to Dungeons and Dragons? But then what is our mission accomplished? Is it Bush’s mission we wish accomplished? No, we know that Bush has always played another game. But who has the teamwork skills and laser-eyed focus to play for peace and justice? Is peace the game for Muslims, or do we prefer domination and revenge? But if not peace, then what game will allow us all to celebrate together at the end?

Despite its team’s loss, the Saudis’ political game of influence against Iran will continue in Iraq. Saudi Arabia is now known more for guest worker labor and oil profits than for moral example. Human Rights organizations report how the number of Saudi executions is increasing, often after arbitrary and unfair trials. You may be aware of the recent case of Rizana Nafeek, a 19-year-old guest worker sent to Saudi Arabia from Sri Lanka after the Tsunami disaster two years ago to work as a housekeeper, She was given a baby to take care of and sadly, the baby died and in consequence Rizana has been condemned to be beheaded.

“We respect the laws of the host country and accordingly we have been following the legal procedures to save this girl,” said Sri Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Bhaila. The Asian Human Rights Commission earlier publicly condemned the Sri Lankan government for not undertaking the costs of a legal appeal.

However, lawyers have now been hired to start the appeal stating that the case is accidental death, which would take execution off the table and leave the penalty a matter of paying blood money. Nafeek’s legal representatives will also prepare appeals to clemency to the baby’s family and to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Those who wish to help may call the Saudi embassy or Amnesty International or contact the website www.businesssrilanka.com/UrgentAppeal.aspx now.

Will Saudi authorities relent? Don’t hold your breath. It took years for Libya to agree to release the imprisoned Bulgarian and Palestinian nurses as they did last week, following a visit from Madame Sarkozy. In return, Libya got promises for a nuclear powered desalinization project. Not bad!

It is not just that they are oblivious to their image. Though autocratic, both Libya and Saudi Arabia must answer to their local families and clans; blood money must be negotiated over time. And yet surely these states do have funds.

They also both draw guest workers from poorer nations, and in the case of Libya this has lead to a rise in AIDS cases, which spread through unsanitary medical practices. But when tragedy occurs, it is much easier to blame Bulgarians or Sri Lankan housekeepers than reform one’s own way of doing business.

But are we Americans ready and eager to reform yet, in Iraq or at home? And, if as Muslims and Americans we really care about non-state terror, wouldn’t we be interested in stopping the flow of arms?

But it turns out that most nations have no laws to regulate arms trafficking. Last week a UN report informed us that Eritrea is arming insurgents in Somalia; with at least 13 boatloads arriving, with suicide bombs belts and other devil’s toys. Soon it won’t be balls flying through the air, but human heads.

Human Rights researchers have been reporting similar news for years. How do we allow this to continue? In an interesting Village Voice article this past week, writer Chris Thompson reports on the recent arrest of Syrian arms Monzer al-Kassar, linked to some of history's most notorious international arms deals and terrorist atrocities over the last 30 years. The article notes that, “the arrest of Kassar was a significant victory in the Bush administration's "War on Terror." For some reason, however, the government didn't go to the same lengths to publicize the arrest (nor did American media outlets trumpet it in their turn) the way it has the takedowns of homegrown would-be terror suspects who, with the prodding of government informants, allegedly fantasized about bringing down the Chicago Sears tower, or assaulting Fort Dix…”

Why such silence? Perhaps, reports Thompson, “the U.S. government has been well aware of Kassar's work on behalf of terrorists around the world since the 1970s. Kassar was allegedly up to his neck in the Iran-Contra scandal, the BCCI scandal, the murder of Achille Lauro passenger Leon Klinghoffer, and the supply of weapons that were in all likelihood used against American soldiers in the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia.”

In our global economy the ports are far from safe. “A bullet is manufactured in Poland, shipped to Latvia, re-routed to the Red Sea, and chambered into a clip in Mogadishu.”

Such work is surely a very free expression of free market forces, no? And who owns the neo-conservative Washington Times? The Korean arms dealer Reverend Moon owns it. A grateful nation can expect the free market to remain free and business to continue, as usual.

Mullahs and Imaginary Cities

2007-07-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

The writer Italo Calvino has written of a mysterious, unfinished city: ‘Those who arrive at Thekla can see little of the city, beyond the plank fences, the sackcloth screens, and scaffoldings… If you ask, "Why is Thekla's construction taking such a long time?" the inhabitants continue hoisting sacks, as they answer, "So that its destruction cannot begin."

And if asked whether they fear that, once the scaffoldings are removed, the city may begin to crumble and fall to pieces, they add hastily, in a whisper, "Not only the city."

"What meaning does your construction have?" one asks. "What is the aim of a city under construction unless it is a city? Where is the plan you are following, the blueprint?"

"We will show it to you as soon as the working day is over; we cannot interrupt our work now," they answer.

Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. "There is the blueprint," they say.’

This short imaginary travel tale raises questions: Are these workers rightly guided? What relationship is there between earth and air, city and stars? And can the vast starry sky really be our blueprint? But surely we do consider Night and Day, Life and Regeneration, Lights in the Sky as designs that guide the continual construction of our Muslim faith.

Like stars, stories may also serve as a blueprint of our sense of self. News reports may serve this purpose. But from time to time, literacy wakes from its long snooze and silence speaks. Last week, in its first 24 hours on sale, the final Harry Potter book broke sales records, with 8.3 million copies purchased in the US alone.

In fact, I have seen quite a few of those copies already. In the train today, I noticed that many riders had put away their usual tunes and become pale preoccupied readers of Harry Potter, bench-pressing enormous volumes like rabbis. The man sitting next to me reads an Italian newspaper article on the Harry Potter phenomenon. And another reads the Pakistan Daily Times article, “Delay in arrival of Harry Potter in Quetta riles fans.”

The article also quotes 20-year-old Sadiq Baloch, a student at Balochistan Institute of Technology, who declares that, “For me, Rowling’s inexplicable written expression is a source of inspiration. People of my age will miss Harry Potter very much.”’

I have never read these books or seen the films. But inexplicable or not, I do know we cannot dismiss the creative power of myth and fantasy. Nor should we be surprised at Harry Potter’s appeal in Quetta. But will there be consternation among the Mullahs?

No doubt there is already. But good readers of literature and poetry will not necessarily be led astray from Qur’an. A celebrity magazine is probably more likely to misguide, with its misdirected stars and its pandering to insecurities! Insha’Allah, better-educated and more sensitive readers may even appreciate our sacred texts more than before. Literature, like history and religion, gives meaning to life and clarifies shared human and social values; including faith, hope, love and freedom.

Speaking of freedom, Harry Potter’s last book “The Prisoner of Azkaban” concerned a prison for wizards guarded by the Dementors, working under the British Ministry of Magic. Interestingly, some of the detainees held there are quite innocent. As a character puts it, “I wouldn't mind if we were getting anywhere, but of the three arrests we've made in the last couple of months, I doubt that one of them is a genuine Death Eater… the top levels want to look as though they're making some progress, and "three arrests" sounds better than "three mistaken arrests and releases." War on Terror anyone?

According to his attorney Candace Gorman, Guantanamo detainee Abdul Al-Ghizzawi (a Libyan national who ran a bakery in Jalalabad, Afghanistan before being handed to the Americans for a bounty in late 2001), is a Harry Potter fan. And why not? Al Ghizzawi was found to have no ties to terrorism and not to be an enemy combatant. Unfortunately, the higher-ups intervened and the tribunal’s judgment was overturned six weeks later upon the miraculous discovery of “new evidence.” Sound familiar? His attorney writes, “I saw the classified proceedings of my client’s tribunals, and I can assure you that no new material was considered.”(http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com).

No doubt the detainees could become fans of Kafka as well as Qutub; or of many other writers who have passionately described the bureaucratic absurdity of the national security state.

Like our nation state, our city offers emptiness as well as fullness. As you read this, Mexicans are crouching in small kitchens, facing a world of fences and locked restrooms and curfews and sudden knocks on the door. It is our brave new world of disembodied electronic voices, urging the good citizens to exercise caution while on the escalator. Our heads echo.

The walls are flickering with light and shadow. Nothing seems quite solid. City past and city future share city present. Theater and restaurant reviews, bad hairstyles and the obsolescent cultural trends of adolescence haunt the present day like a bad dream. Unknown future languages, musical forms and street names blur and blot the present range of options. Surely we have all become strangers in a strange land.

But while all layers of city co-exist simultaneously, and all dimensions of our nation and our community exist in the eternal present, do all aspects of our self exist as you read this? Are all your many selves with you all together, in the imaginary person you call your name?

You and I think we know ourselves. But as we shift from one situation to another, trading one mask for another, reality is elusive. Let us seek ourselves-- through questioning, through continuous effort, through wandering, even through the shifting forms of imaginary worlds. For beyond the scaffolding and construction of our busy lives, human imagination may direct us to the fresh air of evening and sudden, starry sky.

Teachable Moment of the Heart

2007-07-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

‘You’re fat!” “And you are fat and ugly!” “If you hit me I will hit you back!” Two small girls in the park were threatening each other. After admiring their rhetoric, I saw that it would escalate, so I intervened: “Girls! Is this the way for Muslims to treat each other! You are Muslims, aren’t you?”

The taller small Pakistani girl agreed, and both girls were silent. Then the taller one began to quiz me. “Are you Pakistani or Arab?” She wanted to know. “I am American,” I said. Surprised, she asked: “How can you be American and Muslim?!”

Still not convinced, the small girl asked me to speak Urdu or Arabic to her. She corrected my one word of Urdu, but did not know any Arabic, and asked me, “Why do you keep saying insha”Allah?”

In the end, the attempt at conflict resolution was largely successful. It was a teachable moment; but for all of us--leading to questions of identity—which tribe I belonged to, and was I inside or outside the circle. In fact, it may be that over half our conflicts relate to such issues of identity, inclusion and exclusion. I can think of several such issues right now in the Arab American Muslim community in New York City. But I won’t go into detail—the Muslim community is divided in so many places, from Palestine to Patterson, New Jersey.

I told each girl to speak nicely even if the other was in the wrong. I tried to sidestep the question of Justice, offering Mercy as an alternative route. And how often do we Muslims take that route with each other? What, and give up our power struggles?!

Islam does offer us an identity— and for many of us an identifiable uniform. But Islam is also a way of faith, not just culture. Islam is a way of knowing and growing instead of an exact map of the self in its relationships. Islam offers questions, including: Where are we going? And what are you? What does it mean for you to be Muslim? What does it mean for me? Islam is a mirror of reflection and a deep source of spiritual life.

For many of us, the narrative of history supports and explains our identity, on the individual as well as collective level. We are Pakistani, African American, from this family, and that street. We are who we have been. We are who we love, and who we hate. But the lessons of history may also begin to free us from set self-definition. We may not ever be truly free. But we can explore our selves without falling off the edges of the map.

This mystery and this freedom is a form of “Unknowing” as mystics may describe it. As Muslims we remember Tariqat and Maarifat and other higher forms of learning. Not everyone is interested in such levels, however. You and I know that traditional religious ways of thinking are labeled “irrational” by the non-religious. But instead, you and I might see spiritual ways of thinking to be complementary to the rational, and not only a repudiation of reason. And though it usually is not, it can be a greater wisdom.

Religious or philosophical, our different ways of thinking may lead to very different conclusions. We have had terrible religious wars. But beyond the crimes of the people of faith we can easily point out the crimes committed by the people of science. Why are people so surprised and demoralized that Doctors in the UK have apparently plotted terror? Many doctors, from revolutionary Che Guevara to the genocidal Radovan Karadzic, even including Dr Bill Frist of the US Congress, have supported the use of force and violence to achieve political ends. In the process, some have clearly lost touch with our shared humanity, not to mention their beside manner.

Perhaps even more seriously, scientists are currently assisting the corporate race to patent the human genome and own the map of humanity and healing. Scientific idealism can be made a slave to greed. And science fuels an economic system that produces global warming.

As noted in recent newspaper reports, most of us would not choose to kill a whippoorwill bird. You cannot really eat it and it is beautiful! But over the last 40 years we have reduced the population by 1.6 million. You and I have killed these birds, because our cannibal economic system paves over the forests, forgets the miracle of life in all its forms. Those feathers stuff your pillows, and the silence of the birds may one night haunt your dreams. If you would only listen.

Science offers trial and error; testing for proofs; honest inquiry. Inquiry must be continuous and open ended. We can not allow scientific method to be cheapened or misued. The recent testimony in Congress showed last week that that the Bush Administration has tried to prevent the former US Surgeon General from speaking freely on matters of health, ending up by censoring his positions on all but a few small issues.

Let Congress continue its inquiries into intellectual and political corruption at home and abroad. And yes, let it challenge Iran. But if the US military accuses Iranian special forces of using Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militiamen to train Iraqi extremists, let Congress continue to explore and gather verifiable proofs instead of rushing to sign on to denunciations and threats: “You’re fat! “You’re fat and ugly!” “You have yellowcake uranium—give me some!”

Let Mercy descend. Above our heads the infinite question is unfolding, as in an islamic ceiling pattern. Each moment we receive knowledge it may deepen, it may reveal its secret heart, as light passes through a prism and refracts into rainbow hues. The Heart knows what the Mind does not. But do we listen? Beyond its distractions and desires, do you and I really know the Heart?

Good Deeds, Bad Deeds: Who is Watching You?

2007-07-09T01:40:00.000-07:00

Coming home late this evening, I heard a call for help from a beautiful woman: “Do you have a cell phone?” I crossed the street immediately! I saw that she and her male friend were standing over the body of a man lying on the sidewalk, apparently an unconscious drunk. These young passersby did not know him but wanted to help.

Standing around the body, we discussed whether or not to call an ambulance. The male friend poured water over the drunk man’s head a few times. The drunk gave a faint response: “Just give me ten minutes” before he passed out again.

The rest of us discussed the situation. What to do? We compared the relative safety of the neighborhood, against the fact that the man was lying in the way of a driveway. After being dowsed with water, he slid down flat on the ground and we worried that if he vomited he might die. So two of us walked to the corner bar to tell them about their customer.

The gigantic bouncer came out to say. “If it happens outside, it’s not our problem.” He was gigantic and not helpful and so I called 911 on my cell phone. I had recalled that when I worked as an EMT many years ago that a large percentage of our calls were for drunks who had fallen. I gave the location of the “man down”. The operator did not even ask my name! But then the operator said she would call the police and not an ambulance. Ooops.

Was this the right thing to do? Is this like calling the dogcatcher? Will this guy turn out to be an “illegal alien” and end up on a plane home, with his friends and family not knowing what had happened? Will a man arrested for public drunkenness have his DNA sample taken—and what will come of that?

The male friend went to warn the fallen immigrant that the police were coming. I left him and his beautiful lady friend to their good deeds. But I have some misgivings. Can we trust American Justice-- when it has become a system of control and surveillance?

As you know, many communities want to have little to do with the police and will not even report crimes or criminals. This is often true of communities of color as well as immigrants. In general, Muslim Americans seem to have mixed feelings but share a growing measure of mistrust.

Dialogues and Town Halls (such as last week’s FBI Town Hall at the very successful ICNA Convention) are useful to create communication links between police and community leaders. But these cannot really change the underlying dynamic of fear and mistrust when police powers are expanding. Some police are sure to abuse these powers, and without community pressure do not seem to be held properly accountable as the “Blue Wall of Silence” culture of secrecy is maintained. Recently Sean Bell and Michael Warren have been becoming symbols of police brutality, at least within African American communities in New York City.

What is the social context? Of course we must consider racism and oppression, and the psychological mechanisms that arise and react to the power differential. But we must also examine how managers are seduced by technology to expand police powers.

On last week’s radio show (The War on Immigrants report on 99.5 WBAI radio) I interviewed a top lawyer for the New York Civil Liberties Union who discussed new rules that would make it illegal for individuals to take photographs publicly without a permit.

This comes at the same time that the NYPD is launching a massive expansion of surveillance cameras in lower Manhattan. Hmmm. Secrecy for police; new powers for government; but no privacy for you and me?

The NYCLU reported last year that there are already 4,200 public and private surveillance cameras below 14th Street, a fivefold increase since 1998, with no oversight over what becomes of the recordings. And apparently this is not enough!

According to the New York Times on July 8: “The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists.” The article reports that 3,000 public and private security cameras will operate below Canal Street, perhaps linked to a congestion pricing system, with a center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.

The newspaper also noted that this system failed to deter either the current doctors plot or the 7/7 subway bombings. Moreover, it would be unlikely to deter those deluded souls who do not plan to return from so-called martyrdom operations.”

But like “Total Information Awareness” and the “Star Wars” Space Shield, like our occupation of Iraq, the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative is big as Texas and great for those military companies that cast their massive shadows over us all!

“This area is very critical to the economic lifeblood of this nation,” New York City’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said in an interview last week. “We want to make it less vulnerable.”

New York should pay more attention to British National Health and less to British surveillance plans. However, predictably, right wing media has begun to use the recent doctors’ plot to try to discredit socialized medicine. The New York Sun writes on July 6, “Of the 277,000 doctors in the NHS, some 128,000 — that is nearly four out of 10 — were trained abroad. It was a loophole that should have been obvious, given Al Qaeda's declared strategy of recruiting highly educated professionals.” The article also asserts that, “the violation of this inner sanctum of the British way of life threatens the whole idea of integration — which is meant to be the answer to Islamism. The line between integration and infiltration is a thin one.”

Integration? Infiltration? Allah is watching us at every moment. That is enough. Let us not put fools in His place!

WIN-WIN: Building Not Blowing up

2007-07-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend will be the second anniversary of the 7/7 bombing of the London Underground trains. Most Americans will enjoy a long Independence Day weekend with their families, along with barbeque, and white bread smeared with lots of mayonnaise. Muslim Americans may add curry or collard greens and perhaps a few prayers. But people are people.

Scores of Iraqis die almost every day but we do not mark these occasions. Perhaps we should. People are people—right? A General Strike would be a very appropriate response to our nation’s policies—instead of another holiday. But pass the curried chickpeas.

Few of us are in danger from others. Some of us may believe we are. And as we discuss the present dangers perhaps some may pause to remember the American troops— at least if we live in those states that allow the flags to fly at half-mast. But let us remember more than our boys in harm’s way. Let us remember what put them there and what is keeping them there. There is surely enough blame to keep us busy smearing it around, enough to fertilize a football field.

Anyway, on 7/7 I will moderate a panel on civil liberties at the ICNA-MAS Annual Convention in Hartford Connecticut. Along with noted community leaders, we will include Heidi Bogosian, the Executive Director of National Lawyers Guild as well as Br. Khurrum Wahid, defense attorney for many sensitive national security cases. These are some of the most committed human rights defenders in the nation.

Given the anniversary, I have also been trying to assist another organizer in reaching out to law enforcement representatives for another panel. Why is it important? Often we reject the complaints about Muslim leadership that allege they did not voice their opposition to terror. “You are not listening to us Muslims,” we say. But it is true that our leadership is often ineffective.

How can Believers of this faith spend so much time struggling for dominance, opportunity, power; the glories of the garbage heap? Do people really get the leadership they deserve? And if so, how do we change that paradigm?

How do we find that Muslim doctors are –apparently—linked to the latest terror attempts on British airports and nightlife? Five of the seven people arrested so far in Britain appear to have such links. One can only hope that these doctors were more competent with patients than with gas cylinders.

Three other people were arrested Monday, including a hospital worker in Australia and two others at a residential facility attached to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Strathclyde, Scotland. Beware the Stethoscopes of Strathclyde!

We cannot pretend there is not a problem of radicalization. There needs to be a massive religious re-education plan in our community instead of ad hoc measures, face-saving gestures and denial. For example: recent reports of a plot to blow up JFK airport have frightened our friends and neighbors. Has the Muslim leadership reached out to them in any meaningful way? No!

But this also requires community support and a measure of commitment from you and me. As Jason Burke has written in the Guardian (July 3): “Al-Qaida has traded competence and discipline for resilience and dispersion. Both are effective in their way.”

Who are the agents of dispersion? Surely like gang members, many suicide bombers go through brainwashing, influenced by strong-willed role models. This is exactly the wrong sort of leadership—thug style. Though I do not believe in all the “cells” described by our prosecutors, this radical trend is happening among students apparently and among other small groups of friends. A recent film named Alpha Dog shows the journey decent young men may take to become killers. It is a strong film—not for those with sensitive ears—but honest and frightening in its depiction of slow corruption—based on a true story. Is this a lost generation-- that sees no alternative to materialism than nihilism?

Interestingly, Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped down just before the recent bombing plot took place-- only to be named a sort of ambassador to the Israel-Palestine conflict. But despite his support for the Iraq war, not all of his ideas about conflict resolution are wrong, however. It is nice to hear him assert, “"The idea that if one side wins something in Northern Ireland, the other loses, that's gone. The essence of what we have agreed is a choice: we are all winners or all losers. It is mutually assured benefit or mutually assured destruction."

Blair’s words refer to the concept of “Win-Win.” In 1981 writers William Ury and Roger Fisher introduced the concept of the "win-win solution." They argued that every problem holds a solution in which everyone can win. This is not compromise but a process of collaboration.

However, much of the world—including the so-called Muslim world—is committed to win-lose as well as military solutions. Recently Hamas rejected a proposal by the Palestinian president to send an international force to Gaza to enable early elections. In a statement also released Saturday, Hamas’s military wing warned that any international force would be “received with missiles and rockets.”

Israel still largely controls the traffic of people and goods in and out of Gaza strip. Some 6,000 Palestinians are stranded on the Egyptian side of the border without shelter in the sweltering heat. With all the suffering and degradation no wonder that "Farfour" the Mouse in a Hamas affiliated children's program was “killed” by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy land. "Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter; he was beaten "by the killers of children." This is how we poison the next generation with win/lose views and a victim mentality.

In The Way of Conflict, Deidre Combs writes, “Paradoxical as it might sound, the path to stability requires that we let go of how we think things should be, to move to an understanding of how things can be.” Sometimes winning includes losing and letting go.

The Mirror: Looking Forward, Looking Back, Looking Within

2007-06-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

The Photographer comes from the museum of images. She turns the corner to Town Hall, to find no tickets available. A small circle of Muslims stands, facing each other before the doors. They are smiling and the Shaikh is saying, “You are the mother and the grandmother and the young girl” as she passes. And energy passes into her.

Through emptying streets the photographer walks erratically, as if she has lost something. She recalls the visit to Biloxi after Katrina. There, the first floor of the mosque has been swept by the sea and stood vacant. But in the mailbox on the wall she had seen the mail stuffed in as usual—including a copy of this newspaper, The Mirror.

Now, as twilight falls, the air is preternaturally clear and cool. Looking back, the weather on 9/11 was much the same. A chord of memory vibrates, deep within her.

What has been lost? What has been found? The energy of this question is always with us. We think about where we have been and perhaps we consider where we are going. But are we really aware of where we are? It is time, as we look back on the years of Mirror publication, to also look within.

As paper, a newspaper is held in the hands and chosen, picked up or purchased in the midst of the community. As paper, a newspaper consumes trees and other material, which is then (to some extent) recycled. We take for granted the paper in our hands, its softness and its rustling music. Even more perhaps we take for granted this flesh we wear and the light that lets us see. From 92 million miles away the sun’s bright beams visit you so you can see.

The Mirror reflects the light of the community and the darkness of the world as well. As in a family album the snapshots of our community album show a variety of moods. Do we see patterns emerging; signs of health and hope?

The society we live in remains haunted by 9/11, and the ongoing war hype. A surveillance state emerges, and the emptying streets echo strangely. Will New York City some day remind us of New Orleans after the waters fall? Will other cities face disaster, in the US, Iraq, Somalia, Palestine, Israel and Iran? Will the waters rise to cover our ancestral lands? Is global warming, like US health care, simply a new subject for disaster films? Surely the show must go on.

And so it goes, in Washington. Last week a threatened Republican filibuster killed an amendment requiring utilities to produce 15 percent of their electricity from wind and other renewable energy sources. But at least Democrats managed to pass the first real improvement in the nation’s automobile fuel-efficiency standards since 1975.

Of course Muslim nations should also stop chasing after war and nuclear energy, and consider greener industries. Without the regimes that exploit these fossil fuels we have more of a chance for individual freedom from exploitation, from the machine of globalization uprooting populations to chain them in privatized prisons of production and consumption.

And let us remember our brothers and sisters in prisons. This week a 693-page dossier on CIA activities will finally be released, covering the 1950s to early 70s. But current activities also need to be exposed to light. Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty confirmed in a report released Friday that the CIA did indeed run secret prisons in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005 to interrogate detainees. More recently, Special Ops have been deployed to the US. The scope of US government power (and stupidity) may be unprecedented. Will we ever manage this present danger?

Trying to examine Bush administration innovations, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted last Thursday to subpoena Bush Administration documents related to eavesdropping on Americans' overseas emails and phone calls without court approval. But the White House replied Friday that both Vice President and President’s offices are exempt from a presidential order requiring government agencies to submit to oversight. Also on Thursday, the House voted 214-203 against a bid to eliminate money for the controversial Army facility formerly called the School of the Americas. So the school will not close and the violent show will go on.

You and I need to act politically. But Justice is sometimes mysterious. There is a greater pattern. Energy comes in different forms. So let us open the circle of Time, and be man, grandfather and young man. Let us recall time’s circle in Times Square, as the crowds surge around the quiet Sufi gathering on the sidewalk. Let us continue the conversation about our community, here in the midst of life.

The Prophet brought us guidance. Let us not forget to read and learn, even when this news comes as a virtual Mu’allaqat. Some mosques and community members still do not subscribe to email. They may miss the Mirror when it moves to cyberspace.

So as this spaceship takes off let us wish each other well. Something is lost but something is found. Do you feel lost? Recall this–a man knew he had lived wrongly and was afraid to meet God at his death. Nearing the end, he asked his children to burn him to ashes and scatter him to the four winds to hide him from his punishment. They did so. But Allah gathered him, and asked him to state why he had acted thus. He confessed his awe of God’s Justice. Allah pardoned him—saying, “My love is greater than your fear!”

We look for love in the wrong places and in the wrong way. Unity comes in dialogue, in question. Beauty comes from reflection, from the energy emerging from within. Even in frathouse America, the skull and bones society of pirate capitalism, we can be aware of ourselves, not of opinions. Know that God exists. And will exist, after this paper and you and I are ash. And with love, we will exist with Him.

Rot before Ripe—The Market and the Healing Sea

2007-06-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

Yes it is good to hear that money has at last been released to the Abbas government in the West Bank. Too bad about Gaza! Yes, too bad! And did Paris Hilton get out of jail yet?

Benjamin Franklin wrote that “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

Though a fan of Paris he did not mean Paris Hilton, nor would he consider her liberty more deserving than those suffering in Guantanamo. Ben would have been amazed and appalled at the lack of attention to important issues. What are we doing instead of paying attention?

Summer sets in with a sense of poison in the air. I walk past cafes open to the night with the sad flowery scent of rotting. This rot comes before and instead of ripeness. Pale, flushed, round and hard as supermarket peaches, suburban Greek Americans rut and strut, newly graduated and reverting to Spring Break habits.

Around the corner and in the hookah cafes edgier young Arab Americans do much the same. Though the warmth of summer evening slows the Arab blood, and though our Muslims show traces of restraint, the sickness also shows itself in this wholesale butcher’s inventory itemizing eyes and thighs, grading and ranking and measuring each body limb by limb.

Beyond meat market America –or hidden in its heart—is the trading floor. From shore to shore and wall to wall multitasking America is hard at work. Behind that reality what do we find instead, within the hunger and forgetting?

Perhaps we find the seed of negativity, the inchworm of terror. It comes from deep within. What can we learn? It starts in competition for sex and ends in greater violence. Perhaps we see how those inside fight those outside, and outsiders fight among themselves.

Or perhaps, even in this storm of confusion, we may find something else. An effervescent sea of human affection and love surrounds us in embrace. Imagine!

America, you multitasking meat market! Are you too busy to read a poem? Consumers! Are you too brand-loyal for the question of the Real? Readers! Do we judge others too easily? And when do we take positive and public and united action?

Americans have opinions and positions on many issues. What stream is the mainstream? The mainstream is a chemical bath of opinions and stereotyping. Beware the Egyptian fruit-seller mafia and Senegalese watch seller mafia. Beware the Jews and Muslims! We do not want to stereotype of course. But if You See Something Say Something! In English! Please!

Some of us still mock the lowly Mexicans infiltrating the restaurant kitchens of America. Immigrants! But few dare to complain about the Israelis or the Saudis. Israeli developers have spent 2 billion in the last four months buying up New York skyscrapers such as the Lipstick building, the Clock Tower on Madison Avenue and the former Times Building, giving the sellers enormous profits. Speculators Haim Revah, Uzi Ben Abraham, Rotem Rosen of Africa Israel USA, Lev Leviev, Shaya Boymelgreen-- who could resist them! And just last year a Saudi investor sold the Plaza Hotel to El Ad Properties.

One could say of course that immigrants are adding value to our economy. Yes, let’s not stereotype. God bless them all. We hope they are not adding math to our aftermath.

Even worse are those who sell arms to terrorists, death squads and oppressive governments. And who does not? Business is great! Latest news— the USA is arming the death squads of Ethiopia. Insiders must help each other after all. And what is wrong with those Muslim Somalis and those dissident Ethiopians? They only hate us for our freedoms.

But Freedom is a brand name. Our freedoms have been privatized. Perhaps this was inevitable given the current political and social climate. Certainly the current war is privatized with Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, the Lincoln Group and many others working hard for democracy—and completely free from the threat of Freedom of Information inquiries. We will never need to know the awful news again. So wonderful to know these brave and well-paid men and women cut through red tape so effectively—perhaps using nukes.

Yes, business is booming. And not just bombs. In health care, Michael Moore has called our HMOs “the Halliburtons of the health industry.” And maximizing profit means taking careful inventory. Will we cover this tooth; that tooth, this lung or that finger? What is each one worth to you? The meat market is our friend! Isn’t choice great?

And even boring public services can be wonderfully valuable. In Indiana Governor Daniels, previously budget director in the Bush White House, has already placed in the hands of private companies welfare-applicant screening, running a prison and, notably, leasing the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road to an Australian-Spanish consortium, for 75 years.

Dear readers, what are you doing instead of taking effective action? This does not have to be violent. Political action is perhaps the only alternative to things getting even worse. This means you! Does demonstrating against Salman Rushie really lead us anywhere?

Is your mosque providing clear and useful guidance in daily matters, and is your community speaking out clearly on issues of social justice? We Muslims do like to talk but do we ever try to organize? Is leadership invisible and mysterious?

Since the current threat of rain may be “probably linked” to al Qaeda, and the threat of Global Warming must be a jihadist threat, Muslim Americans are scattered in confusion.

I expect that the American Revolution would not have freed us from tyranny in this current generation. Washington and Jefferson would certainly be classified as terrorists by the George Bush regime. The Boston Tea Party would have ended with café con leche in Guantanamo.

Or perhaps, even in this storm of confusion, we may find a healing sea of human affection and love around us. Imagine!

Opening Up When the Heat is On

2007-06-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

In a traditional Muslim culture, people will leave their homes in warm weather to sleep on porches or to gather at the mosque to sit and read in the cool of the tall tiled halls, or around the fountain. But in this capitalist, materialist culture, we see our families, friends and neighbors isolated in air-conditioned rooms, and instead of the fountain, they are watching the lies and seductions flickering from television—a very different vibration.

Heat is also a form of energy. Some of us find it uncomfortable. And in this material world air conditioning has become one of the biggest consumers of energy. One fifth of the energy we use goes to cooling buildings, and the refrigerants used also contribute to global warming. With six percent of the world’s population, Americans consume 40 percent of the world’s refrigerants. Some of us think we must have air-conditioning. But most of the world is too poor, and goes without air-conditioning all the time.

Fully opening our beings to the energy of the invisible, we human beings can become much more than our little minds and desires. But through habits and distraction, we waste energy, and you and I fail to become what we might both materially and spiritually.

Some of us waste energy thoughtlessly and some of us thoughtfully. Energy is lost when our being is in disharmony. Energy is lost when we are stressed, tense or caught in negative emotions. As Muslims we know we must work for inner unity if we are to be able to work collectively for a wiser, more truly Islamic community. It is a struggle, not a walk in the park. How can it be done? And do our leaders’ khotbas help us in this struggle and to help the family transmit the spirit—the spiritual energy-- of religion to the next generation?

Family life, important as it is, can become a vehicle of materialism as much as Islamic spirituality. A family can transmit authoritarian and unthinking behavior as much as wisdom and sharing and forgiveness. The energies vary-- while younger Muslims are napping with Napster, which they prefer to actual experience.

Some young people will look scornfully at someone who does not have “nice things”. How have they grown up with such materialist thinking? Materialism is often confused with success, and not only in immigrant families. In this context, it is of course not a bad thing that young people are motivated to succeed, but on what level—and will they ever be satisfied? And when inevitably it is time to face human limitations, how shining faces shrivel into sour humiliation! Better for them, for us all, is the peace of humility, if we can find and stay with it.

It is worth discussing materialism with our friends and families. It is important to consider our collective spiritual energies. It is also worth considering the family’s “carbon footprint”—how much energy our life requires.

For example, as a city resident, I do not drive, and I also have no television reception, no air conditioning and I keep electric bills to 40 dollars a month. While comfortable in global terms, that is probably well below the American average. But how can I do better? One choice can reduce my footprint; not buying fruit and food that is shipped across country, requiring trucks and fuel. One can try to buy from local farmers to cut back on cross-country traffic’s impact on the environment.

Another choice is to spend more time talking to neighbors or at the mosque. Let’s overcome the urge to go underground into our cells like radicals. Yes, Presidential Candidate Guiliani is courting the fear vote by invoking the recent, half-baked “terror plots’ among a few Albanians, Trinidadians and Guyanese. It is almost like law enforcement is trying to de-link the “threat” from ethnic identity and specific interest groups and instead stick it to the religion itself. But Muslims can and should know better. Let’s reach out to engage with fellow Americans now that there are some movements for positive response, beyond law enforcement and the politics of fear.

On May 28, Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that, “the nightmare of the Bush years won't really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn't happened yet. Here's the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a "movement" that "has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us," he should be treated as a lunatic. When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of "Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda" wants to "bring down the West," he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.”

Though that has not happened yet, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said last week that President Bush’s “terror doctrine” had proved counterproductive. Mr. Edwards presented a plan last week — which he dubbed "A Strategy to Shut Down Terrorists and Stop Terrorism Before It Starts" calling for a 10,000-person "Marshall Corps," like the Peace Corps, to stabilize weak nations though health and development programs and micro-lending and help ensure that terrorism does not take root.

There are "thousands committed to violence," Edwards said, and "We have to offer them a hand to our side instead of a shove to the other side of that fence." Mr. Edwards has also called for withdrawing troops from Iraq and has called on Congress to cut off funding for the war.

Insha’Allah, Muslims can also offer a hand. You and I can stop wasting energy, and can spend more time in community space. Let go of fear. We can be both secure in faith and more transparent. Isn’t it time to open up? Positive change starts with a peaceful relationship with a very un-peaceful world.

Towards Greener Pastures

2007-06-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

The recognized heroes of 9/11 –police, firemen and recovery workers—have long been cast aside, and life moves on for most. Life speeds towards its end-- especially if you are suffering from serious health problems caused by post 9/11 air quality, which Mayor Guiliani and EPA head Christine Whitman denied in the face of facts.

Last week I attended a NYCOSH dinner honoring diverse people who had confronted the lies about 9/11 health. The event reminded me that unions, local power brokers and public servants can indeed make a difference in advocating for monies necessary to treat serious emergencies. However, beyond New York City, the scandalously slow response to Hurricane Katrina victims continues, with a new environmental insult-- toxic trailers.

Congress has been made aware of reports that some of the emergency trailers contain toxic levels of formaldehyde. The National Council of Churches called for an investigation, “For almost two years, victims of these storms have made FEMA trailers their home having lost almost all of their earthly possessions. Now many of those same people are finding that the place they thought would be a refuge…is now potentially causing them, their children and other family members to suffer respiratory and other health problems— This is just unacceptable and appalling.”

But are we surprised? Since the tragic failure to install al Gore instead of Halliburton as President, the US government has not ratified the Koyoto Treaty to curb emissions that cause global warming. Do we really expect poor people’s health to be of interest? The ugly American Right is hard at work malling America. Nothing is safe-- not a red river valley or a rolling pasture, a rocky mountain or a sandy shore.

The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program is offering a new creation-friendly building guide entitled, "Building A Firm Foundation: A Creation Friendly Guide for Churches." The NCC Eco-Justice Program also invites submissions for a book examining ecological theology. (www.ncccusa.org/). But where are we Muslims? Do we care about the environment? Or are we all too busy planning to blow up gas lines?

Recently I was asked to find local Muslims to attend the Interfaith Center of New York’s Marshal Meyer’s retreat-- Cultivating Hope: Planting Seeds of Environmental Justice in NYC. I realized that I am not aware of local imams who have made this their issue. I hope I will hear of some? Syed Hossein Nasr has written eloquently on the environment but he is in Washington DC. We need more of us to care. I do hope that after their graduations at least some of our brothers and sisters are planning to work in green fields.

On June 1, Neil MacFarquar wrote in the New York Times that, “As the first generation of American-born Muslims begins graduating from college in significant numbers, with a swelling tide behind them, some congregations are beginning to seek native imams who can talk about religious and social issues that seem relevant to young people, like dating and drugs. Gihan Zahran, 43, an Egyptian immigrant, remembers a previous Arab imam who even told a much perplexed teenager that wearing Nike shoes was “haram,” or forbidden in Arabic, without explaining why.”

The article was an important reminder of a serious problem—that many of our imams are not equipped to offer practical guidance and informed interpretation to today’s Muslim youth and families. Two Fridays ago I attended a mosque in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge, and the Khotba was in angry Arabic. It was painful. It is not helpful that many old-school Arab leaders seem to stereotype and blame all Jews equally.

While I agree that Muslims need to organize more effectively around Palestinian rights, I do not wish to mix my worship of Allah with such extreme negativity. More light! There are so many reasons to be angry and fearful. The USA is already in Somalia with Task Force 150 bombing “radicals” and killing US and Swedish and Yemeni volunteers and of course Somalis. We all need more sunlight, and less Fire!

And what are the paths through fire to love and family? Who can guide us? How do we find our own ways through red river valleys and along the sandy shores? We cannot standardize all teaching, nor support the malling of Islam. Humanity comes in many shapes and sizes, strengths and weaknesses. We need very specific and individual guidance. There are compassionate accommodations to human needs –Islamic ones, ranging from multiple marriages under certain conditions, to (possibly) temporary marriages among the Shia. There have also been non-Islamic ones, like the Hippies’ summer of Love, the utopian experiments in the 19th Centuries. But that dream is faded; Free Love has now been replaced by Sex that Sells. We must beware of the manipulations of our capitalist merchant class, afflicting all around us with desire.

The Poet Dante celebrated the tragic damnation of two lovers, Paolo and Francesca, doomed to ride the whirlwind of their desires for all eternity. And yet the forces of repression and inhibition create their own unhealthy climate, and to save us, cocoon us inside toxic trailers.

And in our trailers all families are not the same. Family life is not always healthy. The youngest detainee Omar Ahmed Khadr has been in Guantanamo since he was arrested at age 15. He comes from a so-called “al Qaeda family” originating in Canada before moving to Afghanistan. According to prosecutors: “All the children were indoctrinated into the al Qaeda way of thinking.” However, after being “captured bloodied and bullet riddled”, half-blind Omar will now be “tried” as an adult, a practice increasingly common in the USA as well as in the legal hellhole of Guantanamo.

Child exploitation comes in so many forms—child soldiers, child labor, child camel jockeys, and children detainees denied international rights. May Allah grant us the wisdom to find our inner child, and to speak more gently, with more compassion. The seed is the future of the flower. The Child is father of the Man.

Do You Count? Find Yourself and Find Out

2007-05-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

Five million American Muslims vanished last week. Gone—as if they never existed. Is this the mass deportation we have been fearing? And who has spoken up out of the silence?

The Pew Foundation published their survey of Muslim American attitudes last week. While finding various interesting trends, both reassuring and unsettling to the powers that be, the survey also asserted that the total Muslim American population is 2.35 million. Quite a difference from CAIR and MPAC’s estimated 7-8 million! Much lower than what most have us expected; our credibility with elected officials may now fall drastically. Can’t Muslims count? Then Muslims may not count in the next national elections.

Questioned about the disparity, Pew’s Professor Keeter stated, “It might be low because Muslims may be more likely to be cell-phone only than the rest of the population. There certainly may be some reluctance to identify as Muslim. We didn't pick up people who maybe were born Muslim but have lost their identity and are completely secular. We don't include those.”

Certainly if we estimated that 80 percent of our brothers and sisters do not go to the mosque, and that many have become assimilated, and that many are reluctant to self-identify, we would get a much higher number, though perhaps not a group that can be counted on to vote as a bloc in any election. And yet the suspicion remains that our Muslim advocacy groups have also wildly overstated their case at over 7 million.

Can CAIR or MPAC bring back these millions from virtual rendition? Can we challenge the Pew assertions-- or are we going to leave it alone, believe what we wish in our own private dream of wishful thinking?

Of course, the US has a history of making people disappear. Not even mentioning the poor and black victims of Katrina, we see how many states have found ways to keep black voters from voting. But this happens everywhere. In chaotic Iraq, vastly increased child mortality means that one in eight children vanish. Moreover, two million have fled from Iraq in the last two years. Where are they? And though there is talk of changing this, one should note that in the last 9 months only 67 Iraqis have been admitted to the US. It is possible that we will not see them any more frequently than images of flag draped coffins of soldiers returning home.

If our community spoke out as we should on such moral issues, it would not matter how many millions we are or are not. But we are silent. We speak only to each other about renditions of Muslim suspects. There have been so many, perhaps we are bored by the subject? Just one bit of good news: Khaled Meshal has just returned to New Jersey. After he fled the recent war in Somalia, the FBI interrogated him and then--somehow-- Kenya deported him back to several months in the rare comforts of an Ethiopian-run jail in Somalia in the midst of war.

Contrasted to the US, the UK government has always said it opposes "extraordinary rendition". However, according to recent BBC reports, telegrams sent by the British security service led to the rendition of two UK residents now in Guantanamo Bay. Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna were first arrested at Gatwick airport in November 2002. Their lawyer Brent Mickum told BBC News: "They were taken out in chains and hooded... to separate rooms, where there were seven or eight individuals all of whom were dressed completely in black and wearing black masks."

Mr al-Rawi's brother Wahab, later released, said that when he asked to see a British representative he was told: "Who do you think ordered your arrest?" Mr. Mickum added: "Their clothes were cut off... nappies were put on them. Then they were taken in chains to a jet” The two men were first flown to a CIA facility in Afghanistan known as the "Dark Prison", where the conditions were "hellish."

Mr al-Rawi, an Iraqi citizen with UK residency, was sent to England in 1985 after his father was arrested by Saddam Hussein's secret police. Mr al-Banna is a Jordanian refugee. Both men deny any involvement with terrorism. They are among at least eight UK residents held at Guantanamo.

But Muslim countries are at least as bad. In Pakistan, recent public riots relate to President Musharraf’s suspension of Pakistan’s top judge Iftikhar Muhammud Chaudhry, who has pushed authorities to reveal information about Pakistan’s ”disappeared” — hundreds of men detained without charge by the shadowy police and intelligence agencies, tortured and abused.

Imran Munir, 27, disappeared after reporting to one of these shadowy agencies. His family heard nothing for months until the authorities recently admitted to holding Imran and a court order forced them to take his sister Adeela in a blacked-out car to see him. “He was afraid and weak. At first he did not recognize me,” said Adeela, “He is being tortured inside, we are being tortured outside. They say he is a spy, but he has never been charged. The agencies are above the law.”

Of course, Iran has recently started detaining (or taking hostage) foreign researchers and claiming they are spies. And in Syria, “scores of Syrians, including children, have been arrested or remained detained incommunicado without charge or pending unfair trials, at risk of torture which continues to be widespread in Syrian detention and investigation centers” according to Amnesty International last year, naming, “ Muhammed Osama Sayes, held incommunicado without charge since he was deported from the United Kingdom on 3 May 2005, Nabil al-Marabh, who "disappeared" in May 2004, four months after he was deported from the USA, and several others.

Lebanese poet Ali Ahmed Said (Adonis) writes, “I am that final leaf that no one sees. My people have died as fires die—without a trace.” But Muslims can have a voice. With a humble and clear awareness we can awake from this strange unreality. We have been vanishing. But you and I can still find ourselves again.

Offering the Spirit of Hope, Not Stones

2007-05-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

What am I? I am the camera, the book, the theater, the unreal. I am the page and pen. As the Quran asks, “Is there anything more?” What is the reality behind the fact of the man writing and another reading? Who are we?

If we were at prayer, or at any gathering, we might read unity in the collective gesture and perceive signs of divine logic shimmering within the field of play. But in each serious, deliberate meeting, do we hear the dancing drum beat of our beating hearts as we stand or sit together?

I look out at our community like a lost traveler with a telescope. As in the starry sky, as on a page of news, I see signs and symptoms of disaster.

But it is better for us to remember ourselves together. And though the world is spinning into madness, let us feel compassion for fellow humanity as for the baby seeking the bosom’s comfort.

There is a man in China who gathers stones under a sad gray sky. He weeps a flood of tears, and as each drops to the ground it changes to yet another heavy stone. He gathers these stones ceaselessly --there is no end to them.

Attar tells this tale, in the Conference of Birds, commenting: “If it is necessary to seek knowledge in China, then go. But knowledge is distorted by the formal mind and becomes fossilized, like stones. How long must real knowledge continue to be misunderstood?”

In days of heaviness I lose touch with hope. I gather personal qualms, inhibitions and regrets and call this self-knowledge. The formal mind forgets the beating heart.

But the false hopes of religious identity promise to open doors to heaven. It is so easy to say, “I believe!” We note how many born again Christians have been led astray in recent years through arrogance of faith and the power of politics in the Bush Administration. But are Muslim regimes any wiser? Am I?

The US floods Pakistan with unrestricted funds for the military, ten billion dollars since 2002, while only small change is made available for rural health, education and food. Former President Carter terms the Bush Administration “the worst in history” for endorsing the policy of pre-emptive war, and for “zero peace talks” in the Middle East. A raging mob stones the police in Hyderabad, after the historic stone Mecca Masjid is damaged by a bomb. We are all weeping stones. The cycle of state and non-state violence seems without end.

In Africa, the universities are overrun with criminal gangs. In Nigeria these gangs have hired themselves out to politicians. In Senegal, swelling populations leave less than 600 dollars per university student. Dormitories are covered with graffiti and clotheslines cross the campus as in a housing project. Books and equipment are in short supply. Will Africa’s future leaders grow in such dry and stony soil?

Here in the Green Zone, our more fortunate Muslim Student Associations might think to develop projects, pen pals, sister and brother MSAs in Africa. We might also remember the millions of refugees with no lights in their refugee camps. One model program is the Solar Powered Flashlight program; see www.BoGoLight.com. Closer to home, we might donate to our programs that help detainees and victims of backlash, as well as service and self-sufficiency programs for the poor and ailing.

I do not exactly know what Dr. Rafiq Sabbir thought he was doing when he agreed to help his friend Tariq Shah. It is not clear if he thought that as a doctor he would assist Osama Bin Laden’s mujahids, as many of our fellow Muslims would do around the world unfortunately; or if he merely wanted to help the general cause of jihad with his medical skills. In any case, his detention has left a family without income. Surely a man like this has the right to some support, at least for his right to a fair trial and a decent lawyer. If you wish to assist, there is nothing illegal in that. Checks can be made out to lawyer Edward Wilford and mailed to his wife, Sister Morgan at 75 Fox Run Drive, Englewood, NJ 07631.

Offering help –or words of hope--we can develop our potential through positive actions. Can immigrants derive hope through politicians’ promises or do they need new laws enacted to offer a way to legal, normal life? Will the poor feel hope through thousand-page policies on paper, or through actual humane programs that show respect for them, that treat them like living beings instead of rags and bones?

We all need to feel hope. We also need to offer hope. Our religion is not a recipe for Pie in the Sky. Our religion is not instructions to build a bomb. Our religion may teach us to plant seeds; but the rules for planting the seeds of hope and joy should not be confused with the green and living plant when it appears. You cannot eat the planting instructions, and your soul cannot be nurtured by written rules alone.

We wait, you and I, for the Spirit of joy and the energy of hope. And God knows best what conditions of sunlight and earth, water, pain and joy, will cause the flower to at last appear at the end of the struggling branch.

Passing the Plate: Fitness not Fitnah

2007-05-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

The community is a table of hospitality and delight. Our conversations might be spiced with humor and yet nourishing, warm and delicious. As Muslims we could be passing around the plates and anticipating each other’s needs and interests.

Instead the television is on and each one has turned to his or her own way. The Head of the table is absent; he is at a second job. The Heart of the meal looks out in confusion at her I-pod children. The teenager suddenly has blond hair, when did that happen? And the three year old is reading Sayyed Qutb and plotting something on the cellphone.

Over all this, the sense and smell of burning hangs in the air, and the eyes tear up. Do we inhale a meal gone wrong or is it the acrid scent of far off fires of hell, like a scene of sectarian bombing? Is our community a table of delights-- or just another future crime scene?

Let us face the facts instead of turning on the tube. Perhaps the recipes need adjustment. What can we cook up in the cuisine of deen to remind us of our taste for living? What is the living and enlivening spirit of our deen? Islam is much larger than who we think we are.

What feeds and nourishes the growing soul? Surely not fast food in the harsh and flickering light of television. From Chicago, Abdul Malik Mujahid writes, “According to one study, ‘the average five-year-old spends only 25 minutes a week in close interaction with his father but 25 hours a week in close interaction with the TV set.’ Whose values will this baby adopt? of the old man or of a punk in the tube?”

Of course the “old man” may also not know how to share the best of his values either. He may be a weak and conflicted— or reactive and authoritarian. Let’s not overly romanticize the traditional family. Instead, let’s challenge our men and women and children to open their hearts and share what they have, even if it is only crumbs of love. Just start with what you have, not from what you wish to have. We Muslims can be so serious. And in place of more hard work, we can instead offer the team spirit of play. Why not more fun!

Yes! But now the dishes are flying like Frisbees and the three year old has taken up paintball. How to channel all this sudden burst of energy? Can we learn the adab of good sports as well as the will to win? Can our table play your table?

Sports for the whole family is now being offered to Muslim communities around the country. On May 26, ICNA New Jersey will hold the Islamic Games 2007 at Crossroads South Middle School, 195 Major Road, Monmouth Junction, New Jersey starting at 8 am. Events include Cricket, Basketball, Volleyball and many other sports for male and female 8 years and above. Awards will be given, prayers offered. As for dress code, “If you can pray in it you can play in it.” Pre-registration deadline is May 22, and information is available at http://www.islamic-games.com/.

From July 20—22, the Riyaadah Committee will hold its twenty-fifth annual Riyaadah, at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. This event has been under the leadership of Imam Jamil Al-Amin and held in various cities (New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Greensboro, Norfolk, Detroit, and Flint). It includes educational as well as sporting events, and a city-wide picnic. To register, you may contact www.riyaadah.org/ or Riyaadah Chair Nadim S. Ali at nadimlpc@gmail.com. You may also wish to call 1-888-414 4011.

In New Haven Connecticut, the 2007 Fitness Summit for Women will be held July 28-9. Sporting events will include Yoga, Swimming, Kickboxing, Line Dancing, Belly-Dancing, Water Aerobics, along with workshops on Muslimah Exercise Options,
Prophetic Medicine, Qur’anic Therapy, Hynotherapy, Weight Management, and Nutrition. The Key Note Speaker will be Sister Mubarakah Ibrahim of the Islamic Health Revival: Creating Wellness Centered Muslim Communities. (see www.fitmuslimahsummit.com/).

These are just a few of many promised summer activities. Of course some of us may also wish to participate in sports with our non-Muslim friends and neighbors. This is important. But at the same time our presence is needed at all-Muslim events to build solidarity between ethnically and religiously diverse Muslim communities. Or are we going to develop African American Muslim events and Arab Muslim Events separately?

Even the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has established the Islamic Solidarity Games to encourage cooperation among Muslim states. The Iranian Shi'a twelver Hossein Reza Zadeh first set a world record at these games as well as a gold medal in weightlifting at both the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. While lifting, he shouted "Ya Abu-Fazr!", supplicating in the name of Ali Akbar ibn Husayn.

Even since before Caliph Omar admonished us, “Teach your sons the art of swimming, sharp shooting, and horseback riding," sports have been encouraged in the Muslim community. And in today’s world, women’s sports are being more rapidly developed as well. We cannot seem to avoid the usual, sometimes harsh controversies about women’s clothing, as both markswoman Lida Fariman and runner Hassiba Boulmerka have found out. But whether you are a fan of Mohammed Ali or Laila Ali, Imran Khan or Mohamed Sissoko, Zinedine Zidane or Zlatan Ibrahimovic, there are countless role models to inspire Muslim men and women with vitality, will and skill.

As Muslims you and I, let’s accept the challenge to serve the team as we see it. If you are a baseball Muslim maybe you see an ummah with bases to cover; a soccer Muslim with a position and head and foot for passing; a long distance runner Muslim or a ju jitsu Muslim on the mat. Sport is focus, the present moment. Sport is team-work, overcoming sleep and pain. It’s not all about paintball! How do Muslims play the game of life?

Not in Kansas Anymore: Some Poems and Politics of Disaster

2007-05-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

“Virginia Hammond of Greensburg stood in the street Saturday afternoon. She looked at a gaping hole that once held a large curtained bedroom window. "I just washed those curtains the day before yesterday," she said.”

Springtime is here at last. But springtime is tornado season in Kansas. A home, a family, even a community can suddenly go missing. As the nations of the world, we can blame each other for the horrors of war, but how can we understand a natural disaster that appears in a moment, like a sudden confession of love?

Last week, Adam Nossiter of the New York Times observed, “for perhaps 80 square blocks, old brick buildings and new frame ones were flattened into twisted piles of masonry and timbers. In a muddy field, a mortuary’s open coffins lay tossed about, and large trucks lay upside down like giant beetles,” The Wichita Eagle, two days after the massive tornado, led with this headline: "Greensburg is gone; its future, unknown."

What future? The grade school, a high school, a City Hall, a hospital, a water tower, a fire station, a business district and the main street are gone. Crews have been spray-painting street names on the broken streets so people will know where they are. (see www.kansas.com.)

Fires and floods beset us everywhere, but we forget so soon. Nor do we wish to plan ahead, even for children, old people, or pets; we have no escape plan but our faith in God. But surely we can also reduce some future suffering. Mosques and Muslim community members might promote giving blood, bring free disaster planning training into the schools and youth groups. Every group can rehearse its disaster plan.

And some disasters can lead to positive action. After the 1999 earthquakes in Istanbul region, the Islamic movement parties stepped in with discipline and hard work while the bureaucracies of the secular state, and even the army, failed to act effectively. Moreover, the state’s failure to enforce building codes resulted in greater suffering as building after building collapsed; this became a scandal just as with the failure to build levies to hold back the flood in New Orleans. In Turkey the religious parties came to power in a political earthquake. For the last five years they have been carefully championing human rights reform and engagement with Europe.

Now there seem to be two Turkeys, with the secular elite and the military encouraging growing crowds to oppose the Justice and Development Party of Recep Erdogan, who has already served months in jail for reciting the poem by Ziya Gokulp including, “The minarets are our bayonets; the domes are our helmets. Mosques are our barracks, the believers are soldiers. This holy army guards my religion, Almighty; Our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom.”

One might smile at such poetical political rhetoric but also feel it stir one’s pulse. And we do need reminding of our collective destiny as Muslims.

In France last week, Nicolas Sarkozy won a hotly contested and close election, and one might say that at this moment there are two Frances staring across the divide of class and ethnicity. And yet it is good to note that Sarkozy, not previously known as an inclusive force, did offer the gesture of reaching out in his moment of triumph, stating, “for me there is only one France. I want to tell them that I will be president of all the French." We will see in what way he means this. Sarkozy also indicated that he would challenge the US on its lack of action on Global Warming. Even now we see the politics of disaster planning becoming an essential aspect of political discourse.

Has the earthquake in Pakistan led to similar reforms or moments of unity? Currently the suspended chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry is calling for change and for a moment a political earthquake seems finally arrived. At rally after rally the Faiz Ahmed Faiz poem is read: “When the mountains of cruelty and torture will fly like pieces of cotton under the feet of the governed/This earth will quake and over the head of the ruler when lightning will thunder/We shall see.”

In Turkey Erdogan went to jail, but ended up in on top, though fighting for political survival. But what will happen to Chaudhry? He declares, “The concept of an autocratic system of government is over... Those countries and nations who don’t learn from the past vanish.”

Which of today’s empires may be destroyed in coming years? The poet Shelly wrote, “And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay, of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare; the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Even the lone and level Greensburg Kansas knew its glory days, when steam railroads converged near the town and the nation’s largest hand-dug well was dug, seven stories down, to feed the engines as well as people and finally three million tourists.

This well is the only direct contact a tourist can have with the enormous Ogallala Aquifer flowing underground, watering millions of Mid-western crops. It would cover all 50 states with 1 1/2 feet of water if it were on the surface. Now this mysterious unknown wonder is below broken rocks and splintered wood.

Let us offer our prayers for the suffering people of the world and hear them in their time of emptiness. As Eliot brought this supplication out of the well of emptiness; “Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden, Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood; Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still --Even among these rocks, our peace in His will-- And even among these rocks; Sister, mother And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separated-- And let my cry come unto Thee.”

The Price We Pay

2007-04-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

A bright and breezy day in Spring. Everything seems up in the air, and on its way. The windy weather seems to call for a suspension of disbelief. The racing clouds call for letting the world flow on without constant judgment.

I am not usually so light-hearted, or open-minded. Like you, I value my purchases according to my needs and resources. I have just bought new shoes at a street fair for 24 dollars; but who knows what value they had in China where they were made.

Anyway, I am happy to pay 24 dollars. A bargain. Years ago, Manhattan was bought for 24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets; also a bargain—and a tragedy. The Manahatta branch of the Lenape tribe were not displeased by the exchange, especially since they moved seasonally and had no clear concept of land ownership. They did not see what they were giving away. Soon after, their resulting dependence on European goods, and the need for fur to trade with the Europeans, resulted in over-harvesting of the beaver population in the lower Hudson, economic disaster and dislocation of the Native Americans. As they say, “the rest is history.”

Does this sad story disturb me? Now, walking down a street, surrounded by families in a festive mood, I recall a thought from the “Unbearable Lightness of Being”— “How can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit? In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”

Shall we forgive history? Or shall we cling to our grievances and our tribal grudges, to the delicious identity of victimhood? Is it this identity that gives us meaning and value?

What is the value of human life? Broken down into its basic elements and minerals, the human body is worth less than $4.50. However, vital organs have been assigned worth and the human heart has been calculated to have $57,000 in value.

Even more useful perhaps, your DNA can fetch 9.7 million, according to Wired Magazine; supposedly bone marrow can yield 23 million. The actual market rate may vary however—for how much does a Chinese or African receive for a kidney?

Chinese labor is certainly valued less— and apparently so are Chinese lives. We do not usually say so, but how much would you give to help a starving stranger in war torn Africa? That is the value you and I give, dear reader.

We may claim that human life is precious, but in this brutal capitalist civilization, many would set human value in terms of net worth and disposable income. This varies considerably. An article in Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine last week reports that the 25 highest-paid hedge-fund managers in the US had an average income of $540 million in 2006, with the top three pulling in over $1 billion each... The average among them earned nearly $1.5 million a day, every day, for the entire year—or over $1,000 every minute.

Doug Casey is editor and publisher of the International Speculator and author of "Crisis Investing," which spent 26 weeks as No. 1 on the New York Times Best-Seller list. He suggests that we should indeed set a monetary value to human life on a sliding scale. No doubt, he calculates his advantage. But Life Insurance companies do this work all the time. Hopefully they will distinguish determining the value of a human year of work from the value of the actual life. If depends whether you measure the flesh, the DNA, the heart or the unique human soul.

Dear reader: what is the value of your day? Of the next 24 hours? Do you place a value on it? How do you set a price tag on your human heart? Is the price just what people will give you? Will you negotiate a better price?

Justice reflects the value of human life we assign. Justice has often been in short supply for poor and minority groups because they are valued less by the powers that be. And now even torture is being rationalized. Though this abhorrent practice goes against the core teachings of the Abrahamic religions it apparently does not conflict with the cold-eyed pieties of social Darwinism. Habeus Corps and other basic legal rights fade along with memories of the guillotine. Last week the Justice Department asked the federal appeals court to limit lawyers to three visits with Guantanamo clients; allow their correspondence with prisoners to be opened and read; and give government officials the power to deny the lawyers access to evidence.

One legal fiction the Bush Administration has promoted is that non-citizens are not covered by basic rights out of the territories of the USA. At the same time, the administration claims that US citizens are covered by US laws everywhere they go.

Now that is privilege! Similarly, in “No Iraqi Civilians on Mount Hood” writer Jozef Hand-Boniakowski remind us that US media gives much more value to three American Mountain climbers lost in the snow than to tend of thousands of “faceless” Iraqis killed in our occupation. Instead, he observes, “Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes and Columbia University Professor and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz have stated that they “calculate that the war is likely to cost the United States a minimum of nearly one trillion dollars and potentially over $2 trillion”. Dividing the lower figure of $1,000,000,000,000 by the killing of 655,000 Iraqis yields a cost of $1,526,717.56 per Iraqi casualty. Right wing critics accuse the Lancet study casualty figures as being exaggerated. If that is the case, then the cost per casualty is even higher. Instead of placing infinite value on human life, we are placing a value on human death.”

In “The Value of Human Life” scholar Omid Safi adds this critique of US media: “We have to be clear about this point: our task is not to "humanize" Iraqis--one can only humanize something that is not already fully human. The Iraqis, exactly like us, already possess their full God-given humanity. If we have failed to see and interact with Iraqis on a human level, if we have not listened to their cries, seen their tears, mourned their deaths, it is because they have been presented to us as inhuman, subhuman, or nonhuman.”

Readers: we all know that to save the life of one human being--any human being--is to have saved the life of all humanity, and to take the life of a single human being, any human being, is as if to destroy all of humanity (Qur'an 5:32).

This essential Islamic value of human life is due to the presence of Divine spirit in all of humanity. The winds of possibility and ultimate and limitless compassion surround us at every step. According to the Qur'an, God breathed into each and every human being (Qur'an 15:29 and 38:72).

You and I have not begun to realize this challenge, the value of the human, beyond flesh, beyond social worth, identity or calculation. With the worth and dignity of every life in mind, in heart, perhaps we can begin to build from our own actions a world of 'adl instead of the mess we have now. O reader: what price would you pay for a better world?

Reply to Echoes in an Empty Hall

2007-04-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Gunshots echo in the empty halls. A madman is lost in a video game. Now his voice is finally heard, and he imagines a moment of freedom in false martyrdom.

Then he is no more. Program closed. Logged out. His body is dead, he is dead, but the echoes in our minds remain. And even as you read this, others are buying their bullets on E-Bay.

The motto of the state is “Virginia is For Lovers” but everywhere we wish our time of youth to be light-hearted. So often it is not, and out of habit we continue to add burdens to our souls and the souls of those we love. Fears. Self-hate. Loneliness. Blame. In the military it is seen as normal to leave one’s rooms to hunt and collectively shoot down young men and women. Sad to say, it is not so unusual in our tribal conflicts and domestic quarrels. But how strange to train to kill in the springtime of one’s life, as an Army of One.

These early spring days my rooms are cold, while the sun burns bright outside. Along the little street I walk, with the scent of hyacinths tickling my nose with memories of the Spice Bazaar, its dim long halls.

What is that light at the end of the tunnel? What freedom do I hope for, after a season of restriction and withdrawal? As the bare trees transform themselves in flower, I would leave the struggle for winter wisdom for the self-surrender of summer; submission to Beauty, in the marketplace of the Beloved. I have been a rabbit in a cage waiting for another small piece for carrot. Let me free!

I ride in the subway and open an Italian orange. There is a small Mexican child opposite sitting me. If I lived in another country, a Muslim country, I would offer her a piece of orange. What do I do in this public place? Do I dare?

What freedom do we Muslims hope for in this anxious time? In this America, managed, mediated, misguided in its culture of control? Can we leave the court of public opinion to the lawyers and others who scratch their heads and join the princes of the court in their more joyous game? Jump-shots and lay-ups have awakened their fingers; their hearts are transparent, aware. Awhile.

As we pray, can we remain awake after the last prostration is done? Can we feel the transparency one minute, two minutes, after? How long can we remain in love and in Reality?

Is Islam a rule-based religion or a Reality-based religion? Many call it a way of life, but as a way of faith it calls us deep into our souls. Let Muslims be with the whole hearted, and those who freely laugh.

Sermons are not enough. Our mosques can provide safe spaces and social services, not merely textual analysis of the Qur’an. Our homes can provide the silence of listening, not just yelling and competition for attention. Our teachers might guide the heart as well as head.

And yes I too have been known to sermonize. As evidence, my previous columns gather dust here in cyberspace at http://americanmuslimadems.blogspot.com. But I try to combine reflection with incitement to positive action.

This week it is a defensive action I request of you dear readers. The Islamophobes at www.militantIslammonitor.org have been attacking a colleague with lies and insults. An interfaith group of volunteer educators came together and proposed a school that would give Arabic language and culture a place in the curriculum. Masha’Allah, the grant went through and, named after the Arab humanist poet of sweet spirituality, the Khalil Gibran International Academy is scheduled to open in the fall. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of Arab American Family Support Center and Sister Debbie Almontaser and others! But now they are being attacked for opening a supposed islamist medrasa paid for with our tax dollars…a danger to us all…the crazy negative comments multiply and spread from coast to coast.

As a school attack, this does not compare with Virginia Tech. But it is an attack by a group of neo-conservative thugs living in a paranoid alternate universe. They misuse Google to misrepresent statements as extreme and convince others of a looming threat. The organizers of this project are solidly behind interfaith and multicultural dialogue—I can think of no better examples. It would be too bad to lose the school!

This school is an excellent educational opportunity for students regardless of religion or background and will build bridges between Arabic speaking and other communities of New York. Certainly at this time it should be important how important this resource is, to avoid hate crimes against us, unnecessary wars, and alienated, self-hating youth!

The school has solid support but there is pressure from the extreme Right. Numbers count, and your email or phone call will help. To express support for the Khalil Gibran International Academy, please contact (in a clear and positive way) Chancellor Joel Klein JKlein@schools.nyc.gov and 212-374-0200; and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at 212-788-9600 (voice). You may also wish to contact the city council at quinn@council.nyc.ny.us and the Council Education Committee at jackson@council.nyc.ny.us.

It is Spring. Time to target passersby with easy grins, not fully loaded Glocks. Time for positive action. Springtime is for lovers, not thugs or killers. Surely Khalil Gibran would agree.

Shura of the Bees? Or--Colony Collapse Begins At Home

2007-04-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

On April 15, the Independent newspaper quoted Albert Einstein, who once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

Now, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has now hit half of all American states. This alarming phenomenon occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. Since last autumn, the West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast. And since I mentioned this two months ago, CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

German research has long shown that bees' behavior changes near power lines. Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously home-loving species from finding their way back to their hives. Can this be?

And what else is missing? The US is currently holding 18,000 Iraqis in detention, many “disappeared” and neatly catalogued with retina scans. What else is missing? The basic rights of Habeus Corpus. What else is missing? The incriminating emails that Karl Rove and his staff have sent about political firing of US Attorneys.

As the website Law.com reports; “Since the day he arrived at the Department of Justice in February 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has "shattered" the department's tradition of independence and politicized its operation more than any other attorney general in more than 30 years. So says Daniel Metcalfe, a senior attorney at the department who retired in January, before the current controversy over the firing of U.S. Attorneys erupted.”

John Edwards and John Kerrey were defeated in the last Presidential election. Some people said that it made no difference who won anyway. Some people seem to always think that way. Some of them are “one issue” voters whose brains can apparently only hold one piece of information at a time: Abortion or Adultery; Israel or Palestine.

But we face so many other urgent issues as well. And it seems we need disasters to wake us from our political and moral sleep. Immediately after the massive devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Edwards wrote, “During the campaign of 2004, I spoke often of the two Americas: the America of the privileged and the wealthy, and the America of those who lived from paycheck to paycheck. I spoke of the difference in the schools, the difference in the loan rates, the difference in opportunity. All of that pales today. Today … we see a harsher example of two Americas.

Edwards went on to remind us, “Thirteen million children -- nearly one in every five -- lives in poverty. Close to 25 percent of all African Americans live in poverty. Twenty-three percent of the population in New Orleans lives in poverty. Those are chilling numbers. Because of Katrina, we have now seen many of the faces behind those numbers…. Poverty exists everywhere in America. It is in Detroit and El Paso. It is in Omaha, Nebraska and Stockton, California. It is in rural towns like Chillicothe, Ohio and Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Nearly half of the children in Detroit, Atlanta and Long Beach, California live in poverty. It doesn't have to be this way.”

Since then, the war in Iraq has continued its tragic spiral, creating at least “two Iraqs” and maybe more. And in an Essay “Two Americas” writer Brian Downing added this warning to Edwards’ lament: “Divisions between red and blue America and between rich and poor are well known. But another one, related but not quite identical, exists as well. There is a deep divide between those who honorably live the traditions surrounding war and those who dishonorably capitalize on them, between those who fight wars and those who plan them. This divide, troubling if not infuriating to most veterans, is perhaps even more dangerous than the others.”

The US claims Iran is a danger and the only question seems to be just who will send unmanned robot aircraft to bomb its nuclear sites. And proliferation proliferates. As the Times reported on April 15, in the front page lead, “Two years ago, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told international atomic regulators that they could not foresee no need for the kingdom to develop nuclear power. Today, they are scrambling to hire atomic contractors, buy nuclear hardware, and build support for a region system of reactors. So, too, Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant, and Egypt has announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast…”

Is this Colony Collapse Disorder of another kind? A collective madness? The care of Nuclear power and its long-lived wastes almost requires the continuation of authoritarian regimes. We cannot only blame Israel and the US for this, but it is worth noting that the head of the UN Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Hans Blix, has said that if the US genuinely wants to prevent the proliferation of other nation's nuclear programs, it should present itself as a role model and "completely" halt the development of its nuclear arms.

Like the US, Muslim Regimes are holding tight to their power. It may be that there are, as the Times has said, “Two Turkeys”, very different political cultures in uneasy dialogue with each other. But in Nigeria, we have had another “election” that keeps the governing regime firmly in place. The leaders of the political opposition in Russia “the Other Russia” are being arrested, and even the famous Chess player Kasparov will have to pay 200 dollars to get out of jail. It’s not easy to be in opposition, though that is supposed to be a necessary part of the democratic process. And in the Maghreb, we have a new appearance of suicide bombers blowing themselves up in tiny clouds of absurdity and dust—also good for police budgets.

Nobel Prize Winner Sherin Ebadi noted that some Muslims have justified despotic governments, “under the pretext that democracy and human rights are not compatible with Islamic teachings and the traditional structure of Islamic societies.”

However, Ebadi also noted in her speech that it was “of extreme concern to observe that under the pretext of cultural relativity, international human rights laws and standards are breached not only by their recognized opponents, but also by the Western democracies —with hundreds of individuals arrested in the course of military conflicts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have been imprisoned in Guantanamo, without the benefit of the rights stipulated under the Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Perhaps the bees know something we do not.

They Only Hate Us For Our Freedoms

2007-04-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

On April 7, as the world around us continued to burn, the White House issued an Immediate Release: the Easter Dinner Menu. I am sure you will be glad to know that after a hard day of work the President and First Lady look forward to a Texas Grapefruit, Avocado, and Mozzarella Salad; Fire-Glazed Ham; Green Chili Cheese Grits Soufflé, Roasted Orange Molasses Sweet Potatoes, Roasted Asparagus, Brazos Valley Cheeses, Fresh Yeast Rolls, with Coconut Cake and Blue Bell Ice Cream to wash it all down.

We hope the President and First Lady had enough to eat. At the same time, 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds, according to the World Food Program.

Who are these hungry people? Most of them -- 815 million people -- are found in the developing world, while 28 million are in Eastern Europe and nations of the former Soviet Union. Nine million -- more than the total population of metropolitan New York City -- live in the world's richest countries.

But surely the rich need not be ashamed. They have human needs too, and so do diplomats. And catering to these needs provides jobs! Recently in Cape Cod Times, Darlene Superville reported that White House Executive chef Cristeta Comerford has cooked for at least 33 heads of state since her promotion in August 2005.

''She's done a great job of serving American food, which is what I think should be served. It's the White House,'' said Ris Lacoste, former chef at 1789, a top restaurant in the capital's Georgetown neighborhood. She said that soup as the first course is, ''a very seductive way to open a meal…Soup is something that is so embracing and so welcoming,''

Those who refuse to drink soup must pay the price. Poor nutrition and calorie deficiencies cause nearly one in three people to die prematurely or have disabilities, according to the World Health Organization. Pregnant women, new mothers who breastfeed infants, and children are among the most at risk of undernourishment. In 2005, about 10.1 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday. Almost all of these deaths occurred in developing countries, 3/4 of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the two regions that also suffer from the highest rates of hunger and malnutrition. Most of these deaths are attributed, not to outright starvation, but to diseases that move in on vulnerable children whose bodies have been weakened by hunger.

CARE reports that 54 nations currently do not produce enough food to feed their populations and that most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. (www.care.org)

But of course, some Africans have dined well on American Hospitality. His Excellency Mwai Kibaki, President of Kenya, and Mrs Lucy Kibaki enjoyed their Roasted Rack of Lamb, Wild Mushrooms and Armagnac Sauce, Sweet Potato Flan and Autumn Vegetables; Avocado and Heirloom Tomato Salad with Toasted Cumin Dressing; the "Best of Kenya" Arabica Ice Cream and Coffee Liquor Parfait; Caramelized Banana and Pineapple with both Soter Pinot Noir "Beacon Hill" and Honig Sauvignon Blanc "Late Harvest" 2002 to wash it all down while being entertained by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Perhaps some day every Kenyan will have this chance.

After opening the British royal dinner with celery broth and Crispy Rock Shrimp, Chef Comerford served medallions of buffalo tenderloin, roasted corn, wild rice pancakes, glazed parsnips and Young Carrots. That was followed by a palate-cleansing salad of mint romaine lettuce drizzled with blood orange vinaigrette, Vermont Camembert Cheese and Spiced Walnuts, before a dessert of petits fours cake, chartreuse ice cream and red and green grape sauce. All this was washed down with Iron Horse "Wedding Cuvée" 2002; Peter Michael Pinot Noir "Le Moulin Rouge" 2002, and Newton Chardonnay "Unfiltered" 2002. Leaning on their Gold pintuck silk tablecloths, among Sprays of white phaeleanopsis orchids with camellia foliage in the historic White House vermeil candelabras, The British Royals were serenaded by the US Air Force Military Band.

Of course, poor people have flowers and music too. And some make excellent servers. But not all. As the World Food Program notes, “Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness. Worldwide, more than 1 billion people currently live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day.”

Currently the World Food Program cannot feed all these people because US law requires that Food for aid be purchased in the US at US prices, as a form of farm subsidy. True, it seems that the Bush Administration backs some reform in this area. Celia Dugger reports (April 7): “The United States Agency for International Development estimated that if Congress adopted the Bush proposal, the United States could annually feed at least a million more people for six months and save 50,000 more lives. But Congress quickly killed the plan in each of the past two years, cautioning that untying food aid from domestic interest groups would weaken the commitment that has made the United States by far the largest food aid donor in a world where 850 million go hungry.”

So we should not (only) target our poor president, right? Nor can expect our leaders to go hungry, of course. Therefore last year, Australian Prime Minister Howard enjoyed his Pan-roasted Barramundi, Charentais Melon Relish, Lemon Carnaroli Risotto with Asparagus Tips; Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi consumed his Maryland She Crab Soup, Crackling Fishers Island Oysters, Texas Kobe Beef with Cracked Black Pepper, Shitake Mushroom Jus, Silver Corn Pilaf, and Sesame-coated Wild Asparagus; and even the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz dinner got Spicy Shrimp and Sausage, Molasses Barbecue Rub, Creamy White Grits and Pan-fried Sweet Potato Cakes. Thank God no watermelon!

But this is not to suggest that Muslim Friends of George are not invited to the Feast. At the working dinner with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sept. 27, 2006, our Muslim brothers enjoyed Sunchoke Soup with Feta Triangles, Leek and Celery Heart Fondue; Spicy Sea Bass with Stuffed Catalan Tomatoes, Grilled Fennel and Shallot Jus; Salad of Endive, Radicchio and Chicory, Pomegranate Lemon Dressing, and Pumpkin Cake with Vanilla Sauce, Caramel Ice Cream. How disappointing that the Saudi King has just canceled the planned State Dinner with President Bush.

And how disappointing too that in Guantanamo 13 detainees (or perhaps 40) are now on hunger strikes, even despite the new policy of strapping prisoners into restraint chairs while they are fed by plastic tubes inserted through their nostrils. Over 160 Camp 6 inmates are now locked in “improved” 8-foot-by-10-foot cells for at least 22 hours in isolation, with limited reading material and no television and with no legal rights or charges. “My wish is to die,” one reported hunger striker in the camp, Adnan Farhan Abdullatif, a 27-year old Yemeni, told his lawyer; “We are living in a dying situation.”

Wow they must be hungry. Of course we all know how we are dying to eat after a long day of fasting in Ramadan. Nice to think how nice the White House Iftar dinner was last Ramadan 2006: Spiced Carrot Soup, Roasted Quince, Mint Pesto-crusted Halibut, Citrus Fondue, Largueta Almonds and Currants, Vine-ripened Tomato Salad, Fresh Basil and Olive Oil, Warm Pear Souffle, Caramel Sauce, Chocolate Macaroons. America is really a melting pot. That’s for sure. Why do Others hate us? They only hate us for our freedoms.

We the People: On Muslims, the Mind & the Machine.

2007-04-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

Are you a machine? Well of course you are, even if you are not the best functioning type of machine. But are you also something more?

In the past year the most widespread sign in our New York subway train system has been the warning: “If You See Something Say Something.” As in other government policies, much information is missing. See what? Say what? And to whom? Once again official slogans address our organs of perception and expression but not cognition or context or our capacity for independent thought. Basically this sign means, “Trust Us.”

At the same time that this message spreads subliminally through our city, one of the most widespread images on the subway has been the image of humans flayed of flesh and presented as educational exhibits. These dead, red and white anatomies look back with naked bulging eyes from posters in every station, and advertisements on bus and train. Bizarre images-- especially since, reminded of terror in every trip, we fear being blown up by bombs as in Madrid, and reduced to such naked and lifeless flesh.

We see dead people. So who are they? They were for the most part former Chinese prisoners, now arranged for our entertainment and edification in groups paying football and engaged in other pursuits.

While one appreciates that medical students can learn from the study of cadavers, this grisly display is meant to show the human body as machine, raw materials and a commodity. The exhibition is traveling in several US cities and is highly promoted by certain corporations and industries. We do not know exactly how the bodies were taken for this purpose.

The warning message and the image in the subway both seek to strip away taboos and protections of customary human privacy in the name of modernity, national security and progress. They seem to share a sense that humanity is a machine for the collective good. The materialism of our culture presents humanity in this way, when it is not merely depicting our demands and desires for new consumer goods. The corporate machine sees us all as corporate machines.

It is at this cultural moment that the Bush administration has stripped prisoners of Habeus Corpus rights. This Latin term of course means, “We have the body” and is an ancient human right to know why a person is being detained or imprisoned, and for how long. The Bush administration (with collusion in Congress, especially among the Republican party) has challenged this protection. In the case of the Guantanano detainees and in the case of “enemy combatants” –a new category— the bodies being held have been stripped of rights along with their clothing. In the misuse of law and power, one can therefore make some comparisons to a concentration camp.

It is very good to hear the news last week that Guantanamo detainee David Hicks is to be returned to Australia within 60 days. He has faced a potential life term, so this is quite a different outcome to pleading guilty. However, the price of this arrangement was to require him not to speak to media for one year (ie until after the next Australian elections) and to forbid him to sue over his treatment during his five years in captivity.

Critics said these provisions indicated that officials would use prosecutorial powers to muffle the public debate about detention policies. “It is a modern cutting out of his tongue,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. But at least the government did not actually cut out his tongue and put it on display for the education and entertainment of the American people. As a culture, we are not so far from such behavior.

However, neither are the Arabs and so-called Muslims engaged in sectarian warfare in Iraq. These insurgents, chauvinists and criminals have been removing quite a number of eyes, ears and tongues, not to mention heads. We do not think these are medical students short of materials for their anatomy class. And we do not think that Hezbollah, Iran or Israel should be holding men and women as political pawns. Muslims should know that bodies and minds should be free.

Materialism considers that a person is his body, nothing else but that, and what we understand as mind is nothing but bodily phenomena. In this day and age, Islamic schools should not forget the care and development of the individual soul, the Tazkiyat al Nafs. Religious literalism and Materialism too often share an emphasis on external practice and on social control and can lead us to forget our essential natures.

If as Muslims and human beings we are to encourage human freedom, we need to study human nature as well as human difference. And over the last 1400 years, many Muslim thinkers have considered the mind-body-spirit relationship.

For example, over four hundred years ago, at the same time Rene Descartes explored the mind-body relation in the West, Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi (Mulla Sadra) studied how the soul is created with the body but becomes a finer substance and perhaps immortal through the spirit. Every living thing, including animals and plants, use their matter as instrument to move from material to spiritual being. In this way Sadra disagrees with Aristotle, who considers mental substance as merely “a function” of a body.

We the people are not just mind. We are not just flesh. Humanity is heart, and soul and mystery. You and I must work to know our selves, in all our imperfections and distractions. We can be more aware. As a spiritual book named “Beads of Dew” reminds us; “It is necessary to recognize, with every breath, that Allah is Present and Watchful. When this awareness takes control, the sense of humble modesty is felt in Allah’s presence, and heedlessness departs.”

The Right to Assemble and the War on Terror

2007-03-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

There are so many injustices these days around the world and at home. You and I complain but what do we protest publicly? Do we use this power effectively? As a community we are known to angrily protest cartoons in Denmark but not the treatment of Muslims in Guantanamo, or the slaughter of civilians in Darfur, Lebanon, and Iraq. As Americans, and as Muslims, do we use-- or will we lose-- these rights to assemble publicly?

The First Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the government from abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble." The right to assemble is rooted in Magna Carta protections of the right to petition the government. It has been called “a privilege” of citizens that “must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience”—and national security—but the prevailing “due process” view has been that it is a human right extending to “aliens” and people of all classes and backgrounds.

This basic freedom has protected striking workers, civil rights advocates, anti-war demonstrators and even Ku Klux Klan marchers. There must a "clear and present danger" or an "imminent incitement of lawlessness" before government officials may restrict free-assembly rights. Supreme Court has even forbidden cities to charge a higher permit fee to groups whose march would likely require more police protection.

This is how it should be. However, these are troubling times. The government is regularly challenging these rights in the name of public order, increasingly using spies as well as mass arrests, even preventative arrests to prevent assembly. The New York Times reported last weekend that, “For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.”

Organizations reported on included a large range of faith-based peace groups; as well as the New York City AIDS Housing Network, the Arab Muslim American Foundation, Activists for the Liberation of Palestine, Queers for Peace and Justice and the 1199 Bread and Roses Cultural Project. Diverse people of social conscience and ideals!

“The police have no authority to spy on lawful political activity, and this wide-ranging N.Y.P.D. program was wrong and illegal,” said Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “In the coming weeks, the city will be required to disclose to us many more details about its pre-convention surveillance of groups and activists, and many will be shocked by the breadth of the Police Department’s political surveillance operation.”

The New York police department likes to claim that surveillance of domestic political activities is essential to fighting terrorism. An investigation by their Intelligence Division led to the arrest —three days before the convention — of a man who had spoken earlier with a police informer about a hypothetical bombing of the Herald Square subway station. This somewhat unconvincing case was fed to the media to justify the expansion of police powers; in the same way that the threat of terrorism has been used to expand the police powers of the Bush Administration. We must be wary of the misuse of power.

With increasing surveillance, the chilling effect on free speech is not hard to imagine. And troublingly, our actions affect the rights of others in other countries. Our American “War on Terror” is used to justify a brutal crackdown on dissent in Egypt, Pakistan, and the former Soviet Union, and many other places. This week the Times reported the increasing crackdown on dissent in Russia: “About 10 elderly people yelling “Fascists! Fascists!” pressed their backs against the shields of a second wave of police officers but were knocked to the ground…This has become the typical government response to the so-called Dissenters’ Marches put on by The Other Russia, an uneasy coalition of liberals and radicals led by the former chess champion Garry Kasparov…Officers repeatedly stopped young men, checking documents and searching bags. Asked about the searches, an officer who refused to be identified said, “When I was in New York around Sept. 11, I was also stopped six times,” seemingly equating the expected march with the terrorist attacks.”

In the name of fighting terror, thousands of riot police prevented even a small protest in Russia last week. Newspapers have been confiscated for “evidence of extremism” universities and homes visited by police and roadblocks set up.

In Pakistan last week, police have detained over two thousand political opposition members in order to thwart nationwide protests to denounce Gen. Musharraf’s suspension of the Chief Justice Chaudhry. From exile, former Prime Ministers Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party and Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League announced that their party members would join hands nevertheless. Somewhat provocatively, Musharraf has appointed a Hindu as Chief Justice to try Mr. Chaudhry and more protests are expected.

Governments become paranoid as their legitimacy is called into question. In Egypt, the Mubarak regime promoted a new set of laws that would end judicial oversight of elections and essentially overriding all basic rights enshrined in its Article 41. Amnesty International has called this the "greatest erosion of human rights" since Egypt's emergency laws were put into place in 1981.

The Times reported last week, “Polling stations in the capital, Cairo, were virtually deserted hours after voting began, except for one in the suburb of Helwan where the government had used four buses to bring workers from a state factory. ''I swear to God, I don't know what I'm voting for,'' said Hassan abdel Salaam, a house painter. ''If I didn't vote, maybe I would get into trouble. I have five children and we live in one room.” Another worker, Magdy Fadail, refused to oblige and tore up his voting card. ''What should I vote for?'' he asked. ''We are not human beings. They ship us like animals in cars so we get in and say yes.''

Authoritarian culture is not merely an American export. But our agents are helping to spread repression in the name of security. For many years, the School of the Americas provided counter insurgency training to repressive regimes. But now there are many such partnerships with intelligence services around the world.

Most recently, according to the Independent, at least 150 people arrested in Kenya after fleeing violence in Somalia have been secretly flown to Somalia and Ethiopia, where they are being held incommunicado in underground prisons and interrogated by the FBI. "The Americans had direct access to the prisoners, one on one," said Al-Amin Kimathi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, adding that US diplomatic vehicles carried the suspects.

Reader, we need to hear your voice at the upcoming rallies for freedom, immigrants rights, civil rights and due process. Sure, we may be under surveillance. So what? We have the right. If we do not use it, we lose it. And as Muslims and as Americans we also have a sacred responsibility to speak out against injustice. What do you think? And will you say?

Power Alternatives for 2007

2007-03-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

Like a spider in a web, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed claims that he shares responsiblity for 31 terror plots, including 9/11. He claims to be sorry for the innocent Muslims swept up and detained since then. However, what does he say about the innocent human beings blown up in the terror? He says: "The language of war is victims."

Those like al Qaeda and the Bush Admnistration that see us involved in some sort of vast war of ideas and bombs, a "Long War" according to our military industrial complex, are leading us through hype and fear into the nightmare they have created. Instead of waking up to the challenges of providing for the human family, our leaders scheme and plot. And what kind of ideas mix with bombs? "You are with us or against us"-- as all extemists say. Victims and more victims.

Extremism plays the field. The sectarian conflicts of Iraq are shameful. The fighting is not only about Oil but about identity and petty profit. It is certainly a spiral of deep distrust. And yet there is some good news in the region. Some are looking ahead in a positive and peaceful way. While I am skeptical of the regimes in the Gulf, it is good to hear that Bahrein has created a huge project to move beyond oil into alternative energies. Much of the Middle East could run on solar and wind power; research is being done on how to lower cost. The Bahreini MASDAR project might even power the millions of airconditioners and the indoor ski slope that Gulf residents expect. The Saudi government unfortunately is exploring nuclear energy. But some at least some Muslims are looking to the future, and value innovation in technical if not social development. And even Halliburton has moved its main office to Dubai. Not sure that can be good, but it is interesting.

There are so many challenges ahead. Do we really think we Muslims are smart enough to develop all the forms of human knowledge into action? Instead of funding war, nations might fund education.The community might also invest in Islamic and moral education, not to turn out only Muslim lawyers, but a healthy nation with self respect as well as self knowledge and self control. Most mosques are simply unable to play a major role in this development, it seems. Those that can should develop social services and a volunteer ethic among their congregation. The people are really an alternative energy source. Until then, the leadership is a hollow tree and the people do not dare to climb its branches. Until then, the mosque remains a hollow house of prayer and hot air, unrelated to the community around it but only a refuge-- a place to go when we feel the need to relieve ourselves.

Still, our Ummah is developing national and locally. Some areas have local Muslim newspapers and radio shows as well as access to the Mirror. However, we live in a time when news is mixed with Opinion and Entertainment; our corporate-owned newspapers and radio do not fully encourage free debate. Opinions are what we have instead of expereience, instead of knowledge, which is a dangerous thing as we all think we know.

What gives us meaning? Religion does, so does the vast apparatus of consumer capitalism, which is our competitor as a belief system, with a very different bottom line. Aside from Heaven, or living in GOd's Kingdom, our fellow Americans crave worldly success. Leaving aside Hell, people fear the stigma of poverty, of not having the right shoes and styles. Sex is used to sell everything; what kind of prostitution is this, when sex for advertising is more powerful than advertising for sex?

War is a force that gives us meaning, as Chris Hedges has titled his book on his experiences reporting the last few wars. Like designer sneakers and sunglasses in the inner cities, ideology has become the new brand affiliation, mark of pride and honor, an identity we will kill to keep.

As funds increasingly go to the military, instead of education and health and basic human needs, our fellow religious communities try to address the social ills. Yet what kind of Bible of disastrous proportions guides the reactions of our fellow Americans? The same right wing Christians that demonized gays during the onset of the AIDS crisis also demonized Muslims fifteen years later after 9/11. And many are the same that supported segregation and slavery earlier.

Supporting a sense of righteousness and security, faith-based judgemental thinking will often create more suffering. The various assertions by religious groups, including our own, need to be tested against experience as well as the Spirit of God's compassion. Religious knowledge has got to be deeper than prejudice and wishful thinking. Religious community can be deeper than a warm fuzzy feeling of belonging, and better than a feeling of security and superiority.

On a national level, Muslims voices try to be heard. Last week, at the behest of Senator Leiberman, Congress discussed our community as a threat, but did not include Muslims in the discussion. However, MPAC attended the session and noted the positive developments: "Several Senators, particularly Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) of Missouri, asked Secretary Chertoff to speak out against anti-Muslim hate speech are spouted from talk shows. Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas also showed concern and compassion to American Muslims by stating that they are treated as second-class citizens in the U.S. and wants to see an amelioration of this problem. Senator Jon Testor of Montana offered the scenario that war against Iran would increase radicalization. MPAC thanks these Senators and the full committee for initiating a very important discussion and awaits the Muslim voice to be injected in this discourse."

There are many spiders out there weaving webs. Some of these webs are visible and some invisible. We don't even know which we are caught in. So it is good that MPAC was able to listen to this discussion. We hope the powers that be in Washington are also listening to good intelligence and ready to fund and otherwise support increased engagement of Muslims in the political and social life of this nation. Instead of discussing the Muslim problem, these legislators should have some courage and invite us and engage with us. Until responsible Muslim leaders are part of the dialogue, we will be excluded and many of us frustrated. Until diverse Muslim voices learn to work together, our representation will be uncertain and ineffective. Also, until CAIR is allowed to participate in some of the Capitol Hill dialogues, there will be an inbalance of power. We are glad to note that MPAC supported CAIR in the recent threat to rescind an invitation to them to meet in Capitol Hill. They did not try to elbow out CAIR to take their spot. It would be good to see even more of this mutual support among our institutions, nationally and locally. If you agree, feel free to let MPAC know your measure of support at: communications@mpac.org. Speak out! Take action! You and I can be an alternative energy source.

Mohammed’s Mecca, His Mountain & the Modern Muslim Mall

2007-03-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

I recall climbing the Lycabettus Hill in Athens after the colonels were out of power. The old man sitting there had returned from exile. He looked out into the distance. It’s gone, he said. The Mountain. The military had completely removed a mountain to build the city. How strange to be missing a mountain—there was emptiness instead.

I remembered that after the World Trade Center Towers went missing from the sky. I felt that emptiness.

I recall sitting in a palmy oasis in Syria. The afternoon was hot and bright. The young farmer had uncovered some Greek or Roman columns in his garden and was quickly covering them up with cement, to keep the government out of his business. What could I do? But he did not know the value of the buried treasure.

Now I recall that small loss when I think of the vast human heritage being erased by war, by rampant capitalism, and sometimes by the good intentions of bureaucrats. God save us!

To make way for a $200 million dollar Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, hundreds of skeletons are being removed from the site of an ancient Ma’am Allah cemetery, believed to contain the remains of dozens of companions of Prophet Muhammad as well as thousands of Muslims.

Funded mainly by American donors, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre is constructing a Museum of Tolerance to promote "unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths." The project was launched at a ceremony in 2004 with Ehud Olmert and the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is carrying out the excavations, said it was common in Jerusalem to build on cemeteries: " If we didn't build on former cemeteries, we would never build."

However, the matter is in Israeli court. In Israel a number of more religious Jews are embarrassed and disturbed by this sacrilege. And when I mentioned this to a prominent New York Rabbi he took the matter seriously. There is hope.

Jerusalem Mufti Imam Sabri has called on Muslims to protest against plans to go ahead with construction. Calls to elected officials are welcome. "We need to know that if this museum is really about tolerance," he said, "This tolerance is not going to be built on the graves of Muslims!"

This story may sound shocking. And yet, it is not unusual. So much of our Islamic heritage is rapidly being dug up, built over, forgotten or destroyed. A few years ago in Ayodhya, India, the famous al Babri Mosque was destroyed, dismantled stone by stone by a mob of fanatic nationalist Hindus. And many mosques in Bosnia and Kosovo were also destroyed in the last decade.

But most unfortunately, we Muslims are destroying an even greater number of our own treasures. It is as if we are destroying our own family home. This is not only true in Iraq, that tragic battleground of intensifying violence, but in Saudi Arabia itself.

To accommodate more pilgrims and business, to build hotels and luxury apartments overlooking the Kaaba, the Saudi authorities have destroyed over 95 percent of historical Mecca. This is our Muslim heritage in ruin.

In place of that history, the Abraj al Bait Mall — one of the largest in Saudi Arabia-- has been built directly across from the Kaaba. The new mall is the first phase in a $13 billion construction boom. The Abraj al Bait housing and hotel complex will include the seventh tallest building in the world. This is good for Starbucks and Cartier and Tiffany and H&M and Topshop, and the bin Laden Construction group. But the next generation will have no idea what it has lost.

Mecca is becoming like Las Vegas, and that is a disaster,” said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, a Saudi opposition research organization. “It will have a disastrous effect on Muslims because going to Mecca will have no feeling. There is no charm anymore. All you see is glass and cement.”

It is not only materialism that drives this vast destruction and loss but also Wahabbi ideology. The Gulf Institute has publicized what it says is a fatwa, issued by the senior Saudi council of religious scholars in 1994, stating that preserving historical sites "could lead to polytheism and idolatry".

“This is the end of Mecca,” said Dr. Irfan Ahmed. He has formed the Islamic Heritage Foundation to try to preserve what it can. He has cataloged the destruction of more than 300 separate antiquity sites, including cemeteries and mosques. Today there are fewer than 20 structures remaining in Mecca that date back to the time of the Prophet.

According to the Foundation, the grave of Amina bint Wahb, the mother of the Prophet, found in 1998, is typical of what has happened. "It was bulldozed and gasoline was poured on it. Even though thousands of petitions throughout the Muslim world were sent, nothing could stop this action."

Our lost history includes the house of Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet, demolished to make way for public lavatories; the house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's companion, now the site of the local Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Prophet, and the Mosque of abu-Qubais, now the location of the King's palace in Mecca. As a group called “Save the Hijaz” writes to Prince al Turki: “on the site of Jabal al-Khundaq you have built a cashpoint.” (http://www.savethehijaz.org/)

The demolition campaign now threatens the birthplace of the Prophet. The site survived the early reign of Ibn Saud when the architect for the planned library persuaded the absolute ruler to allow him to preserve the remains under the new structure. But Saudi authorities now plan to "update" the site with a car park that would mean concreting over the remains.

And the Cave of Hira? According to news stories in the UK Independent, in the Muslim American (TAM) and in the New York Times, “the mountain of light, or al-Nour, is next in the Wahhabis' sights… Hardline clerics want it destroyed to stop pilgrims visiting. Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who wants to preserve Mecca’s heritage, said of the development. “You are not supposed to even cut a tree in this city, so how could you blow up a mountain? The Islamic laws have been broken.”

Dr Angawi said: "Mecca should be the reflection of the multicultural Muslim world, not a concrete parking lot.”

As a tragic fire reminded Muslims in the Bronx last week, loss of family members is a very painful test. But deliberate destruction of a species, or a cultural heritage, is surely a form of genocide.

Do you want the Prophet’s birthplace, and the Cave of Hira disrespected? Will you tell your children you didn’t take action when the moment came? You and I don’t care about annoying the Princes, do we? Please contact the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission at (202) 337-9450 or contact Saudi Consular authorities at (202) 342-3800 (202) 337-4088 (310) 479-6000 (212) 752-2740 (713) 785-5577. And salaam alaykum.

Buzz off Bush: A Time for Change Has Come

2007-03-05T00:37:00.000-08:00

It is the season to choose seeds for the mosque garden, the window box, or the backyard. What will you choose to grow, as the days warm and lengthen? What will you watch over?

Surely we are tired of bad news. For peace of mind many of us turn towards nature. But is there peace to be found, when global warming wrecks the balance of nature? Just more bad news!

Newsweek recently reported on a 2006 study in the journal Nature, which estimated that two thirds of the 110 known species of harlequin frogs throughout Central and South America have vanished. Meanwhile, the oyster parasite in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay has crept all the way to Maine because of milder winters. Similarly, invasive plants now compete with native varieties and cause extinctions. And polar bears have become so stressed by their melting habitat that they have shrunk almost to the weight at which they stop reproducing. These are only a few of the many signs of our abuse of nature.

God’ creation is a gift and a responsibility. Our President has only recently admitted that global warming might exist; and extreme right-wing Christian Evangelical leaders criticize him for even admitting it. Therefore, the environment will continue to fall apart. According to a new government report, the Bush administration’s climate policy will result in pollution emissions growing 11 percent in 2012 from 2002, further warming the planet.

Have we learned nothing? “And they said: ‘No matter what sign you bring us with which to bewitch us, we will not be believers in you.’ So We sent upon them the flood and locusts and lice and frogs and blood as distinct signs, but they were arrogant and were a criminal people.” (Quran: 7:130-133)

According to Rushdy El-Ghussein, former president of the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City, when the Prophet taught Muslims to perform ablution, he said to conserve the water even if we are beside a river. So how can we support such wasteful and dangerous policies, by failing to challenge our business and political leaders? How can we be so careless?

We can remind these leaders that the looming crisis affects us economically. How can you have the state of Vermont and not have maple syrup? Scientists say global warming has already contributed to a shift of syrup production to Canada. “In the ’50s and ’60s, 80 percent of world’s maple syrup came from the U.S., and 20 percent came from Canada,” said Barrett N. Rock, a professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire. “Today it’s exactly the opposite.”

Now we hear that the bees are vanishing as well. Yes, the bees. So no honey on your pancakes either. In last Saturday’s Times, Entomologist May Berenson alerted us about a “frightening real-life situation-- the disappearance of millions of bees. This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. There are no tell-tale dead bodies either inside colonies or out in front of hives, where bees typically deposit corpses of dead nestmates.” The bees even leave behind empty nests full of honey.

Colony Collapse Disorder has killed millions of bees because of an unusually warm fall and early winter. Parasite infestations kill some, and other bees are mysteriously starving to death, still others may suffer brain damage from pesticides and get lost and starve to death away from the hive. And businesses are ruined. For example, the Times reports that Tassot Apiaries lost more than 91 of 141 hives to colony collapse disorder. With an average of 20,000 bees in a hive, that amounts to almost two million bees lost in one season.

And this is not only a loss of honey. Over 90 crops in North America rely on honeybees to transport pollen from flower to flower and allowing production of fruit and seed. The species is worth $14 billion a year to the United States economy. As May Berenbaum reminds us, “Approximately one-third of the typical American’s diet (primarily the healthiest part) is directly or indirectly the result of honey bee pollination.”

You, reader, may run whenever a tiny bee buzzes near you, and may not realize that our relationship with bees is profound. But the Quran reminds us: And thy Lord inspired the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in habitations; Then eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of thy Lord; there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colors, wherein is healing for humanity: verily in this is a Sign for people who reflect.” (16:68-69)

Upon reflection, some of us may suspect that the poor bees have been rendered to Guantanamo or perhaps languish as ghost detainees. Detainee bees? Perhaps they would see our Brother Muslims in those cells without honey and without hope. David Hicks is still one of them. The latest news is that now the Military Tribunal officials are annoyed that his lawyer has been doing his job too well. They have even accused his attorney, Major Mori, of breaching Article 88 of the US military code, which relates to using contemptuous language towards the president, vice-president, and secretary of defense. Penalties for breaching the code include jail and the loss of employment and entitlements.

What sweet, honeyed words can be used about our mighty president and his sinister enablers, to accurately appraise their dedication to justice? Of course it is always better forgive. But evildoers will be punished, as Mr Bush no doubts knows from the Bible. Let him be treated justly as his own Book states.

As Psalms 58 of the Prophet Daoud challenges, “Do you indeed decree what is right, O mighty lords? Do you judge the sons of men uprightly? No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth. The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of the serpent, like a deaf adder that stops its ear, so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter. O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O lord! Let them vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither. Let them be like the snail which dissolves into slime, like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.”

May Nature soon return with signs of healthy Spring. Let us find courage to drive out evil in our leadership and in the world. And surely God will reward the righteous, Insha’Allah.

Divided We Fall—the UMMAH at Midnight

2007-02-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

Walking though the storm at midnight I felt the falling February snow alive in air around me. I was tickled and thrilled by the whisper of the snow. But coming up the white deserted street a dark figure was growing larger. Here he was, wrapped up in black hood and coat. I smiled as he passed. He frowned, and grumbled. And suddenly I was not happy anymore.

Was his hate of snow greater than my love of snow? Had he the stronger will? Was he more balanced in his stance? Or perhaps, as he passed, did his mood lighten? How mysteriously we affect each other’s moods and emotions, all the while we imagine we are rational and in control.

As in a dream, I see Bush and Ahmadinejad walking through the snow, the multilingual media snow of a thousand distortions, coming closer and closer to conflict and also farther and farther from each other. These two men are character assassins on a mission of mutual destruction. One sees the other as an alcoholic and addictive personality; the other sees a monster of intolerance; each walks into the mirror of deep psychic conflict. And we the people will suffer.

When will we Muslims wake up from this violent dream, in Palestine, Pakistan, Darfur, Iraq? Again last Sunday, a suicide bombing by a woman killed 40 people, mostly young women, at Baghdad’s elite Mustansiriya University minutes before the start of afternoon exams.

As Damien Cave reported in the Times, “an hour and a half later, the walkway where the explosion occurred was covered with blood, body parts, skirts, veils, blood-stained textbooks and steel ball bearings. Hussain Ali al-Mousawi, a middle-aged blacksmith who said he lived across the street from the university, collected body parts on a notebook, placing severed fingers, pieces of skull and flesh on pages covered with student notes.”

Cave continues, “Freshman Hasan Jabur… walked over to the holes and placed clothing, flesh and debris into the ground. Stunned Iraqi policemen stared. All around him, students crouched or sat on the ground crying…’We are burying here the minds of our society,” he said, pointing to the ad hoc graves being filled by Mr. Mousawi, the blacksmith. “We are planting them anew. How many of our great minds have they killed?”

Is this what happens when the mirror shatters? Self-destruction instead of Self-Development-- how is this Islamic? Is this what happens when our leaders fool us with nationalism and identity politics, encouraging fast food style heroics instead of allowing us to develop our characters, our virtues?

Surely “the fish smells from the head” –the rot begins at the top. But the rotten head learns little. The rotten and divided heart even less. In Palestine the factions fight; setting rival universities aflame. “When we saw the university burning, it was like our hearts were burning, because this institution is very dear to us,” said Ahmed Bahar, a Hamas leader and the deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament, touring the wreckage of Islamic University, serving 20,000 young women. And next door, al Azhar University, linked to the Fatah, had also suffered damage. We Muslims will still find a way to blame the Israelis for this too no doubt. We the people will all blame each other.

As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke has written: "Our role in life is to be decisively defeated by greater and greater Beings." It is not simply to succeed—but to learn. But do we learn? And what are our leaders learning from the tragic violence? What are they learning from us? Aren’t violent movies more popular? How can the broken body, the Ummah, and Suffering Humanity, repel the poison all around?

Our human soul must unify part by part. The Mind must be reborn. The Heart must heal.

Character is Destiny, as Heraclitus stated over 2,000 years ago. Why are we interested in identity and life style issues instead of character? It is because character development forces us to recognize that we can be more than our ego and our comfort and our success. Character development means admitting we are often wrong—or at least, incompletely right.

Will our leaders ever do that? But why wait for them? Andre Maurois has written, “If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.”

The word "character" comes originally from "chiseling" or making a mark. So you and I have lines in our faces that reveal character. And whatever mark we make reveals –and influences--who we are.

So let’s stop imagining a racial or ethnic identity and explore our human character. Let’s get real. Real authority comes from integrity and truthfulness, not the stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Real power comes in many forms and grows wild on the hillside outside the palace walls. Traditional wisdom is not only contained in the form of a law court but grows as a living garden of self-knowledge, fragrant and nourishing.

Let’s remember Heaven even as we have been led to Hell. May Allah help us free ourselves from violence and hate in the name of Justice. And as we seek liberation, what are we doing for others locked in the spiral of destruction? Hating injustice in our hearts- we really can’t do more than that?

With patient attention in every little moment, maybe we will find balance and lasting peace. Our world’s at war; but we can love the falling snow.

Cell Phone to Human: What is Your Vibration?

2007-02-19T00:48:00.000-08:00

Misplaced my cell phone. Good! Some quiet! Some peace! But what if there was a disaster? Could it not strike any moment?

As a good friend E. emails me this week: “Dear Adem, I am fine, let me make that very clear, but I need to share that I was actually in Salt Lake City last Friday/weekend and Monday … unbelievably I was in the Trolley Square mall at about 5:30 buying a brass doorbell at Restoration Hardware… and had just left through the front doors of the mall and was about sixty feet into the outdoor parking lot when the shooting began and people started running out the doors behind me. I immediately ran across the street and stood with the others, trying to help/comfort people for the next two hours while watching all unfold.

“It was surreal and I felt very detached. My taking action and leaving the mall at that point was so random and this is what is lasting and disturbing for me, the randomness of avoiding harm. Why did I leave just then? I was going in search of a new pair of socks because the socks I was wearing were driving me crazy and falling down into my shoes and I could stand it no longer, as there are no socks type shops inside the mall I was leaving to walk across the street …”

Did E. survive because of socks that did not fit her feet? Thanks be to Allah! But also, how mysterious His Will can be, manifested through a human cycle of violence. My friend (a refugee services professional who deserves her own column) tells me that a colleague heard that one of the young man’s parents was killed in the war in Bosnia when he was five. He was known in the community as troubled. Yes, a Bosnian Muslim, may Allah heal his soul. For whatever reason, lack of overt religious appearance, perhaps ethnicity, he was treated with some respect in some media. But then the right wing blogs discovered his religion, and yes—they called him Terrorist because of that.

Young people do break down under pressure and it is something to keep in mind. Our community is no different, of course, especially with all the conflicting demands of family and mainstream culture and even Islamophobia. Also, by social life intrigue, heightened by the technology of cell phones. Cell phones—they can be also used to detonate bombs. Youth can be manipulated in this way as well.

Of course, most young people think they have the strength of mind to make their own decisions, regardless of peer pressure. Maybe. But media consumption consumes the consumer. It is not only the content of programs that Muslims should be concerned about—liberal and sentimental tolerance is useful in a pluralistic society— not even the pandering to primitive tastes and desires for violence. It is the negative energy, the meanness that arises from materialism, the resentment that is so easily exploited by politicians to divide and control. It cheapens humor, drains us of ideals and sedates us with cynicism. Youth become scornful and insecure. So do we all.

Muslim media can promote negativity as well. In consequence, cells can form in extremist groups and cells can be filled in prison—cancerous cells in an endless cycle of negativity. A few irresponsible Muslim media, including some khotba sermons, darken the mind, instead of enlightening the heart. But what more positive cycles might be possible instead? What cells might detonate love instead of hate?

As Shaykha F (may Allah be pleased with her) emails this week: “…stay centered in the reality of our community. Stay centered in heart merging in heart in One Heart. Then see your own circle of light. See your circle leader, your servant, who sustains the presence of this light for you. For each circle is a tiny cell of the whole ocean… without the cell we cannot feel the ocean, know the ocean. Appreciate the invitation to be part of and to serve this cell of Living Reality. Find amazing grace in the possibility to live openly the life of love with others who have been initiated into love, who find it natural to speak in mystic gestures of love, who pray for all humanity…who radiate love from the Source of love.”

Sufi traditions urge us to enter a world of rhythm and texture, and not merely the books of science and dimension of law. Do you ever wish to open your heart and mind to the Unseen? If you have been in love you know there is a different energy. If you pray, you know there is a different energy. Why are we not open to this during daily work? Why does peace of heart vanish as soon as we open our mouth, or when others open theirs? Is there just too much noise in our heads for peace and prayer to enter in?

As my mother emails me today, “Listening so important. Preferably while in a resting, receiving mode. Just to clear the head or better, just to hear.” She is right— and I should also listen to her! And generally it is better to be in that receiving mode.

Last night, coming back tired from a trip, I listened to the drummer on subway platform across the tracks. I have heard him over the years. His drumming really speaks. My own energy changed. The air cleared. My head cleared. Some people on the platform were dancing. It occurred to me that I would rather hear this healing vibration than most sermons I have heard. Their content was sometimes correct, sometimes challenging. But the energy was unbalanced, broken—like an electrical malfunction.

Energy is not only Oil and Gas. Not all Energy can be owned. And not all spirit can be consumed for intoxication. But subtle human energy is hard to speak of intelligently. And I don't know enough. Do you?

And do we really listen and connect to the vibration of energy? For those in scientific instead of sufi mode, here are some is a study for you: for almost 40 years Bernard Krause has worked to record the earth’s rapidly disappearing “biophony,” the subtle vibrations and tiny sounds of the natural world. In this understanding, animals and insects compete for space or food but also for bandwidth—that is, to be heard by others. Jeff Hull reports (NYT 2/19/07) that, “ If a species cannot find a sonic niche of its own, it will not survive.”

Unfortunately, Hull adds, “nearly a third of the ecosystems he has captured have become aurally “extinct” because of habitat loss or the presence of noise-making machines. In this country, animals are continually forced to compete for bandwidth not only with one another but also with snowmobiles, off-road vehicles, Jet Skis and other loud motorized “toys.”

And so unheard, they die. So I wonder about humanity and its toys--what will survive longer? The human voice, or a cell phone ringing in the night?

Bargaining Without Labels Is a Step Towards Freedom

2007-02-11T20:15:00.001-08:00

Bang! The carpet hits the dust! Flop! Another. We are in the Old City again. Here the prices are not fixed. Here we must negotiate, must discuss, must take our time. One size definitely does not fit all.

Negotiation requires some effort in communication and the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, while striving to obtain a satisfactory outcome for oneself. This system seems logical and fair to me, though I am a stranger who must prove his place in the scheme of things. This is not like shopping at Costco.

Seller and buyer, each tests the other. As buyer, you let him know how poor you are, and how uninterested. But don’t overdo it. If the seller is clever, he may try to confuse you with names and imaginary labels. This carpet is a Strawberry Kilim from Khorasan. This dirty one is antique. And this expensive one is special silk, woven in the cave Medrasas of Tora Bora.

This is interactive theater. But despite this, both buyer and seller seek the Real, seek Agreement, beyond the tricks and strategies of communication. Each remembers that, even when accurate, mere labels and names are not reality, or ultimate value. Reality is something else.

But you and I have been schooled to label everything—including each other. This usually limits our full understanding. We reduce each other to size, to resumed utility, perhaps to opportunity. But labels are like the tag you attach to the toe of the corpse. It can record a statistic, but cannot indicate the complex individual soul. A human Being is not a thing to be labeled, or compared in value. Yet in this global economic system you and I are considered commodities. As such, we are either slaves in production or slaves in consumption.

We Muslims are called to seek knowledge even in China; but instead we seek cheap plastic kitchenware, socks and underwear, things with a low price tag. Of course, I am happy with my cheap vinyl gloves that warm my hands. Yet I am also uneasy with the system of global capitalism and exploitation. Whose hands made my gloves?

The Quran illuminates, but the Signs it tells us about are not made of neon. Most Signs are found in nature and not in an economic system. So let us not forget the natural world, which is not some Social Darwinist construction of Survival of the Fittest, but includes greater mystery, as well as ecological checks and balances, the logical and beautiful harmonies of creation. To understand this at all, we must take our time to reflect—in nature, mother of human nature.

And yet, living in a society in which the average urban resident sees 5,000 advertisements per day, instead of reflecting, our judgmental mind has a tendency to fix labels on everything. As if everything has its price. But imagine how it would be to be more like the Ahl al Suf, the woolgatherers and mystics seeking a higher quality material to weave into their souls. For with faith, that carpet can fly. Or perhaps we good capitalists think that faith is a form of “positive thinking” or a skill like a good sales pitch? Are you sure you know what faith is? Defining it is not the same as knowing.

Do we see each other in terms of Racism? Religion? Do we demonize our enemies? Who are they? We humans oversimplify the issues, we label others, and this prevents effective negotiation. Instead, we turn round and round in a cycle of violence and injustice and misunderstanding.

For example, many Jews call all those critical of Israeli policies “anti-Israel”—which conflates those who are constructively critical, those who seek the destruction of the state and people, those who hate all Jews and those who carefully critique the policies of the state. Others call Muslims they don’t understand or agree with “extremist”, which seems to gather conservative, literalist, traditional, authoritarian, militant and cult-like assassins all in one basket. Not helpful!

On the other hand, many Muslims mix Jews and Zionists and Racists all together in one basket. But there are important differences. Similarly, Democrats and Republicans are not all the same, despite what some of us like to say. The more specific we are the more chance we have to be accurate. Besides condemning injustice, we have also got to communicate more effectively. It is not enough to be right—that approach is infantile and narcissistic. Our words must lead to effective action.

Because the social and economic system is a more and more complex machine, we try to analyze what small part can be fixed. Some of us may dream of throwing out the motor and starting over, but we must remember that the machine is in motion. Muslims can work to adapt the machine to the needs of the human spirit.

Muslims and Arabs and people of good will need to look carefully at each situation in order to bargain for peace. In Israel, for example, there are many issues that need fixing. What of the marginalization of the Bedouin in the Negev? What of the Israeli settlements around Ramallah, built largely by Palestinian labor? Will Saudi mediation shame the factions to set aside their feuding in Gaza? And what are the different points of view among the Israelis? Understanding such details can help all players solve problems instead of throwing slogans around.

It is fair for free men and women to question the dictates of a "religious state", whether Saudi or Israeli. Recently, a group of 40 Palestinian intellectuals gathered by the Committee of Arab Mayors in Israel wrote a series of recommendations, “The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel” which call for “proportional representation between groups as in Belgium.” But while polls show that most Palestinians seek reform of the Israeli state, which has been called an Apartheid system, many Jewish Israelis are still frightened of the “demographic threat” of the “Arab birthrate.”

If there was less violence, multicultural third parties could play a role in redefining the tribal terms of this dead-end situation. And as Muslims, we should welcome a multicultural state, or society, as an opportunity for Dawah, instead of wishing it into the sea.

Multicultural, secular states can protect the rights of minorities. The secularists think they can do so better than religious states. That is not always true. But if laws do not interfere with (of course, non-violent) religious practice, Muslims should not object to secular states. It is true that even in the USA there is some interference, as with polygamy. However, in time, laws can be changed. Despite the authoritarians in Washington, the machine is still under construction. We need to understand it. We don’t need to throw the whole thing away. We don’t need to attach a label to the whole thing and walk away, waving our arms in the air and shouting.

Listening at the Edge of Dream

2007-02-05T02:23:00.000-08:00

(Listening at the Edge of Dream & Winter Wind Disaster)

During these long winter nights I wake, suddenly find myself outside the net of dream and listening to the sound of the wild wind rushing through the world. Wind cannot be trapped in the trees, the laundry lines, or in the thoughts and words I throw into the sea.

I lie awake tangled in my blankets like a starfish in a fishing net, body still as a clamshell on the shore. Like a fly in a spider’s web, my brain buzzes with faint confusion.

Though I cannot fully understand, I listen when the wind passes and sings the song of infinite spaces. It tells me that in the end, our breath has no human borders.

But how we humans fight over our borders nonetheless. How we protect our personal space in the crowd. How we hide our real self even from ourselves. But now the Internet connects us, like the worldwide wind, in a web of desire, of dreams, of seeking truth. We find the Self lost in an endless hall of mirrors.

I sleep again and dream I seek the mosque and pass along this hall. Like the many mirrors on the wall, puddles are shining below on the surface of the winding street. Where is the mosque?

I find that I am instead in a marketplace in Iraq. People pass around me. There is the heavy smell of dust and smoke and sweet rotting grapes. I breathe the smell—but then feel cold dread in my heart, as slowly, old newspapers rise up and blow in the air, above my head. Am wondering if I have somehow not heard the explosion.

You, dear reader, read this news in your hands; the paper remains in your two hands even while invisible messages of the Internet pass helter-skelter through the air like Jinn. But the explosion is all around you.

For what is the free world? It is both an explosion and a world of walls and prohibitions. A marketplace of ideas, yes, but structures too. Is it not order that our people want, to maintain the market? Not mere democracy! Not mere laughter!

Or so say the ministers at their Thursday knitting circle. The economy and culture are global, they say; we must move with the fashion. Knitting quiets the mind, they say. The cell phones ring; conversations cross in air – seven languages at least. Is this the way?

If China were to democratize, would we Americans not feel the economic pinch? So let the Jinn fly. We want both media and meat; meaning and the market. And so they knit away.

Like the ministers in my dream, we imagine that our interdependent market builds a safer world. How many times have we heard that if we depend on each other the nations cannot fight.

One of the first people to advance this theory was Norman Angell in 1909. Of course, five years later the Great War brought the whole interconnected modern house of nations to the ground. Fire in the funhouse and melting mirrors and dreams gone forever.

And yet, some dreams do die hard. The world hates us for our freedoms, we tell ourselves; they want what we have. Our wonderful technology. So why not share?

But not so easy- -the world cannot continue to industrialize globally at our rate without creating ecological disaster and new deserts of scarcity. The sea will rise. Refugees may perish in their desperate crossing.

New seas, new borders; Bangladesh will require massive construction as did the Netherlands; to keep land dry. Will a future Musa divide the dangerous waves for their survival? And will 100 million Egyptians survive an increasingly salty land?

Back in dream again, I arrive late at the border and customs control takes its time. Do I plan to work, they ask. I do not know. I notice some of my fellow passengers have meanwhile disappeared into another room and not returned. I feel some uneasiness. The officer stares at his computer screen, his face is faintly flickering in the artificial light.

No, it is not a dream. I read today, “The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.”

Conservatives almost always call to reinforce the borders from the barbarian threat. But more subtly, some of them have added a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. The Times reported February 5 that, “the amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons.”

This is a new border. A new boundary. An invisible wall in cyberspace. It seems that every time we arrive at this checkpoint a new human right is missing. They often don’t even tell us which one.

In this case, a million DNA checks per year will be shared with law enforcement. DNA tells authorities details about your health as well as identity. And in some ways it is more private that what you consider haram. How to wear hijab and yet give up the code to the secret door—even to all that knock?

Boundaries are vanishing like Venice under waves. So let me speak to you neighbor; it looks like we will have to know each other. Aren’t we tired of a divided community anyway? Aren’t we tired of blaming others, the Christians, the Jews, those other sects? Blaming each other? Aren’t we tired of competing to be the biggest victim? Looks like we just might have to help each other.

But we may not notice as the agents of disaster cast their nets ever wider, and the seas retreat and rise again. We may not be ready for disaster when it seems to come so slowly. We can hear the voice of the wind but let us continue what we are doing. Let us even surge. We are building the sandcastles of nationalism on the sand, crusader castles and modern nation states. And they are so beautiful we do not even look up to see the storm arrive.

How Birds Fly and Cats Get their Milk

2007-01-29T00:43:00.000-08:00

Iraq Again. How can we not be ashamed, and weep for “fellow Muslims” killed and dying? Are our hearts already dead?

Last week terror stuck the University, killing 50 students. Last Friday it was the animal market. As Marc Santora reports, “In the chaos after the blast, snakes slithered through bloody streets where animal carcasses were jumbled with human remains. Exotic birds flew off as rescue workers tried to aid the wounded.

“We were standing in the middle of the market, looking at the birds, and suddenly there was a massive explosion,” said a man who gave his name as Qusay, and who liked to scout for rare pigeons to breed. Both his legs were broken by the explosion. He said he was taken to the hospital, where he found doctors with no supplies trying to treat ghastly wounds.”

The Iraqi state is shattered on the ground, stinking like a corpse dumped at midnight. Well, it had a great fall. Now what?

Humpty Dumpty must have been high on crack to begin with, sitting on that wall. Will 20,000 additional troops be too late to undo Rummy’s losing bluff? All the king’s horses and all the kings men most likely cannot do what Bush says they’ll do. Now there’s egg on his face; or is that just his crazy fanatic grin?

Despite such bad eggs, the US soldiers are brave men, mostly; but right or wrong, the Iraqi government does not want them on its soil. And yet the Bush Administration goes on huffing and bluffing and we don’t know how to stop losing at this game. We can’t stop searching for advantage. And who are we?

Well, here “we” are, in subtly tailored suits flying in for a photo op far from the suffering of the crowd. Here we are shaking soft hands while our red-eyed body guards stand around. Protected by the private army Blackwater, private sector men chew secretly over the numbers. And how are you? Here is Iraq's minister for industry and minerals Fowzi Hariri with ABB Lummus, a unit of Swiss-Swedish electrical engineering company ABB Ltd., and over there Dow Chemical Corp. and KBR put their well-clipped heads together. An international, pleasantly cosmopolitan crowd of vultures! Here are the black helicopters of the New World Order! No need to look further!

According to news reports, “Over the next several years, the minister said Iraq would look to privatize all of state-owned industry, which number around 60 companies.” Yes, murmur the suits, how much more civilized than that time we had to send in the CIA after Mossadeq nationalized the oil in Iran. Yes, too bad about the sectarian unpleasantness. And they also note the nationalizing trend in Venezuela with a tiny groan, perhaps the taste of acid reflux.

But war has been a tasty meal for these fat cats. The average compensation of the Chief Executives of the 34 top military contractors in Iraq is $7.2 million per year. United Technology’s CEO was given almost 32 million. According to the Institute of Policy studies, this is almost as much as the average received by the top 15 oil company executives, which is 32.9 million dollars per year. Of course it’s expensive at the top floor—the Presidential Suite. And so, gentlemen, may we ask: how is the view from Peak Oil-- What comes next? Does something come next?

The future? No answer. So what? Short-sighted politicians usually prefer to pay for the present with the future. Yes, privatization is the way! One lump sum, cash and carry. Forget the energy sector for a moment. And put those privatized ports out of your mind as well. And pretend the private prisons are not expanding. Health care? You guessed it. The new Bush Health plan takes money from public hospitals and moves it to the Insurers. Privatization increases the suffering of the poor? The unions and the hospitals are screaming? The Administration does not care, as long as the cats get their milk.

But now the states have jumped on the privatization express! The state of Illinois is selling its Lotto for 75 years. The states of Indiana and New Jersey are privatizing their toll roads. And last week the news reported that an Australian firm is buying 40 local newspapers to silence opposition to a 4000-mile toll road project known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. This 1200 foot wide road will apparently cost over 150 billion dollars to construct, requiring the acquisition of 9000 square miles of land in the areas it will cross. Many citizens risk losing their homes and farms through the powers of eminent domain." Will those newspapers ever honestly report on this subject? Do they have a chance?

I find it troubling and sinister that after the end of the cold war the USA should begin to resemble its late adversary, the Soviet Union. It is also disturbing how much alike the presidents of Iran and USA look when side-by-side or end-to-end: it doesn’t matter. Bush and Ahmadinejad both are populist demagogues, who have made deals with the devil of the extreme right. The Neo-Cons and the Haqqani Circle of Mesbah-Yazdi believe in the iron rule of a single truth, an infallible and divinely ordained state.

This authoritarianism is not the paternalism of the traditional conservatives. It is much more dangerous; we need to distinguish carefully. Even though neither has more than 30 percent approval rating in recent polls, due to economic and national reputation issues, neither bully shows willingness to back down. Surrounded by purring fat cats, apparently neither believes much in crying over spilled milk.

Last week, awarding Maher Arar a settlement of over 9 million dollars for allowing him to be deported into torture in Syria, the Canadian Prime Minister called on the US to also apologize, though he noted that the US hasn’t the grace to do so. But shouldn’t we be asking what happened to that grace? Isn’t asking for forgiveness part of all religions? Isn’t it opening the door of the heart?

It’s hard to see the future-- too much smoke blowing from that direction. I am tempted to look within instead. There are books to be read and thoughts and questions and work. Sure, there is smoke and mirrors and lies and violence within as well.

I think of the streets of my childhood. How were yours, what smells and local color? Now our life is not our own; the cell phones ring, and almost all our joys seem made in China and delivered to us by Mexico, and somehow unknown.

Even so, let us embrace this with humanity. What gives you hope? What brings you light? For you too are a mirror to the world. And like angels you and I are mirrors to each other, and to an infinity of doors within.

JIHAD GENERATION

2007-01-20T17:14:00.000-08:00

"Jihad Generation" --Hot Product & Media Commodity

I am at the supermarket check out. The magazine cover has a child’s face; yes it is a small child carrying a machine gun. The title; “the New Jihadis.” Next to it at least two other magazines with cover stories about Militant Islam. I feel very tired suddenly. Who is a better promoter of Jihad, the Taliban or the Tabloid media?

I have never watched “24” but understand that it is a sort of entertainment vehicle for the War on Terror, reinforcing the idea that Muslims are the enemy and suggesting that any reaction—even torture—may be necessary.

Apparently many Muslim Americans watch the TV show as well, but even these adrenaline junkies have joined in the outcry against the show in recent days. It is important to bring this new concern to other faith communities as well, as they also should not be comfortable with sensationalistic and violent past-times that promote confrontation. Through such interfaith advocacy, morality is a sleeping giant that should be woken to face the monster of mainstream media.

This is not to say free discussion of security issues is a danger, or that religious people should work to silence debate. But our voices must be heard to ensure fair and accurate information is shared, instead of merely propaganda. We are being demonized.

Recently two television programs have brought focus on some of the foolish –and hateful—things that some imams say. The more sensational of the two programs, “Undercover Mosque” was broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 and also is spreading through Youtube on the internet. The part of the program I have viewed is troubling, if not surprising, both as a witch-hunt of UK Muslims and as a reminder of how substandard some Muslim leaders are.

Making a comment on the television website, I noticed a wide variety of other comments and perceptions, quite a few of them more sensible than the program itself. Some criticized all groups with an insular and reactionary view of the world; bigotry takes many forms. Some mentioned praying at the mosques in question and never hearing such hate speech. Apparently it was not really a fair and balanced program.

Another writer asked the Channel: “Please explain to me exactly what your agenda is? When someone goes undercover that in itself implies you are looking for mischief either one that is genuine or if not taken out of context and presented as such. You must realize the repercussions of your actions result in a paranoid society which turns and attacks the vulnerable.”

And yet, fellow Muslims, it is our challenge to deal with false and extreme views. There is much to be angry about but our faith must keep us just and righteous. It is apparent that some of the British Muslim leaders have been two-faced, sweet in public but bitter and nasty in private views.

But we should also note those political and social groups that are overly sweet, offering assurances of peace and love like so much candy. They jump shamelessly to gain access to the UK government and denounce other Muslims.

Those who “brown-nose” and kiss the hands and other extremities of the powerful are not really “moderate.” Some of the so-called "Sufi Muslim Councils" in the UK (and USA too) who claim to be the moderate Muslims seem to me only hollow shells in a shell game of power and access. However, we should be careful-- some of their followers do mean well, and feel alienated from the Muslim establishment. There needs to be firm but loving dialogue with these groups.

Because it is true—too often we Muslims politely ignore views that are unbalanced. What can we do? Here is one small thing. While I know we are asked to remain listening to sermons no matter what is said, we may, outside of Friday prayers, wish to register disapproval by quietly taking a bathroom break when hateful or foolish things are said. In my opinion, this is the nonviolent way to send a message, politely. It takes courage but not so much! Vote with your feet!

I am also urging media and government officials not to equate Wahhabi influence with militant extremism. It is not the same. However, it is true that some of these people are very intolerant and rigid in their views and almost impossible to work with. On an individual basis therefore we must find out who is able to be a team player and work together to build a strong and diverse Muslim community. If conflicts arise in your mosque or student organization, seek mediation, keep records, and pray for success.

Insha’Allah voting with your feet will not take you away from the Muslim family and community. But this happens quite often, and leaders need to take this challenge more seriously. They need both to educate their own communities and to educate the media. Unfortunately those who most energetically do this are al muhajiroun and other extreme voices.

CNN Reporter Christine Amanpour writes, “Extremists and radicals are very adept at playing the media's game. Even though they are a minority, a small number of them can gather on a corner, hold a protest or demonstration and get a massive amount of media attention and air time. That's because today's mostly tabloid media culture in the UK has sensationalized the "Muslim issue" and focuses only on the extremists, rarely finding the facts, context and texture beneath the surface.”

That said, the pop-up for Amanpour’s new program “The War Within”, shows a Muslim woman’s eyes staring mysteriously from a niqab; clearly a threat, and appropriately lensed through a dark fog. This is the fog of war. Journalists, as well as Muslims, need to be careful not to be played.

We are balanced at a moment which can go towards wider war—even with Iran—or back to a base of relative peace and problem solving. Let us remember that 2 million Iraqis have already fled the country and 1.7 million are displaced with Iraq.

And what are we fighting to protect? It is the Capitalist machine? Or Progress? Let us admit to ourselves that 60 percent of American married partners have both partners working full time, up from 36 percent in 1970, with the average couple now working at least 82 hours. Yes, Americans consume an average 275 pounds of meat per person, up from 238 pounds 20 years ago. But the world’s average is 87 pounds.

What is this American lifestyle based on increasing labor, blood and theft? What is this American media that seeks to comfort us as we plunge into disaster? And what are these false alternatives and hollow promises we hear in our own mosques and DVDs? Time to wake up-- but how?

To Search Not Surge

2007-01-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

To Search Not Surge: Towards an Evolving Center of Peace Work

Last week the President shared his Urge to Surge with the world. Some of us have already rejected his advances as an obscene proposal to dominate and control; others simply see no self-interest in supporting this strategy. Even many Iraqis resent the continued, open-ended intrusion into their affairs, even for supposed humanitarian reasons. After his speech was over, there were few rose petals to be seen.

However, surging or increasing troop levels may promise political advantages to the administration. This strategy allows the neo-conservatives to leverage Iraq against Iran. The increased troops may also postpone a complete collapse of order until the Democrats are fully in power in Washington, or at least until they too are tangled in the response to the ongoing crisis and too compromise to find a way out.

But this may be a moment to turn the tide. So let us search instead of surge. Let us search for the light at the end of the tunnel. Let us search for a path to peace. What is the way?

As the writer James Carroll has observed, writing about Martin Luther King recently, humanity can have no Justice without Peace: “…Racial injustice and poverty are inextricably linked to violence. That is why non-violence formed the evolving center of King's vision. It was no mere tactic with him, a way of coping with racist sheriffs who had guns. Non-violence was a defining affirmation of the value of life, and it was the practical engine of a powerful political movement.

And James Carroll expands further on the link of local and international violence: “But King would name the link between gun supply in American cities and the flood of weapons pouring from a global arms industry across the most impoverished regions of the world. Indeed, poverty has become the ground of global violence, and terrorism is its poison flower. What King and Johnson knew as the war on poverty has become an all-but-declared war on the poor. Washington is its headquarters…..”

“The disgrace of US poverty, now necessarily seen in the context of a globalized economy, is a footnote to the smoldering catastrophe of world-wide disparities between rich and poor. Cities, especially in the southern hemisphere, teem with desperate people, and no system of authority or organization seems remotely able to respond.”

The issues Carroll refers to cannot easily be addressed within the particular capitalistic framework in which we live. But nevertheless, accepting for now that framework as given, a first important step should be to strongly urge our elected officials in Congress to support legislation to force the president to get authorization from Congress for a troop escalation. This Legislation has been proposed by Senator Edward Kennedy and is supported by Congressman Abercrombie, Chairman of the Air-Land Subcommittee, which oversees military ground forces and air power. But your congressional office needs to hear from you. Truly, numbers matter and at this moment we do have influence on this issue.

Beyond voting for a non-binding resolution of disapproval for the president's plan, other leaders are discussing cutting off funding and even repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Congressman Sam Farr has justified such legislation, stating: “When the Republicans were in charge of the House and Senate, they insisted that President Clinton had to have permission to go into Kosovo." Let your Congressman know if you agree. You may call (202) 225-3121 for the switchboard operator for the House of Representatives.

If we Muslim Americans sit back and let everyone else take action, we too have blood on our hands. The world continues to study war, and to be intoxicated by war, to be enriched by it, and to be raped and ruined by it. Muslims can and should show a better way, publicly as well as privately.

Last week, a Muslim colleague joined the peace-making delegation that visited Khartoum to discuss implementing a ceasefire and ensuring access to humanitarian help and aid convoys. This is real work beyond the wall of hype that surrounds us. With Governor Richardson, staff members of the Save Darfur Coalition were able to negotiate trust-building steps both with rebel groups and with the government of President Bashir.

This delegation went far beyond the Bashir-bashing that some member agencies have been content with. The clear goal is to allow the political process to continue, to de-escalate hostilities and create structures that would provide an alternative to the anarchy and pillage that has created such a hell on earth for so many. However, a full Peace Conference is not scheduled until March.

Engaging with the 12 rebel groups and with the Dictator is a beginning of the process of de-escalation. It is significant that this is done by a (well-connected) private group, and not by the warmongering Bush Administration. Of course we do expect the government to welcome the results. But they are not perceived as balanced; peacemakers must be interested in actual situations, human needs, and the abuses committed on both sides.

Even the suffering Darfurians must be held accountable for some misdeeds. As a colleague writes, “When I used to tell Palestinians in the Diaspora what the “revolutionary heroes” in Palestine were actually doing, it never made anyone very happy. It will be hard to convince the Darfurian diaspora that Darfurian rebels are also part of the problem… As long as they receive Libyan money through Chad they are in a position to continue fighting.”

Peacemaking in Palestine-Israel will also require a clear-eyed absence of myth-making. There is enough blame and blood to go around. The focus must be on the future, and getting there with less injustice and violence.

We will continue to face violence and injustice of the war on terror; extremists on all sides, with the largest resources belonging to the State. This past week, to mark the fifth anniversary of the Guantanamo gulag, some of us held a vigil against the abuses together with the Metro New York Religious Council Against Torture (see http://www.witnesstorture.org/). With over a hundred such actions world-wide, we are bringing to public attention our private resistance to policies of fear and oppression. However, we have got to build up the Muslim community’s participation and the improve the reliability of our leaders in the dialogue and peace process.

To build our commitment and our capacity for peace, beyond words and good intentions, I would urge you my fellow Muslims to actually study peacemaking. Let's not just talk about peace. There are conflict resolution courses around the country. You still can learn something! We can be adapting these curricula to an Islamic framework; though they are already universally useful. From Darfur to Downtown, solving a dispute is a beautiful thing. It takes work. But as a Muslim, haven’t you a taste for Peace?

Reading Our Backyard

2007-01-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Reading our Backyard

Walking home, I read my neighbors' gardens along my street. The neighbor’s fig tree is tightly bundled for the winter and crowned with a red Santa Claus hat. Next to it, the United States flag hangs half-mast to mark the passing of former president Ford. Someone has put up stickers of the green Saudi flag on mailboxes around the Catholic Church next door. Yes, we all mark our territory in different ways.

Like many sections of New York City, this is a very diverse neighborhood, with Algerians and Albanians, Italians and Indonesians, Brazilians and Bangladeshis. I look at their Christmas or holiday lights to understand their values and culture as well as their taste. I read their decorations and the way they relate to nature. Who are they? Who are we?

In recent days, I have been assisting a political campaign in Brooklyn that is based in a diverse district. One expects that identity politics will be a major factor. Will the Haitians vote for a Pakistani American? Will Russian Jews vote for a Haitian? But it is very important to reach beyond one’s own cultural group to build the alliances we need to get anything done.

The candidate I am supporting is a very pragmatic and capable Pakistani. Would it not be great to have a Muslim in local office? But of course local identity politics intrude, even among Muslims. He is Shia and some Sunnis refuse to actively help him for this reason.

I realize people from one side of the railroad tracks may stare with suspicion at folks at the other side. This is why it is so easy for us to get played. For me as a Muslim American, the culture of a Sunni and Shia Pakistani seems identical. And we are all brothers and sisters. Traditional and doctrinal differences seem somewhat beside the point. Let the scholars debate. Allah knows best who is truly Muslim.

As long as we stay in the isolation of our own sectarian nest working with others does not seem to matter. But when the tree itself is in danger, it is necessary to work with all the other flying and non-flying Muslims. It is necessary to communicate and coordinate with all our neighbors.

Perhaps the red Santa Claus hat will help keep the fig tree warm enough this winter. But the Tree of life is dying. Around the world, forests are fading from Global Warming, Hunger and Disease. The family tree loses its roots of tradition and deep spirituality, replaced by the widely ranging network of internet family and virtual friends. Our relationships and identity as Muslims are also affected by new technology and social roles. We should be aware of these changes and dangers. We do not usually see them.

Reading the culture of your family and your local Muslim institutions, you will see a mix, sometimes in confusion, sometimes in negotiation, of values and priorities. It is not just ethnic or sectarian diversity; it is not just Saudi/Sufi or Assimilated/Militant. We contain so many class, educational and spiritual differences that we Muslims are surely called to become cultural anthropologists and subtle interpreters of their own community, not only our neighbors' gardens. Otherwise, we will be read and interpreted by others who may not have the skills to read the fine print in our context. But do we understand?

The orthodox Jewish men in fur hats all year round and the women in thick wigs surround their areas with almost invisible string that marks the boundaries of their community. In New York City, these strings go from lamp to lamp for miles and miles. We pass through these boundaries all the time, since geographical communities overlap, more than our political and social identities recognize.

The Jews are also diverse politically and culturally. In Israel, some legal scholars even doubt that other, non-observant Jews are Jews. They are not free of identity politics. However, “Cultural Jews” are generally a very accepted part of the identity.

As we try to separate cultural traditions from religious traditions, we Muslims can mark boundaries but should be careful not to build walls between people. To grow, we need each other. An imam needs young professionals. The young need scholarship and open debate. Scholarship and Spirituality need each other. Even Saudis need the Shia—and not merely as a geopolitical scapegoat.

It is therefore troubling to hear of a potential alliance between the Saudi regime, Israeli factions and the Bush Administration, creating an “arc of moderation” that may launch bunker-buster nukes to destroy Iranian Nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak. Will this not merely backfire and unify the Iranian people behind a repressive if populist President?

Instead, let us recall our values as Muslims; especially the importance of mutual understanding. How can our studies deepen insight into ourselves and others? How can wisdom lead us to peace? We need to learn to read Truth as it unfolds in life, as coded in our behavior and in our words. Muslims need to understand Islam as set of cultures and in its role as subculture in the United States. We need to be aware of the various cultures of spirituality as well as materialism.

We see differences in personal style but it is often cultural. Why do the Orthodox Jews hide their hair? Why do many Mediterranean people keep their hair so perfect? What traditional feelings and beliefs are they transmitting through such styles? They look good, but how is it that these days so many youth feature these chinstrap face-framing beards, as well as face framing hijabs? Is there a larger, perhaps unconscious meaning? Of course, anthropology is not merely a matter of reading beards.

We think we understand each other but often do not. Quiet folks commune with the quiet; explosive people with the loud. But for a quiet and an explosive to understand each other takes work. And if we are to emerge from the destructive culture of global capitalism, from the wasteful rampage of nationalism and egotism, we have got to take an interest in the Other. Finally, the closer and truer we are to one another, the closer we are to ourselves. Time to communicate. Time to listen. And time to get real.

From a Column, Falling

2007-01-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

From a Column, Falling

The moon of the New Year burns harsh and white above like an interrogator’s lamp. A question has been posed; but what is the question?

No response. The night is still. But how slowly my breath rises in the cold air! And in the plains below, where stars seem to glitter in the streets, how slowly the vast clouds drift from power plant smoke stacks in the light of the tiny moon. I am made uneasy by how far the moon seems and wander off crunching the snow in the streets alone.

I have come to Quebec City for the New Year. One troubling sign of global warming is the shift of migratory patterns; and so this winter I find myself North instead of the usual South, my migration may be a harbinger of apocalypse; as in the coal mine a canary sings.

I do not know if I will understand the frozen isolation of my heart. Would deeper Truth upset the gentle tour of my days and knock from my face the mild habitual smile? I would fall from my soapbox pulpit, scattering so many opinions like marbles rattling from my head. Behold the columnist fallen from his column like a tiny Stalin or small Saddam. So fall we all. Perhaps the question is simply this: how to fall with grace.

But did Saddam fall with grace? Only Allah knows. His character and ideology burned bright at the end. One is tempted to say: there goes a man. But how primitive we men can be! Our light burns like a fire but illuminates only a smoky darkness.

Certainly Saddam had bathed his hands in blood. But did he deserve to die more than other leaders we are too discrete or intimidated to name? Saddam grasped the role of martyrdom like a seasoned performer. The guards cursed him; the rope cut him; and he died, proud as a warrior chief.

This pride seems admirable, and his resistance to the occupiers appears principled and passionate. We all have our principles. Many of us are in principle opposed to such executions, and this was conducted in unseemly haste. The execution was denounced by the New York Times, the spokesman for the Pope, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, among others. But I am not questioning that justice or lack of justice here. Other questions must arise as well, vast as a moonlit cloud over a ruined and ravaged community.

Did Saddam die well? What is a good end? Is it simply to “not go gently into Night” as the poet Dylan Thomas phrases it, but to “rage, rage against the dying of the light”? If so, the warrior king died well. But is grasping at glory as one topples tragically really a pre-Islamic model of behaviour?

What is a good death and how can we earn one? Imagining your death, what would you wish? Would we wish for an open heart, with some aspect of the mind clear from pain and fear, and sincere prayers? We might also require the prayers of family and others and perhaps too the alignment of the planets for the door to open to a conscious death. Allah knows best.

Saints struggle with extinction too, but not like warrior kings. Light and dark embrace in a final dance. As one falls into that final sleep we struggle to remain awake. As the rope tightens round the neck, new lights may appear in windows of the soul, indicating rooms we didn’t know existed, and which now are filled with silent witness.

So in the final moments of the year 2006, I wander the frozen streets of the North in a haunted frame of mind, considering those so called great inescapables, death and taxes. And I recall other streets far in the South; how the streets of Essourira resemble tunnels winding among high, damp windowless walls, feeling the echoing boom of the Atlantic crashing again and again against the ancient Portuguese ramparts. I am still lost n those ways, North and South, East and West.

But you dear reader are in a tunnel of your own, running to work and school, in social networks of friends and family echoing with laughter. You may not feel the need to escape. Yet, one day you shall. And we are all the vaster networks of capitalism and imperial power serving the false god of the bottom line. So, only Allah can lead us through our lives away from disaster and to both a good life and a good death. We cannot say what signs, what guides He will send us.

Meanwhile, we love, or hope to love. The seasons and the tides turn in their course. In the maze of the mind we may find trace of the Beloved; there is hope in human amazement. There may even be wisdom in human defeat, in the final struggle with sleep.

Beyond the larger mystery, I now face the smaller question of returning home. Will the U.S. border guards allow a weekend migrant to return? But I have steps to go before I face them. First I will walk alone through snow and with frozen defeated smile return to the small hotel. In the entry there is a familiar human jumble, piles of wet boots and snow soaked shoes puddling and piled as in the doorway to a mosque.

I remove my shoes, and enter a New Year; questions and concerns invisible like Jinn around me. And you—how will you enter the New Year? How will you and I make good ends and good beginnings in 2007?

It Looks Like a Bumpy Ride

2006-12-25T21:56:00.000-08:00

As the Wheel Turns; It Looks Like a Bumpy Ride

Bang! Boom! Crash! Shriek! See the glittering broken glass, dark blood, smell the harsh smell of rising smoke. Boom! Dennis Prager! Again! Virgil Goode! No, this year has not been very peaceful, has it?

This century is only six years old, but already so dysfunctional it may require foster care! True, the bloody and reactionary twentieth century was not a great role model. Many leaders proved to be oppressive authorities, insecure and arbitrary in the use of their power. It is not surprising then that humanity is still going through extended, angry adolescence. Every week seems to bring new crisis. One more crash and the authorities may take away our driver’s license!

The developing nations seem doomed to follow all the bad habits and copy all the mistakes of the West, from MTV materialism to religious nationalism and Bolshevik terror. There is so much negativity and blame around us, and so little conscience and self-knowledge. So much unfairness in the world, but we do not even understand how to care for our tiny, struggling soul!

Dear readers, we must go beyond hating injustice in our heart. You and I must go beyond complaining about the carnage in Iraq. We Muslims must not only comfort ourselves with families and work, or with ideals and concepts of our religion. We must put these ideals into action by negotiating a more peaceful and more just relationship with the world, in very specific ways. But how will you face this difficult task?

After 9/11 many of our leaders have been working to persuade our fellow Americans that “Islam is Peace.” But the images of conflict in Darfur, Iraq and elsewhere make this a hard sell indeed.

Last Saturday, as Ethiopian warplanes and tanks bombarded several towns controlled by Somalia’s Islamist forces, Mogadishu mosques blared out the message: “Young men, go to the front. This is the war we’ve been waiting for!” And Somalia’s defense chief, Yusuf Mohamed Siad declared, “Our country is open to Muslims worldwide; Let them fight in Somalia and wage jihad.”

The New York Times reports that, “United Nations officials estimate that there are several thousand soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s arch-enemy, fighting for the Islamists, along with a growing number of Muslim mercenaries from Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya who want to turn Somalia into the third front of jihad, after Iraq and Afghanistan. On Friday, residents of Mogadishu said they saw boatloads of armed men landing on the city’s beaches.”

United Nations officials and foreign diplomats are trying to persuade the two sides to call a cease-fire and return to the negotiating table to determine how to share power. We have not heard what the African Union and the Organization of Islamic Countries are doing. Are they all on Hajj?

May the pilgrims find nearness to the baraka of Allah! May prayers be answered! Going round the Kaaba is a return to the center and origin of humanity’s purpose on earth. But in our daily rounds you and I sometimes seem to go in circles with much less success. We do not make progress. We need our Hajjis to bring back wisdom and inspiration, like Malcolm. We need their experience to learn how to manage our diversity and resolve our disputes, which seem to be getting more deadly by the day.

We should note that almost one half of Ethiopians are Muslim, and their government is coming to the aid of the previous government of Somalia, which was Muslim but corrupted by warlord style tribalism. We see similar tribalism growing in Iraq, of course, but also in Palestine, where recent violent disputes threaten any chance of a Unity Government.

Hamas disparages Prime Minister Abbas when he manages to get concessions of 100 million out of 500 million dollars in tax and customs revenue withheld by the Israeli Government. Is this healthy competition or an unhealthy power game? And on the extreme side, entities like al Qaeda disparage Hamas for engaging at all with a democratic political system without overturning laws and instituting a theocracy.

Now Iran provokes Israel over its nuclear arsenal; there are double standards within double standards on this issue. And Saudi Arabia promotes a joint atomic energy program between predominantly Sunni Arab states to send a message that Sunnis will match Tehran's nuclear power if it needs to.

Negotiating is hard work, and Muslims are weak enough without all these divisions. Instead of attacking each other, Muslims need to sort out their differences, agree on different strategies, but maintain trust and communication in order to learn from each other’s success.

Last year CAIR was calling for communities nationwide to register Muslim voters on Eid ul-Adha, with an initial target of 100,000 registrations. In two CAIR surveys of American Muslims, more than 95 percent of the respondents favored political participation.

Not all Muslims agree, for a variety of reasons. So then let each build the house he (or she) can live in. I can live in a house of diversity, a home of creativity and tolerance. This is not the same as a frathouse from “The Real World.” And even that does not frighten me as it would Sayyid Qutb. America the free is the environment I know.

But America the Paranoid is harder to understand. It is a dark doorway. We can write letters to the editor about the lies of Jihad Watch, their false moderate Muslims, to offer some light for well-meaning fellow Americans. We can be gracious and dialogue with Jews and others we might not normally trust. We should "speak softly, but carry a big stick." Or, this advice, if you prefer--attend your religious duties but remember to fasten your camel.

In any case, next year promises to be a very bumpy ride.

Morals, Money and a "Meaningful Philosophy of Life"

2006-12-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

Morals, Money and a "Meaningful Philosophy of Life"

What am I doing here, balanced on my soapbox once a week, while the mob rushes by? Refugees swarm on one side, holiday shoppers on the other. Do my words encourage moral behavior, or do I merely bloviate moralistically? I wonder.

This past week I collected some of my previous columns on a blog named http://americanmuslimadems.blogspot.com. While doing so, I noticed many of my articles had to do with the human rights crisis, with official secrecy and the fog of war. The nightmare we all wish to wake from. Tedious, perhaps, but still relevant, no?

At the risk of redundancy, I will bang the drum of human rights once again this week. You will hear me out in the night like a pre-dawn drummer in Ramadan; wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

“To protect human rights, do we need a broader vision than human rights alone?” asks Rabbi Arthur Wascow, of the Shalom Center; “Can rights be protected when power is being exercised from the top down without public accountability or challenge, when the society – Israeli or American – is defined by the culture and institutions of permanent war?”

Good questions. Now that the permanent war planners are tweaking the War on Terror into the “Long War against Insurgency,” we see the shadowy powers clearly resist reform and resolve to send more troops to Iraq—at least 20 thousand more. To paraphrase a colonial era poem, the Charge of the Light Brigade, “Into the valley of Death rode the 20,000!”

However, according to the New York Times, severe equipment shortages explain why Gen. John Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, recently told lawmakers that the U.S. couldn't maintain even a relatively small increase of 20,000 soldiers in Iraq for more than a few months.

As if to address this, the White House has approved a $468.9 billion budget for the Pentagon in fiscal year 2008, a six-percent increase over last year's request. Using strange accounting however, they will pass on the expenses to the incoming Democrats. No one wants taxes, and therefore social services and education will suffer, affecting you and your children’s future.

But Iraqi civilians may suffer far more than that. And yet President Bush, and President wannabe Senator John McCain, can’t let go of the notion of American victory. They both urge troop increases.

There are signs of dissent, however. Last week, another presidential hopeful, Sen. John Kerry, went with a small congressional delegation to talks with President Bashar Assad in Damascus. Kerry said that the administration's rejection of dialogue with Syria and Iran was a mistake.

And, after appearing only seven weeks ago on the Internet, a petition to “cut and walk” has been signed by nearly 1,000 US soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, including dozens of officers - most on active duty. Not since 1969 has there been such a dramatic sign of military dissent. As one serviceman writes, “So far in three years we have succeeded in toppling a dictator and replacing him with puppets… with an unreliable and poorly trained crew of paycheck collectors. The well is so poisoned by what we have done here that nothing can fix it.” For many more testimonies, please see: www.appealforredress.org.

In a dramatic speech on the Senate floor last Thursday night, Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, said the U.S. military's "tactics have failed." Known as a moderate Republican who has been a supporter of the war in Iraq, Smith said he is at, "the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up the same bombs, day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal."

As her last act as Congresswoman, Rep. McKinney has called for the impeachment of President Bush. Criminal charges appear unlikely. However, according to a November Newsweek poll, 51 percent of Americans expressed support for impeachment of the president. In that poll, 47 percent of Democrats said that impeachment should be a "top priority" of their party if it took control of the House, as did 5 percent of Republicans. We should not hold our breath for immediate action; but let us listen to the truth as it emerges from the dark and the fog of Republican control.

New testimonies of injustice emerge. This last summer, Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor, was detained and treated just like the Iraqis and Muslims detained after 9/11. "What?" you say; "a Caucasian Christian male"? Well, he had made the “mistake” of becoming a whistleblower, identifying a corrupt contractor. The New York Times reports this latest glimmer to emerge from the darkness of war: “The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.”

Shame! Morally, economically, and in so many ways our nation is in decline. From 2000 to 2005 manufacturing jobs declined nearly 18 percent. Virtually every job category decreased except pharmaceuticals. Employment in textile mills fell 42 percent. At the same time, feeding on the rest of the world, American materialism grows more and more greedy—or desperate. In 1970, 79 percent of college freshmen said their goal was developing a "meaningful philosophy of life." But by 2005, 75 percent said their primary objective was to be financially well off. Quite a change! And what sort of models are our nation’s leaders, with their ever-closer ties to Big Oil and other interests? Leaders manipulating religion for political ends!

Power clearly corrupts people regardless of culture. It is deeply troubling that new Islamist leaders in Somalia call for beheading anyone who does not pray five times a day. It is deeply troubling to hear of the cynical and misguided “Holocaust Conference” held in Iran. No wonder that King Abdullah of Jordan calls the whole Middle East region a “powder keg” ready to explode.

But here in the USA Congresswoman MacKinney warns: “We have a President who has misgoverned and a Congress that has refused to hold him accountable. It is a grave situation and I believe the stakes for our country are high." But she also encourages us: “To my fellow Americans, as I leave this Congress, it is in your hands to hold your representatives accountable, and to show those with the courage to stand for what is right, that they do not stand alone.” Reader! How about you? Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

Beyond Fear’s Vast, Rising Walls

2006-12-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

Remembering Mercy, Taking Action: Beyond Fear’s Vast, Rising Walls

Former US president Jimmy Carter stated last week that it was a "crime against the people of Palestine" for foreign governments to halt aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas took over. His new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has strongly criticized Israel and the United States for blocking serious peace initiatives and exacerbating terrorism in the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, Jimmy Carter has been attacked right back. Right wing think tanks and Zionist pundits plot their revenge. Universities have refused to allow him to speak on campus. It is remarkable that a former President is treated this way, especially one so distinguished in service in the last decades and a man far, far superior to the President currently in office. He deserves our support.

Meanwhile, Unity Government talks with Hamas have collapsed. And the Palestinian people live with huge unemployment, alienation, and increasing insecurity. While living in such fear and suffering, however, human rights activists in Palestine do not only think of themselves, but call for universal human rights protection. When one part of the human body is injured, the whole feels pain.

This is why Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi has joined with other leading human rights defenders to sign a letter of concern regarding violent targeting of women and other vulnerable civilians in Darfur. "Women and young girls live in constant fear of attack," read the letter. It accused Sudan's government of being "unwilling or unable to protect its own civilians".

As Muslims we all know we must remember Palestine. Why don’t we have room in our hearts for African Muslims? Yet, even in their suffering, Palestinians like Hanan Ashrawi remember Darfur!

Why is Khartoum so unwilling to protect its civilians? Why did the Cities of the Plain reject the Prophet Lot? Sodom was unwilling to protect the stranger and the vulnerable within its walls. Sodom used rape as a weapon of intimidation. The same is happening in Darfur.

The UN Darfur Task Force Situation stated: "UNICEF has completed a child protection survey in Tawila. The report confirms a host of disturbing findings from the recent inter-agency mission, including a very large number of rape cases, in one case targeting 41 school girls and teachers, gang rape of minors by up to 14 men, abduction of children and women as well as killings of many civilians"

It is hard to understand how it is happening in a Muslim country, but rape and looting has been going on for three years. Amnesty International reports: “A Zaghawa man from Miski, in the district of Kutum, stated: "At 7am in August 2003, our village was surrounded by the Janjawid; we heard machine guns and most of the people ran away, some were killed while trying to escape. My sister, M., aged 43, was captured by the military and the Janjawid. They tried to sleep with her. She resisted, I was present and could hear her: "I will not do something like this even if you kill me" and they immediately killed her. Other people were also present when this happened."

The reports include many other testimonies, such as; “S. was five months pregnant when she was abducted with eight other women during an attack in Silaya, near Kulbus. According to S.: "After six days some of the girls were released. But others as young as eight years old were kept there. Five to six men would rape us in rounds, one after the other for hours during six days, every night. My husband could not forgive me. After this, he disowned me."

Should we make excuses for the tribes or for the government of Sudan, as the violence spreads across the borders of Chad? This is not the first divisive war within the boundaries of Sudan. Are Muslims to turn their heads when over two million fellow Muslims are pushed from their homeland? At least Palestinians understand! How about you?

“Peace upon you guests from an unknown people!” said the Prophet Ibrahim (Q:51:24), but continuing on their way to Sodom, the strangers were attacked as a rejection of Lot’s Prophethood. Sodom was punished. Similarly, the people of Thamud were destroyed for their rejection of Salih and his prophetic lessons on protection of the vulnerable.

And are we Muslims rejecting the lessons of Darfur? Are we so hard hearted now, that when others we dispute with are sometimes correct, we dare not join with them in true opinion? Just because Jews perceive the tragedy of Darfur, do we Muslims have the right to turn our backs on our brothers and sisters?

Each side has built a wall of rigid ideology and named it justice. Each side lives in suffering and constant fear.

But what are other leading Palestinian Rights activities doing now? They are working for peace in Darfur. They are reaching out to us and we need to reach out to them. You may have heard of them. Adam Shapiro is well known in our community as co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (www.palsolidarity.org) in Palestine. Jen Marlowe coordinated and directed a conflict transformation program in Jerusalem, creating and implementing co-existence programs for hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli youth. Following Rachel Corrie’s untimely death, Jen is a founding member of the "Rachel's Words" initiative (www.rachelswords.org). Now, together with activist Aisha Bain, Adam and Jen have produced an important new film called “Darfur Diaries.”

Jen tells me that this film has been shown on LINKTV. In the coming week it will show at the Karachi International Film Festival. The film helps provide clarity about the need for immediate action, peacekeepers and access to food. To order this film for an event or discussion, contact: info@darfurdiaries.org.

If a leader does not care for his people, he may lose his right to be considered the leader. Insha’Allah we may not have reached that point yet in Sudan, but we should recall the fate of Sodom and Thamud. And let’s forget semantics. Genocide or no genocide, let’s move forward. Don’t be fooled by the false idol of nationalism or tribalism. Let’s revisit the DPA Peace Agreement. As the Sudan Tribune suggests: “If ‘reopen’ and ‘renegotiate’ offend, speak of ‘additional protocols.’” Let’s not get stuck with word games. Let the African Union send his representative and his new peacemakers immediately. And let us demand that Congress send funding for this; until now they have only voted symbolic support.

Muslims, be in touch with Reality; embrace Truth with open mind; and with open heart, remember Allah the Merciful! “Isa ibn Maryam used to say, "Do not speak much without the mention of Allah, for you will harden your hearts. A hard heart is far from Allah, but you do not know. Do not look at the wrong actions of people as if you were lords. Look at your wrong actions as if you were slaves. Some people are afflicted by wrong action and some people are protected from it. Be merciful to the people of affliction and praise Allah for His protection."(Muwatta Book #56, Hadith #56.3.8)

Power, Leadership & Auditing the Second Insurgency

2006-12-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

Power, Leadership & Auditing the Second Insurgency

This December 10 will be Human Rights Day. Just a reminder to you and me that there are many human rights disasters that need action as well as the power of prayer.

Muslim leaders should lead their communities in responding to these human catastrophes. It is good they work for civic inclusion and against hate crimes; but we need more vocal leadership on secret prisons, CIA renditions, and all the abuses of executive power since 9/11.

Moreover, while Muslim community members are beginning to recognize the Darfur emergency, national Muslim American organizations have not found their voices on this burning issue. Yes, the House of Darfur is on fire! Do we not expect leaders to use their power to act? Or do we sit on our hands because we think all power corrupts?

The Second US President John Adams wrote: “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond comprehension of the weak.” Convinced by its own rhetoric, state power uses media and culture to sanctify its aggressions. We have seen this all too clearly during the Bush Administration. But finally, our fellow Americans have found their own power to question Mr. Bush’s crusade, and the War On Terror powers he has amassed.

While Popular Culture and Media continue to tar Muslims with the brush of terror, this week some of us remembered that Law, at least, protects against mere “guilt by association.” On November 29, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that President Bush’s designation of 27 groups and individuals as “specially designated global terrorists” violated the Constitution because it was made without any announced standards.

Problematically, the President also authorized the Treasury to add more people or groups who provided services to or were “otherwise associated with” the original ones. “Subject only to his unfettered discretion,” Judge Collins wrote, “The president’s designation authority is constitutionally vague… It is axiomatic that the Constitution prohibits punishing a person for mere association.”

This is good news for charities and individuals nervous about being linked to “extremists” through a long chain of association out of our control. It seems that Bush administration over-reaching was intended to build his powers with or without an actual threat. I have never understood why suspect charities monies needed to be frozen –why not simply an audit?

Of course, we see now that it is his administration and its friends who should have been audited. As it turns out, the Bush Administration has empowered its enemies far beyond any measly “associates.”

You will recall that we were shocked last month to hear how funding for auditing the Iraq reconstruction was stripped from a military spending bill just before the vote. Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction in charge of auditing Iraq's reconstruction since 2004 had found that more than 14,000 guns paid for out of US reconstruction funds for Iraqi government use could not be accounted for. Moreover, when the US military handed out the guns it noted the serial numbers of only about 10,000 out of a total of 370,000 US-funded weapons, contrary to defense department regulations, making them impossible to track.

Moreover, a classified report publicized by The New York Times last week, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. Over $35 million comes from ransoms; another $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry, aided by “corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials. What Mr. Bowen calls a "virtual pandemic" of corruption costs the country $4 billion a year. "Corruption is the second insurgency, and I use that metaphor to underline the seriousness of this issue," Mr. Bowen said.

Though arising out of a desperate situation, Iraqi corruption should be condemned. But much of the corruption is American. After Kellogg, Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company) was awarded an oil industry repair job, more than half the company's $300 million project costs from 2004-06 went on overheads, an audit found. KBR was also found to have overcharged the US military about $60 million for fuel deliveries, but that did not stop it winning more government contracts.

Tragically some Muslims have been punished with years of detention in Guantanamo for associating at a very low level with Taliban soldiers. But why no punishment for corruption? The UK Guardian reported, “A California company, Parsons, had its contract terminated this year after it was found to have finished only six of more than 140 primary healthcare centers it was supposed to build, after two years work and $500m spent. However, the contract was ended "for convenience", meaning Parsons was paid in full.”

To some extent, the new (if slight) democratic majority in Congress should lead to some reform on these matters. However, if you meet with your local officials, city, state or federal, clearly let them know you are concerned about corruption. Let’s not let cynicism excuse business as usual. Sure, bring them baklava, or home baked red velvet cake; but don’t just speak sweet words. And don’t bribe them! They are paid to represent you.

And if you play a local leadership role, however small, share the results with the wider community. Post the results on the internet; send a press release to the Mirror; don’t fall into the trap of secret negotiations. Public life must be public.

We note that some Muslim organizations take a very elitist approach. Some of them denigrate other groups, while claiming to be “moderate Muslims.” Some of these Washington insiders even claim to be representing the community—but most of us have never even heard of them!

However, like so many mosques, many of our national groups seldom respond to phone messages on a range of important issues. They are often too bureaucratic. Some of them increasingly follow a corporate model rather than a grassroots model; which means control will not be transparent. But do we want our organizations to resemble corporations like Halliburton? Surely not! Let the leaders know.

Poisoning the Public

2006-11-25T00:54:00.000-08:00

Let us consider the violence of the state and pursuit of power in the name of religious identity. Let us witness how frequently revenge is confused with martyrdom. Let us trace the spread of intellectual poison.

Last Thursday, over 215 Muslim people were murdered, blown up in the Shiite slums of Sadr City. "As the bombs went off, everyone started running and shouting," said Kareem al-Rubaie, a news photographer. "I saw a car from a wedding party, covered in ribbons and flowers. It was burning. There were pools of blood ... and children dead."

And as you read this, the spiral of violence and revenge continues in Iraq. Shia mosques have been bombed. Scores of dead bodies are found every week with marks of torture upon them. Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunni Muslims as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers-- who did not intervene to save their lives.

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Anthony Shadid suggests that “Civil War is perhaps too easy a term, a little too tidy….(for) gangland turf battles over money, power and survival… a raging insurgency, the collapse of authority…” Through irresponsible policy and shocking mismanagement, the US government is in part responsible for the tragic situation in Iraq. However, we simply cannot shift blame entirely to the US for the current human rights disaster. Muslims kill and Muslims die in this horrible tragedy.

What can Muslims do? CAIR has condemned the latest escalation in sectarian violence. But is there really nothing more US Muslims can do to stop the slaughter of innocents in the name of Muslim religious identity?

Internationally, Muslim leaders are players in this game. Ostensibly to promote reconciliation in Iraq, Vice President Cheney traveled Saturday to Riyadh to ask King Abdullah to help control the Sunni reaction. In return, Saudi Arabia wants the U.S. to help rein in Iraq's Shiite militias; to support Lebanon in its struggle with Hezbollah and Syrian interests; and to accept a new unity government in Palestine. Will this work? And at what price?

Meanwhile the US government is cutting millions from life-saving antipoverty programs in Africa in order to channel more money into democracy building programs in “frontline states on the War against Terror.” But as the New York Times observes, “Promoting democracy and fighting terrorism are laudable goals… (but) there is little indication that America knows how to build democracy.”

And how does one build democracy in a Muslim nation, often characterized by tribal ties, a lack of developed civil society and a legacy of exploitation? Though there are successful Muslim states, the overall record has not been at all encouraging. The politics of divisiveness prevail and like greedy, competitive children, most of the regional leaders play with sectarian fire. Very dangerous.

For example, King Hamad al Khalifa has curtailed many democratic rights in Bahrain. Though in the minority, Sunnis are given special privileges though special naturalizations of Saudis and selective gerrymandering of districts. Also like in the US, smear campaigns in text messages and emails have been rampant in the current election. One candidate stated, “The government wants a polarized Parliament based on sectarian grounds. They want to have a Sunni bloc and a Shia bloc which they can accuse of being tied to Iran.”

It is not heart-warming to see these tricks of power spread faster than traditions of power-sharing, consultation and accountability. How does one translate “hanging Chad” into Arabic? Is this the famous Mu’allaqat?

But perhaps soon we will all be hanging by our legs. How easily extremists chip away at our sense of public trust, and derail our peace plans. In Lebanon, the killing of Pierre Gemayel follows the murder of Prime Minister Hariri last year; the nation faces a crisis. In Britain, last week’s radiation poisoning of former intelligence agent Litvinenko is hardly the first such poisoning. It may be pay back for Litvinenko’s book detailing how Russian services orchestrated the bombings of apartment buildings in order to build the case for the Second Chechen war. And Israel continues to assassinate Hamas operatives. Terror and state terror keep the public fearful and pliable to those willing to be harsh in use of power.

Unfortunately for us all, rigid understandings of tradition and local codes of honor influence many Muslims around the world. In this context, decisions are made behind the scenes, and power is not easily challenged. Even worse, this authoritarian culture is amplified by the power of the modern state, and by technology. And yet, even in the USA, once known as a more open society, the American public has become more isolated and participates much less in collective decision-making than before. What is happening to us? How can we resist?

Each year that Television viewing increases, civic engagement drops. More Americans watch TV (86 percent in prime time) than speak with family members (56 percent in same time period). The average number of televisions per home is greater than the total number of residents. The fraction of six graders with a TV in their room increased from 6 percent to over 80 percent in 20 years. Families once watched TV as a family; now individuals watch alone, and play computer games and surf the internet alone. And every age that grows up this way is less engaged civically, their friendships and community relationships are less deep and more situational, and public life suffers as leisure time is privatized.

I myself notice that my excessive time on email has started to negatively affect the way I interact with others. It is interesting that adaptation to modern technology can consume and control us just as surely as the traditional Big Brother can.

Muslims should consider how our public life is being poisoned by the powers that be, by technology and the choices we make in an increasingly complex world. Insha’allah we will learn to better understand how to free ourselves from all these intellectual, social and political traps. Muslim democracy—are the doors closing with a slam or opening-- with Islam?

The Long War?

2006-11-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

The War on Terror feeds and fattens on human fear wherever it is politically expedient. The War on Terror machine is becoming enormous on this diet of human fear. In the UK, the director of the spy agency MI5 has recently alleged that 30 terror plots are being planned, with help from al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, with 200 presumably Islamist networks and more than 1,600 individuals under surveillance.

And to investigate these more effectively, the Director, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller affirmed that MI5 staff now numbers 2,800, “an increase of over 50 percent since 9/11.” The agency has settled into a long, long “war.”

And last Friday, Prime Minister Blair agreed; “I think it’s absolutely right that it will last a generation… It’s a very long and deep struggle, but we have to …take the fight to those people who want to entice young people into something wicked and violent but utterly futile.”

Accordingly, two weeks ago a government program to monitor students was uncovered by the British newspaper The Guardian. Wakkas Khan, president of a national Islamic student group, worried: "It is clearly targeting Muslim students and treating them to a higher level of suspicion and scrutiny. It sounds like you're guilty until you're proven innocent…. It is potentially the widest infringement of the rights of Muslim students that there ever has been in this country."

And responding to the high level of fear, Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, cautioned; “Although we recognize that there is a real threat, the suggestion that we could even face a nuclear threat will only contribute to paranoia rather than safety and security.”

But there is also so much investment in fear here in the USA. Congressman Keith Ellison has so much work ahead. Can we help this newly elected Muslim to clean up the terrible mess the country is in? Can we afford not to?

Last week Forbes business magazine reported that, “The U.S. armed services have requested a $160 billion supplemental appropriation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the remainder of fiscal year 2007 - a staggering amount.”

Democrats (and some Republicans) object to these “supplemental” bills that avoid the accountability in normal spending bills. The White House has used such tricks to divert hundreds of billions to the military industrial complex. Coming after the Republican political losses and the resignation of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the costs alone will force withdrawal plans.

Of course, terror is a terrible thing. However, we must distinguish it from vandalism and other forms of political violence. As citizens, must not allow minor crimes to be cheaply politicized. And as Americans, we must not allow the collateral damage of Shock and Awe tactics and the use of white phosphorus against civilians to go unchallenged either.

The recent bombings of the Bajaur madrasa and in Gaza surely resemble state terror; though not to the extent that a bomb is a crowded street would be. The militants in the North West Frontier are dangerous. But we must ask if all alternatives were tried.

We must loudly condemn Iraqi insurgents who kill the innocent. To blame the USA for everything is infantile. And yet we Muslims must note: though the CIA may use tactics of rendition to send detainees to illegal torture, the actual torturers in the dungeons of Amman and Cairo are Muslims. How can this be?

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, has written an 11-page letter describing his 2003 abduction at the hands of the CIA and Italian secret service. He has written that he was kept in an Egyptian cell with no toilet and no lights, where "roaches and rats walked across my body.” He would be strapped to an iron rack nicknamed "the Bride" and zapped with electric stun guns. He has lost hearing in one ear from repeated beatings, and his formerly black hair has turned all white.

How can Muslims behave so cruelly to others, in the prisons of Egypt, the villages of Darfur, the subways of London? We must recall that even Kuffar have potential for salvation; it is not our role to punish them. We must recall that other religions will last until the end of time, and that other Prophets have been sent as a mercy from Allah. To be righteous, avoid being self-righteous. We cannot think of our selves as more blessed or more human than any others. We Muslims should not dehumanize ourselves, or others.

But the rapid alienation of our recent generations is not exclusive to Muslims. In “Bowling Alone,” Sociologist Robert Putnam documents how commuting, television, patterns of socialization and to a much lesser extent the breakdown of family structure have had a hugely negative impact on civic engagement. We become socially isolated. When we do not learn and work together we lose humanity. Our society falls.

In Israel, writer David Grossman, who lost his son in the Lebanon conflict this summer, last week mourned his nation as well; “Israel's quick descent into the heartless, essentially brutal treatment of its poor and suffering; this indifference to the fate of the hungry, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, all those who are weak, this equanimity of the State of Israel in the face of human trafficking or the appalling employment conditions of our foreign workers, which border on slavery, to the deeply ingrained institutionalized racism against the Arab minority…By our sword we shall live and by our sword we shall die and the sword shall devour forever. Maybe this would explain the indifference with which we accept the utter failure of the peace process, a failure that has lasted for years and claims more and more victims.”

But the same could be said for many Muslim nations as well, with their authoritarian, closed societies, which even seek to influence us here. God help us all! Pakistan, Israel, Britain, the USA; we all must wake up from this nightmare, dehumanizing War on Terror. What can help our ignorant souls? Literature and Art can help open the blind eyes of the mind and heart, and help us understand how to apply the wisdom of the Deen. And deeper, more generous social Networks can help us bridge with others unlike ourselves as well as bond with each other. The answer is not simply to continue shopping, no. You and I must communicate much more openly to truly realize our life together, and build a better world. We must feel the responsibility, not mistrust. We must wake up.

The News and The Noose

2006-11-07T01:02:00.000-08:00

Will the death of Saddam Hussein bring peace to chaotic Baghdad? Does violence bring an end to violence?

Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, answered: “A country ravaged by violence and death does not need more violence, and especially not a state-orchestrated execution. Saddam Hussein is a criminal and should not be allowed to become a martyr.”

And Amnesty International said that it “deplored” Mr. Hussein’s sentence, describing the trials as “deeply flawed and unfair.”

European politicians on Monday spoke out against the death sentence and even British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he opposed the death penalty for the former President. Arab officials and commentators derided what they said was a flawed and politicized trial, and many noted the timing of the verdict just in time for the US election.

Yet in the US, the right applauded Mr. Bush. His media friends gave him some politically useful coverage. “Good Noose” was the headline of the New York Post.

Of course Saddam Hussein hung more than his share of political prisoners. He gassed more than his share of minority groups, men women and children. And yet one could not help notice that the information about the US original of the gas has been suppressed.

Some would hide the truth. They enact laws and block any attempts to discover the evidence. The latest of many examples is the new plan to check the identity of every single person who leaves the country, and prevent any appeal or discovery of evidence.

Other new bills require indefinite detention and prevent effective relief. Still other bills are enacted in obscurity. The president signs little known executive orders, and also almost 1000 signing statements modifying his signature on Congressional Bills.

Duncan Hunter (R, California) recently had his staff insert in the Defense Department's funding bill, literally in the middle of the night, a provision to shut down the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces."

Looks like the party in power wants to continue the same secrecy. Mr. Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has announced he will be seeking the Republican Party's nomination for president in 2008.

Secrecy, Lies and Hypocrisy. We all know how the Quran condemns hypocrisy. And yet how widespread a problem! What a trap! Our leaders certainly do not lead by good example. A Republican will condemn one politician’s moral failings, while finding ways to defend and sympathize with the corrupt of his own party. A Democrat may be equally opportunistic. Where is the sense of justice in such manipulations?

We have just emerged from an election season covered with the mud of negative and irresponsible character smears. Some Republicans especially distinguished themselves in their ability to spin and self-justify. As Glenn Greenwald notes: “The authoritarian Bush movement is so Wise (in the case of neoconservatives) and so Good (in the case of the religious fundamentalists who are their loyal comrades) that everything, including the most blatant lies, is not only justifiable, but necessary. Reality can and must be fundamentally distorted for our own good.”

In the wake of sexual scandals, many from the right wing have tried to defend Congressman Foley and the Evangelical Minister Ted Haggard, denying that hypocrisy was important issue, affirming that both men wrestled bravely with sin. And wrestled, and wrestled; enjoying the struggle for many years. The Rights asks; “So what if they preached against the sins they embraced in secret? What is honesty worth against the image of virtue?”

For example, Larry Frum, a speech writer previously employed by the President Bush, observed about Ted Haggard: “Instead of regarding hypocrisy as the ultimate sin, could it not be regarded as a kind of virtue - or at least as a mitigation of his offense?” (National Review, 11/3)

However the same political writers showed no mercy to President Clinton. The same writers show a selective sort of sympathy and surely that too is a form of hypocrisy. It is a form of moral relativism that the conservatives like to accuse liberals of.

For example, Irving Kristol, the “grandfather” of neoconservatism, explained the "justification" for lying: “There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people ... There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.”

Is this something we Muslims can agree with? I hope not. Surely there are different ways to express Truth. But not different “truths.”

We are stuck with a machiavellian political culture, with little respect for truth-telling. And unfortunately even if the Republicans lose power, we cannot expect them to give up such tactics. As one can read on Digbysblog: “Winning this election will not change this. The political establishment has been trained in this method for almost two decades now and the Republicans are actually better at wielding this power as the opposition. I have no answers about how to deal with it. It's one of the most difficult challenges we face.”

Hypocrisy is not uncommon in the “Muslim World” either. Let us all beware.

When Oil and Water Don’t Mix

2006-10-20T00:51:00.000-07:00

State of War: When Oil and Water Don’t Mix

Islamically, Sharia refers to matters of religion that God has legislated for His servants. But in Arabic, Sharia means the path to water. The two meanings of Sharia reflect the management of water as a metaphor for discipline of spirit. After all we humans, constructed mainly of water, require water to survive.

Water is an essential element in Creation referred to 63 times in the Qur'an. In the Sharia, 3 types of water are differentiated: running water, water from a well, and water from natural springs. Not all can be for free use—this can lead to destruction of the precious resource.

Water sustains civilization in so many ways. Once humanity profoundly understood this fact; even the Chinese character for “political order” is based upon the symbol for water. And according to the Institute Voelia, “The nature of the water and its use have given rise, throughout history, to highly complex forms of legislation in which Qur'anic law and local custom and practice are often more or less closely associated.”

Muslims have long known the importance of water flowing underground. In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun described the vast networks of foggaras, ancient underground canals to collect water in the North African desert. However, after the French came to Algeria, the colonial authorities slowly began to bring new technologies for water extraction. This progress has also resulted in the sinking of the water table and the pollution and over-salting of vast underground reservoirs. The old systems are crumbling.

In India, the irrigation system has become based on competition and not sharing. The number of wells has increased from two million thirty years ago to twenty three million wells. Water conflicts arise when water use increases, and the common water sinks lower, forcing everyone to keep digger deeper than his neighbor.

Around the world, so many of our brothers and sisters die because drinking water is polluted by fecal bacteria. Even if the ambitious UN Millennium Development Goals to improve access to sanitation and clean drinking water are achieved, only thirty to seventy million people will die in the next fifteen years from preventable water-related diseases. Imagine how many more die now! Who is to blame for this mass death?

We can blame rapid industrialization and the gap between rich and poor. We can blame corruption. We can blame industry to some extent, as it uses water in great quantity. However, we also need to look closer to home. As human beings eat more meat, as McDonalds spread across the world, the use of water increases vastly. A thousand tons of water are required to grow a ton of grain; but over fifteen thousand tons to grow a ton of cow. Stated even more clearly, thirteen hundred gallons of water go into the production of a single hamburger. One cup of coffee requires a hundred and forty litres of water used in growing the coffee plant. So how many hundreds of gallons did you consume today? And whose water was it?

We can build dams. Desalinization remains too expensive for most developing nations. But conservation is necessary. Drip irrigation requires only a fraction of the water and minimizes evaporation. In the USA, improvements in flush toilets and other technology has already significantly decreased water use per person. The principles of wise management of resources are universal. Bu how will humanity manage?

In the future, as we reach peak water levels, will desperate measures be taken, with wars for water? As we currently see with oil? A recent poll asked Iraqis what they believed was the main reason for the US invasion and 76 percent gave "to control Iraqi oil" as their first choice.

A recent Johns Hopkins Study has estimated 655,000 Iraqi deaths since the US invasion in 2003. Other studies have noted how 2,000 doctors and nurses have been killed in the chaos, and 18,000 more have emigrated. With most basic treatments lacking, over half the deaths would normally have been preventable. This is not to ignore the tragic and evil sectarian violence tearing apart Iraqi society. But foreign and US companies are swarming to profit from the war, while civilians perish in great numbers.

In 2006 Halliburton’s KBR division watched third-quarter net income rise 22 percent, to 2.4 billion. "Iraq was better than expected," said Jeff Tillery, analyst with Pickering Energy Partners Inc.

$120 billion in Saddam-era debt owed to the Paris Club, a group of 19 industrialized nations, was renegotiated by Bush family representative James Baker to forgive 80 percent of the debt, in exchange for a "reform" package administered by the International Monetary Fund. The Iraqi National Assembly called it "a new crime committed by the creditors who financed Saddam's oppression.”

Moreover, according to Alternet on 10/19: “The Carlyle Group, of which Baker is believed to have a $180 million stake, had contracted with Kuwait to make sure that the money it was owed by Iraq would be excluded from any debt-relief package.”

More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the 'insurgency' in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 'elections,' according to Iraqi investigators.

One of the few Saddam-era laws that Paul Bremer left on the books was a prohibition against organizing public-sector workers. Some contractors, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton /KBR, were found to be using deceptive hiring practices and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers. The Pentagon has yet to announce any penalty for those in violation of US labor trafficking laws.

"We will never believe in you unless you cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us, or have a garden full of date palms and grapevines and make rivers gush forth plentifully through the midst of them" (Sura 17, 92-95). But O Allah! Guide us to wise management of your creation!

On Service; Your Soul, Winning & the World

2006-10-15T00:50:00.000-07:00

On Service; Your Soul, Winning & the World

We must applaud the good news that two of our Muslim brothers have been awarded Nobel prizes this past week. In their different ways, Muhammad Yunus and Orhan Pamuk both exemplify the humane vision and integrity of our Golden Ages. That intellectual gold still shines out from the soul whenever a Muslim makes a creative act or contributes to the welfare of humanity. As a community we are indeed a “thousand points of light” but mashallah some take the lead in enlightening us in the darkness and confusion of our worldly affairs.

Muhammad Yunus is the first Nobel Prize winner from Bangladesh. Together with the Grameen Bank he founded, economist Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for microcredit programs that have helped more than 100 million women and men around the world take their first steps out of poverty, enabling them to obtain dairy cows, egg-laying hens and bankrolling other grassroots efforts. "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty," the Nobel Committee said in its citation; "Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights."

"I am so, so happy, it's really a great news for the whole nation," Yunus told The Associated Press. The 65-year-old economist said he would use his share of the $1.4 million award to create a company, Social Business Enterprise, to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor and also would work toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh.

Thanks to Allah for the blessing of successful service! Orhan Pamuk is the first Turk to win the prize. His somewhat complex and difficult fiction deals with East-West identity issues, but he may also have been recognized for speaking out for free expression despite the recent efforts of powerful nationalist factions to put him in prison for having fictional characters in his novels describe the Armenian massacres as genocidal. He has calmly and effectively challenged government and society about human rights. As Pamuk has reminded us: 'Freedom of thought and expression are freedoms which people long for as much as bread and water. They should never be limited by nationalist sentiment, or (worst of all) business and military interests.”

But yes, this was a time of national pride, both in Bangladesh and in Turkey. In New York City, where he is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University, Orhan Pamuk told reporters that the Nobel Prize for Literature was not only given to him, but to all of Turkey, Turkish culture, and the language of Turkish. Pamuk added, "I think that this award will cause the world to re-examine Turkish culture as a culture of peace, and as a mixture of East and West cultures.”

In the UK, Jack Straw worries about self-isolation of Muslims. While he has misspoken in a clumsy way, and while the Pope has recently misspoken as well, they share a common concern that Muslims are building high walls that will prevent east-west dialogue and peacemaking with other communities. But we Muslims see many others building such walls as well.

This is one reason it is so heartening to have this recognition from the Swedish Nobel committee. But how to deliver this good news that Muslim inclusion is possible to the masses? And how to encourage self-respect in our community, not simply based on external awards but on service and results? How to reach those who do not read difficult novels?

We Muslims need an intellectual micro-credit program! We may need to supply cows and chickens for basic business development; but also to build deep spiritual trust and intellectual empowerment at a grassroots level. We need to remind people that power we need is not only materialist, worldy power, electric power, nuclear power. We Muslims can have the other sort of power that shines like light and illuminates the world from within.

Ramadan can be that micro-credit program for you and me. We can invest in our spiritual future through attentive and proportional self-sacrifice. But recall that the Prophet said: "Do not hurt yourselves nor injure others." We are also taught "...make not your own hands contribute to your destruction..." (Surah al-Baqarah 2:195); "...nor kill yourselves..." (Surah al-Nisaa 4:29). May I ask you something? Wouldn’t Ramadan be a good time to quite smoking for good? Wouldn’t that be a good investment in your future and your family?

Cigarettes and cigars have at least 43 documented carcinogens. Men who smoke contract lung cancer at 22 times the rate of non-smokers. Smokers are also highly at risk for heart disease, emphysema, oral cancer, and stroke.

Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradhawi states: "Muslims are not allowed to eat, drink or smoke (inhale) something which could lead to their death whether it be instantly or over a long period of time…(and) According to the methodology of the Shari'ah, smoking is prohibited." http://www.crescentlife.com/wellness/smoking_is_haram.htm

Shaykh Mahmuud Syaltuut, a former Dean at the University of al-Azhar has written: "The dangers of smoking are clear…. Furthermore, smoking is usually unpleasant to others, it leads to lung cancer and leads to the wasting of one's property (as had been prohibited by the Prophet (s.a.w))." http://www.themodernreligion.com/misc/hh/smoking-suicide.htm

For those young people carousing after prayers in the hookah cafes; for those men who light up right after the Adhan; sisters, brothers, beware; you have nothing to lose but your souls. If you lose that you cannot really be winners. Remember your health. Let's say our salaams like we mean it and win this one together.
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Rights and Ramadan

2006-10-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

First, the bad news. Last week, the deadliest suicide bombing in several weeks in killed at least 14 Iraqis; 29 people were reported killed across the country, and 51 additional bodies, many of them bound and showing signs of torture, were found in western and eastern Baghdad. Moreover, hundreds of Iraqi policemen fell sick from poisoning Sunday at a base in southern Iraq after the evening meal breaking their daily Ramadan fast, and officials said they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional.

Meanwhile, the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former US Secretary of State James Baker, has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and running” or “staying the course”.

The US attacks Iraq instead of pacifying Afghanistan. The US focuses on the nuclear threat in Iran, and North Korea calls their bluff. What madness. And what incompetence! In such as world, can we still obtain justice? The answer is yes-- but it takes hard work.

Izzat Mufti the OIC's undersecretary for political affairs has announced that Iraqi Sunni and Shiite religious leaders are planning to meet in Saudi Arabia to sign a declaration that forbids inter-Islamic fighting before the end of Ramadan. Though this will take much effort to implement, it is a good sign.

There are also some good signs closer to home. Abdullah al-Kidd, a former star college football player, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003 as he prepared to board a flight to Saudi Arabia, where he was planning to pursue a doctorate in Islamic studies. Federal prosecutors claimed he was a flight risk crucial to the prosecution of a fellow University of Idaho student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen. However, Hussayen was quickly acquitted of any computer-related terrorism charges. Kidd was never called to testify; but he was imprisoned and interrogated in harsh conditions for 16 days in three states and then placed under restrictive court supervision for more than a year.

But Abdullah al-Kidd sued. And last week, US District Judge Edward J. Lodge, a federal judge in Idaho, ruled that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of a US citizen arrested as a "material witness" in a terrorism case. Justice Department officials did not respond to requests for comment.

More good news, insha’Allah. Javaid Iqbal, known as “the cable guy” to his Long Island customers, was swept into a federal detention center in Brooklyn when hundreds of Muslims were arrested in the New York area in the days after 9/11. After his deportation, he also sued the government, charging that because of his religion, race or national origin, he, like others, was held for months after 9/11 in abusive solitary confinement before being cleared of links to terrorism and deported. From my work with this case at that time, I know directly that his conditions were indeed abusive, cruel and unusual.

Javaid’s lawsuit was brought by the Urban Justice Center. Lawyers for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other government officials have been arguing that the officials were entitled to immunity from the lawsuit. However, on October 4, a three-judge panel yesterday challenged arguments by federal officials seeking dismissal.

As Nina Bernstein reported for the New York Times; “Judge Newman was especially scathing in questioning the lawyer for Dennis Hasty… “Beatings?” Judge Newman asked. “Exposure to air-conditioning after standing in the rain? Needless strip-searches? Never approached a due process violation? If I thought your client really believed that, I’ve got to tell you, I’d be really troubled.”

The former Warden’s lawyer also claimed that Mr. Iqbal’s lawsuit itself shows there were “only minimal restrictions” on his ability to practice his religion, since he complained that his Koran had been routinely confiscated and that guards had banged on his cell door when he tried to pray, which proved that he had been allowed to pray and to have a Koran. In a tone of outraged incredulity, Judge Newman repeated the phrase “only minimal restrictions?!”

Truth and Justice at long last? May Allah guide us! And we might remind those who malign all Jews as if they represent some sort of eternal enemy—well, the judges and reporters and often lawyers who bring the truth to light are often Jewish, expressing the highest ideals of the People of the Book, God bless them.

However, if we Muslims wish to help build our own community’s work freeing in captives, we might take this opportunity to give to CAIR; or CRE; or to your local Muslim Lawyer’s Association; at the same time we should also support such allies as the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and the ACLU.

And there are so many in prison! Not the most healing environment for most! Brothers and sisters; why not support or start a prison visiting program to give light and hope to detainees in the twilight world of prison? Call your local jails and ask for the Muslim Chaplain. And if there is no chaplain, you may wish to find one!

And we may also wish to find another president, and another congress; but that is another discussion. For the moment, let us remember those most in need of their freedom; let us directly pressure our elected officials and our unelected Muslim leaders to do all they can to protect our rights. This Ramadan, let us support all those who work to protect our rights.

Habeus Lost

2006-10-02T00:46:00.000-07:00

It is 1933 again; as the Reichstag burned, Hitler blamed his own work on others in order to take total control. It is 1951 again, with the tactics of Joe McCarthy attacking liberals and Muslims and anyone standing in the way of the right wing machine and the maintenance of control. The powers that be have convinced themselves that this is how to win elections. The Republicans are playing hardball; Democrats are playing right back; the politics of fear and divisiveness prevail. It does matter who is in power.

We Muslims need to educate ourselves and get involved to lift this process to a better moral level. How do we think ourselves over the walls back to 1990 when the Berlin wall was pushed down by hammer swinging citizens? Is that what is needed in Washington? But Congress has already pulled down Democracy and Freedom, in the name of Democracy and Freedom.

The Capitol Building has been renovated— just yesterday I saw it standing white in the early morning. But the men and women of this institution have just voted for a law designed to strip many basic human rights protections for detainees, as well as others. The bill entrenches presidential power to a new extent, weakens court checks on that power, and allows the administration to declare even an American citizen an unlawful combatant subject to indefinite detention. It rolls back a number of the gains made when brave lawyers challenged the indefinite detention of Muslims after 9/11. It reduces Habeus protections in place since 1215 Magna Carta, the British model for our won political rights. Do you really feel more secure?

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. anti-torture investigator, commented, “I'm very disappointed. It doesn't send the signal that we would have expected after Abu Ghraib.''

Rabbi Wascow the Shalom Center commented, “This law is second in despicability only to the protection explicitly given slavery in the original Constitution of the United States. I am ashamed that to my grandchildren I am bequeathing an America so defiled.”

Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC Executive Director, observed last week, "The current legislation allows the world to think that America has given in to those that want to change us from a nation of laws and order to a nation that is scrambling to defend itself event at the cost of its identity."

Walls are rising everywhere around us. Why? Leaders build on fear, to defend absurd lines in the sand drawn by colonial powers; to defend “our way of life” and to create an illusion of security against immigrant invasion, criminal smuggling, and acts of war. Walls define us as who we are and who we are not.

Israel’s wall is well known, shutting Palestinians into a ghetto. There are other less well known security walls, such as in the deserts of Morocco, designed to impede the movement of Polisario rebels along hundreds of miles. In Iraq, new fortifications are planned to wall in much of Baghdad, along with curfews to contain the chaos there. However, order in Iraq has collapsed so completely that Saudi Arabia has ordered the construction of a 550-mile high-tech fence to seal off its northern neighbour. Like other modern walls, this will be equipped with ultraviolet night-vision cameras, buried sensor cables and thousands of miles of barbed wire.

In so-called Muslim countries from Sudan to Uzbekistan the culture of fear and division keeps the people penned like sheep. Laws exclude, in the name of tribal animosity; corruption erodes trust; state control is maintained with a heavy hand. And though once committed at least to a vision of freedom, Fortress America will soon build a 700-mile fence on our Southern borders, which Congress voted to fund last week, despite the opposition of Mexican authorities and the migration patterns of many creatures. As in dictatorships, our US leaders dig deep to build on fear. They dig deep psychologically, using the media. They also dig deep in our own pockets to pay their Halliburton and Bechtel friends to wall us in.

Many of the worst new walls are invisible; created by divisive politics; the influence of extreme tactics in politics; virulently negative and personal and misleading political attack ads, think tanks dedicated to massive takeover, such as the “K Street Project” a Republican initiative to integrate lobbyists into the political power structure, linked to the current scandal with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Congressional Leader Tom DeLay, as well as to the White House.

The current massive scale of corruption in Washington is a clear indication that right wing ideologies that romanticize privatization and the power of private business world can be all too easily and completely corrupted. And protecting access to power are miles and miles of invisible walls. You must pay to get in.

Some cannot get in at all, like Tariq Ramadan, for false reasons that slowly come to light as legal fictions. Others who are in suffer prosecutorial misconduct, such as Imam Warith Deen. "What has happened the last five years has brought discouragement and sometimes international disgrace to our great country," said former President Carter last week.

One thing you can do however, is join concerned Americans from all across the country in at the ACLU Membership Conference in Washington DC on October 15-17. Let there be Muslims there—we cannot stop the struggle for Ramadan. Let our faith and sacrifice define and energize us. At this defining moment in United States history, the record must show that the Muslim Americans were not afraid to gather and call on the government to account for its abuses of power. See www.aclu.org for more details; and for a limited number of subsidies for youth activists contact arosmarin@nyclu.org.

Should Muslim Americans attend The White House Ramadan Iftar?

2006-09-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

Should Muslim Americans attend The White House Ramadan Iftar?

Ramadan 2006 is almost here. Time to prepare for prayer. The holy month is a time for reflection, fasting and outreach to our neighbors. And outreach begins early.

I have just returned from the New York Police Department’s annual pre-Ramadan breakfast for our community—strangely, in some ways the best-attended Muslim event in New York, with leaders from a wide variety of our communities. Some Muslims are a little naïve in their happiness to be included in the court of the Sultan of Security. But everything is nice, everyone is nice, and we have to do it, for good relations, and we all sign the book as we go in. The NYPD has the best database thanks to us!

But speaking of data bases, should Muslim Leaders attend an iftar in the Bush White House? Mr. Bush has little respect for International Laws such as the Geneva conventions or the US constitution and ancient rights of Habeus Corpus. Almost five years after arrest, countless innocent Muslim men remain incarcerated along with the guilty in the indefinite detention of Guantanamo. In addition, overseas detention centers are holding 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law. How can our leaders meet with Mr. Bush, with all the lies that he has told, and continues to tell, about the War in Iraq and the so-called War on Terror?

Tariq Ramadan has written to Mr. Bush (in al Ahram 2005): “You presented yourself to the American people as the solution but you are in fact the problem. You have not ceased to deepen the gap between the United States and the rest of the world - not only the Muslim world but also Europe… Your administration preferred to exclude me, like so many other Muslim intellectuals, in order to protect itself from debate and dialogue. I finally decided not to try settling in your country anymore… I do not know what could persuade you to use less lies and more truths.”

Last year during Ramadan, Imam Naji Ali, of Project Islamic HOPE in Chicago, was quoted in the media saying that Muslim organizations, imams and activists were fed up with this administration. He urged Muslim leadership not to be politically naïve, adding; “Let President Bush eat by himself at his Ramadan dinner."

Even so, last year many Muslim organizations, together with the diplomats of the Organization of Islamic Countries, flocked to the White House to hear the President say how peaceful Islam is as religion. Will these noble and pre-eminent insiders be returning in 2006 for a second throwing of crumbs and scraps?

Perhaps they will have second thoughts. For example: Imam Talal Eid is an al Azhar graduate, distinguished founder and religious Director of the Islamic Institute of Boston, and also affiliated with the Muslim World League based in Saudi Arabia (see www.imamtalaleid.com). Imam Talal has been Muslim chaplain at several hospitals and has won recognition for his service as a leader. Last year he led prayers at the White House to mark the holy month of Ramadan. His picture is still on the White House website.

Imam Talal is also from Lebanon, and we must be sympathetic to his stress and strain arising from the recent Israeli aggression. But let us ask: did an appearance at the White House help ensure that the Bush Administration would urge a speedy ceasefire? No!

Instead, this administration hurried up its shipments of cluster bombs to Israel. It is not the imam’s fault. And yes, elected officials can sometimes help with one’s nearest and dearest caught in the crossfire. But face the facts: the White House Ramadan benefits George Bush more than it does the Muslim Community.

Both CAIR and MPAC have significant presence in Washington DC; and now ISNA has an office there as well. Will they be schmoozing with George this Ramadan? These organizations do much good. But how do they justify such a disgusting activity?

On October 12, 2005 the Yahoo! News reported CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, who spoke at The White House Iftar the day before: 'This annual tradition is designed to foster greater understanding of Islam and the Muslim community on Capitol Hill… It is also intended to show appreciation for congressional staffers who have been working closely with American Muslims.'"

And on October 27, 2005 the Muslim Public Affairs Council reported, "MPAC leadership attended iftars hosted by the Department of Treasury, the State Department, the White House, the US Agency for International Development, and the European Union. At each event, they raised pressing concerns from the community… MPAC is encouraged by the past year and continues to urge President Bush to lead his cabinet and their respective departments on a road that is inclusive of Muslims at the policy-making level."

Well, I am not encouraged at all. Are you? While leaders like Maher Hanout are being demonized by the far right friends of the Bush administration, MPAC may be tempted to attend this year’s event to show they are still in the game. No doubt that reasoning is familiar to CAIR.

O Muslims! Don’t let our Muslim leaders speak in your name without your agreement. O leaders! Don’t let George Bush define the rules of the game. We all must develop coordinated, local relationships with elected officials; not only for our own identity politics and issues, though there are plenty, but consistent with our deen for basic rights and social justice for all. Insha’Allah, may your Ramadan outreach be self-respecting; like a strong and purposeful handshake and not a weak, smiling, wishful-thinking wave of an empty hand.

We the Busy People

2006-09-11T00:44:00.000-07:00

When in the Course of Human Events: We the Busy People

With clear skies and a cool breeze, the anniversary of September 11 has passed once again, with many events and memorials here in New York. I read about one survivor in the newspaper: “Richard has long quested for images of Karen on the 101st floor of the North Tower, where she worked, “and there’s one picture of her at the window in her navy blue sweater top and cream-colored pants,: he said. “And there’s one of her falling. Same clothing. She’s covering her face.”

May Allah protect us and cover us all! At two interfaith events that I attended in the last day, mothers and husbands and wives spoke movingly of their lost ones, and between prayers, the singers sang straight from a bursting heart. Both events shared an Islamic Call to Prayer and full participation by Muslim family members and diverse spiritual leaders.

Interfaith leaders spoke of the spirit and from the spirit, and they seemed to be carrying on a beautiful conversation about light, darkness, and hope, rising up. They noted differences gently, but looked through religion towards God and expressed the yearning human spirit we all share. Interfaith is not really a competition, but a communication.

It is two in the morning. In 6 hours I should be at an Interfaith event coinciding with the opening of the UN General Assembly. I do not know if this will be more about power and less about the value of human life. But I will go. After that, there is an interfaith meeting of religious people working against torture and the human rights abuses of the Bush administration. Meetings are different than events; unless you organize them yourself!

I am organizing three events this week on Darfur; one at Brooklyn Borough Hall, with West African dinner and a range of speakers; one at Queens Museum with artists and journalists and human rights advocates; and am helping with another event at the Islamic Center of New York, along with Network of Arab American Professionals. However, that same evening there are two other events; “Why Can’t America Have Human Rights” another diverse and impressive program, and a panel discussion that I am also supposed to be part of.

How busy is busy enough? Last week I also helped plan a Jewish Muslim workshop, and also helped set up 2 meetings with visiting Palestinian educators. I staffed a table at the Muslim Day parade, and I will staff a booth at the Muslim Great Adventure Day, insha’Allah. And on the weekend, there are 6 events; one large Darfur rally, one dialogue, one law group events and several community events to reach with outreach materials –a Mela organized by SAKHI, a Senegalese Professionals meeting, and a youth conference with AI Democracy.

Where will I find time to be myself? Faith leaders remind us of joy and compassion for one’s self and family; perhaps one should say selam to the mirror as well! And another speaker also reminded us that we do not do; it is Allah who is in control.

Almost 3,000 died in the World Trade Center but over 300,000 have died in Darfur. They are far away and poor; but that is no reason to ignore them. It is no reason to ignore that our government is not truly humanitarian. Sure, it has its human moments, but the system needs repair—a new engine or only a new sparkplug, Allah knows best.

So we the busy people would regret it if we missed the beauty around us, the beauty of our friends and family, of the night sky shining with stars. We the event planners can miss out on life; like a busy hostess who does not enjoy her party. We need to serve with joy.

And yet it is easy to be frustrated; people do not pay attention. People have no sense of urgency. People are hard to please. There is always more to do.

And Muslims are very hard to mobilize. It is amazing! What percentage of mosques actually have the same working fax machine for 2 years in a row? How many imams and leaders answer their emails on time?

It is true, that the Muslim Day parade this year was bigger and more inclusive. Sweet nausheeds as well as speeches for the ear and for the mouth, delicious food piled high. Cooperation between food vendors ensured that all the food was sold equably. But too bad one group of youth held up signs denouncing Shia, calling them non-Muslims. This was in poor taste. Should they have been allowed to stay? Can one be tolerant of intolerance? Can these mean, judgmental youth see the beauty around them?

Yes we are disunited. Not organized. And sometimes we are too busy. I feel it is as if we are falling, falling from a high tower! May Allah guide us through this state of loss. We do need to let go and let God. At the same time, we need to respond to all the challenges we face with strength and clarity.

A housewife arranges the table for the guests. A host makes sure everyone is comfortable. Hospitality is far from the culture of calculation, ideology, fast food and fast dollars. Like religious practice, social events are offerings of love, but maybe especially when they are not also escapes from the self.

Muslims Killing Muslims?!

2006-09-05T00:42:00.000-07:00

Muslims killing Muslims! Last week, more than 400 Iraqi Muslims were killed in bombings, with hundreds more wounded by militias, insurgents and criminal gangs. And this has become the new normal. Almost ninety percent of these Muslims are executed in cold blood. On Sunday, 40 more bodies were found; the majority of them were blindfolded.

And at a news conference on Monday, Muhammad al-Askary, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, said that insurgents have started renting apartments and storefronts in Baghdad and packing them with explosives. “The insurgents used new ways like renting apartments and shops to booby-trap them by remote control,” he said. The authorities have warned shop owners and real-estate agents to screen potential tenants more carefully. And I thought Muslims were supposed to be good neighbors. God forgive us all! Imagine living this way!

Though the US presence is one factor in the chaos, we cannot simply shift blame to Americans or Mossad or any convenient scapegoat. It is Muslims killing Muslims. And we stand by and watch it happen, self-righteously saying, “I told you so”, and “US Troops out now.” Yes, and then?

And what is happening in Darfur? Muslims Killing Muslims! Again!--in enormous numbers. And yet, despite a human catastrophe far beyond the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we Muslims stand by searching for politically correct statements.

And now the Sudanese government has delivered an ultimatum to the African Union peacekeeping force, telling it to extend its mandate with money raised by the Arab League, without handing off to the United Nations; or else pack up and leave by the end of the month.

Can that work? The African Union does not want to stay. It has been ineffective. The commander of the African forces in Darfur, Gen. Collins Ihikere, said in an interview last week that accepting the money would leave the African Union hopelessly compromised. “It could become a kind of blackmail,” General Ihikere said.

We should respect the sovereignty of Sudan as well as Lebanon, Israel, and Iran.But we know our so-called Muslim politicians are just as cold blooded as others. Let us not be fooled or allow ourselves to become sentimental about some imagined morality. Let us guard morality with vigilance; so that civilians do not perish in some diplomatic chess game of power. And they do perish.

At the same time that Sudan and Iran are playing their political bluff against the United Nations, the American Jewish Congress is waging a campaign to change international law, which it depicts as out of step with fighting terrorism. In a letter sent in mid-August to the Senate Armed Service's Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, AJC Legal Counsel Marc Stern wrote that "international law, as it is currently applied by the United Nations, the Red Cross and unofficial international human rights groups, enhances the military capability of irregular forces at the direct expense of states.”

Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, has condemned civilian deaths on both sides of the conflict, and is considering opening a "commission of inquiry" that would investigate possible war crimes by both parties. However, Israel government is still looking for someone to blame for their mistakes, and the UN seems a convenient target.

Evidently, Muslims, like other humans and nations, need mediators to help make peace. So it was good news that on Monday Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the United Nations would mediate talks on the release of Israeli and Hezbollah prisoners. It was also good news that international donors have promised 500 million for Palestinians and 940 million for Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah slowly re-arms; but Israel has violated the ceasefire nearly one hundred times.

Many states and non-state entities justify crimes in the name of Security. Power games sow seeds of enormous profit; and intrigue mushrooms in the dark of war. And words create worlds.

Steve Emerson and the think tanks of the Right create new words and new worlds of repression; it is out of these dark laboratories that “Islamofascism” emerged, finally to gain wide currency in time for the upcoming elections. And other nations adopt the language of the “War on terror” because it is to their advantage.

It is not so-called “IslamoFascism” or “JudeoFascism” that I fear so much as the net of lies and the power games of extremists on all sides. When extreme views like these prevail, it becomes difficult to be honest. Hilary Clinton watches her tongue very carefully. And Jonathan Tasini, who is running against her for New York Senate, has stated, “Israel committed many acts of brutality and violations of human rights and torture.” He will be a martyr to Truth in this election.

The language of the people becomes poisoned. And then people call anyone they don’t like “terrorist” or “Kuffar” or “enemy.” And worse, the humanity of others is called into question. Last week, leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America issued a statement prodding the Israeli military to review its policy of taking pains to spare the lives of innocent civilians. The rabbinical council said in a statement, "we believe that Judaism would neither require nor permit a Jewish soldier to sacrifice himself in order to save deliberately endangered enemy civilians."

But Muslims killing Muslims engage in the same process of dehumanization. Wake up!

Home and Homeless, Round the World

2006-08-27T00:40:00.000-07:00

Home and Homeless, Round the World

There are mass graves hidden in a thousand fields. There are bodies and abandoned shoes on a thousand broken streets from Congo to Qana -- and from the caves and cafes of Quetta to Kentucky plane crash sites.

Tired of horror, I want to escape these disasters to my childhood, a simpler time when oranges seemed sweeter, the air cleaner, and the world was more mysterious and beautiful. But instead of returning over 30 years, I find I can only look back one year to the end of summer, 2005.

A full year has passed since then. The planet has turned one full turn since the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Yes, Earth has moved, but Humanity has not moved beyond its petty distractions. And still the people of the Gulf coast remain scattered. The starving people of Darfur and the suffering people of Lebanon remain scattered. The people of Palestine remain scattered.

Humanity is moving in its usual circles, under an ever-more threatening sky. Will another revolving storm surprise us unawares, or another stormy revolution catch us in its violent embrace?

Time has come again for the new ISNA convention and the theme involves “Maintaining Balance.” Always a challenge. It is difficult to maintain balance while we are spinning so quickly, almost out of control.

In this global capitalist culture, we are encouraged not to be sincere in our speech but to be sophisticated in our spin. So it is important to remember-- the silent center of the whirling world is Truth. It is not sophistry in the court of public opinion. It is not ideology. The inner axis of the Earth is true, pure being, dancing on the edge of everything— but not spinning out of control. It is harmonious consciousness. It is Spirit.

The Musician plays his lonely tune, the truth of his spirit, just like the shepherd boy plays on the hillsides round the world. But these days, traditional arts are modernized. The single string vibrates, naked in the air; but then is clothed in wild artificial sounds and aggressive jungle beats. Pull out all the stops; don’t leave anything to chance. Better be Bollywood. To me, this is the culture of modernity and its constant innovations.

Let us pray that all our leaders maintain “balance” in their silence as well as spin. And yet, some silence is wrong. Balance should not mean you refuse to take a stand. In most cases, you must choose. When you ignore a problem, you choose inaction. You choose the problem instead of the solution.

I am thinking about Darfur, in the Sudan, where up to 300,000 Muslims have died in conflict and millions of their family members dispersed with the wind. Why do we ignore them while we pay attention to others? Is it because they are black and poor and perhaps not related to us? Are those reasons?

Among Muslims, there has been much discussion about whether this is a civil war or a genocide, how to characterize the conflict culturally, and whether foreign powers are hiding their true interests behind humanitarian concerns. We are naturally hesitant to follow the prevailing Western media depictions of this crisis. And yet—how can we stand idly by? How can we choose inaction?

I have created a website about this issue, called “Muslims for Darfur.” This is http://geocities.com/freedarfur/ which links to a variety of opinion about this disaster. It links to the Save Darfur Coalition at www.savedarfur.org and it links to critical discussion of the Coalition. The site also provides ideas for taking action, both now and during Ramadan, brochures for donations and sample khotbas for Masajid.

The Save Darfur Coalition has 400,000 people on its email list and coalition member Amnesty International has over 1 million members. Numbers matter. There is some chance that this number might effectively pressure the UN, the Arab League, the United States, the Chinese and Russian oil companies that invest in Sudan, and finally the Sudanese government itself, to move being mere political opportunism to something more humane and humanitarian. In a moral marketplace, this is an expression of democracy.

And if we disagree about UN troops keeping the peace in Darfur, or another aspect of this crisis, we are free to say so. Feel free on my website! But let our efforts be towards compassionate action and not endless discussion. Am I wrong?

On a muddy green field today I watched the Bangladeshi Day parade dissolve into the mist of rain. A few dignitaries stood with umbrellas held over them. Bright food and clothing stalls moved their wares out of the downpour. But it was a very peaceful scene. Though at the edge of Queens, with the skyline of New York behind (even the UN visible) it could have been in a small town in Bangladesh. These New Yorkers had come together to reconstruct their country, their family and their childhood, with sights and sounds. They felt safe in the rain, standing together. If only all of humanity felt that peaceful—in all of its cultural and personal diversity—standing together in the arriving storm.

Where Are the Snakes?

2006-08-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

Where Are The Snakes? On Dirty Tricks and Dirty Bombers.
Snakes on a plane. Perhaps the evidence will convict them. Who knows?

Since the arrests of the 24 suspects in the airplane bombing plot, British police have searched “69 houses, flats and business premises … 400 computers, 200 cellphones and 8,000 data storage devices.” But as the New York Times noted on August 22, “the credibility of the allegations will not be tested until the accused are taken before a jury — a trial not expected to begin for at least two years.”

So far, 11 suspects have been charged. Since under British law, once charged, people may not be interrogated further, the other detainees remain under a 28-day counter-terrorism law. British officials are still trying to extend this to 90 days. And US officials are also advocating this long period of detention.

Right wing pundits like Christopher Caldwell are suggesting that maybe the “age of civil liberties is over” and that we get used to it. Left wing pundits like Bob Herbert wring their hands. He notes the misuse of material witness law to detain Abdullah Higazy, falsely accused of having an aviation radio after 9/11 and then placed in solitary detention for months, pressured to “confess” and then charged with lying to the FBI. It was a miracle that the true owner of the aviation radio, a pilot, showed up to claim his property months later. What if he had not done so?

And yet, despite all indications, there are some independent minds still thinking in the US Courts. Last week, Judge decided that the Bush administration had violated the Constitution, notably the Fourth Amendment, in ordering the NSA to bypass FISA and wiretap the USA.

Also last week, Judge Cooke threw out conspiracy charges against Jose Padilla, the one-time Chicago gang member reportedly plotting to detonate a “dirty bomb” on American streets. Declared an enemy combatant, Padilla was held in a brig in South Carolina for three and a half years without being charged; but Judge Cooke decided to drop some of the charges because: “Charging the defendants with a single offense multiple times is violative of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” Why so many dirty tricks against a “Dirty bomber?” In fact many of those other allegations against him have already been dropped.

So many men and families treated unfairly and even abused. And yet O Muslims we all need to be careful not to overstate the innocence of all the defendants since 9/11. Some are surely criminals. Be careful about the facts. But one thing we know—that all deserve justice, in Islam and in the American system as it is supposed to be.

But will the people of Lebanon have justice? Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran wrote almost 100 years ago; “I am told that the tragedy of your country is only a part of the tragedy of the world; the tears and the blood shed in your country are only drops in the river of blood and tears pouring night and day in the valleys and plains of the world. This may be true, but the tragedy of my people is a silent one conceived in the heads of men, whom we should call snakes and serpents.”
Gibran noted that his people “died in silence because the ears of humanity had became deaf to their cry… they died because the hellish serpent had seized all their flocks and all the harvest of their fields.”

How to fight the serpent? There are many snakes on this plane. The serpent is sin, as well as our external enemies, as well as war itself. Then, how do we conduct the Big Jihad against the slimy secret snakes in service of shaitan?

Reflect. Some thoughtful and conscious men have defined all sin as forms of “wasting spiritual energy.” And when committing sins, the spirit does throw away its energy on desires, blind emotional reaction. We Muslims do not have to become spiritual athletes like the saints to know how to be healthy. The proper ratio between energy expenditure and energy storage will keep us from “wasting energy.” We will then be able to maintain spiritual and moral strength as individuals and as a collective, with Allah’s help.

When Ramadan comes, will we be ready to work to free ourselves from our small sinful habits? Like head and body lice, like tiny snakes, these sins keep us restless and out of a state of peace. Even upon its imaginary throne, the False Self rattles its chains with a sound like a rattlesnake; attached to smoking, nervous negativities, fears and reactive emotions. How to get the energy to break free?

As Muslims we can develop spiritual muscle or spiritual fat. The muscle makes us strong and conscious; the fat insulates and carries us through our times of hunger. We can become too fat by being inactive in front of the TV; and we can become spiritually fat by becoming passive in our practice, lazy in our understanding and easily led. Who and what are we following in this hour, this minute? Or do we imagine that we are only following Allah? Where is this plane going and did anyone give you baggage to carry? Where are the snakes?

IN THE DARK

2006-08-08T00:31:00.000-07:00

From the corner, I can see the lights of a middle class home shining in the humid New York night. Through the window I see the glass of the armoire shining and the green walls; and hear Um Khalthoum singing. This apartment looks and feels like a hundred homes that I visited in the Middle East. Whoever lives there is unique; and also at the same time just like those families who fled Southern Lebanon in the hundred thousands.

Two weeks ago we had no lights or any electricity for six days and it was hot and sticky. Walking off the avenues with their utilities crews working late into the night, I passed near that same middle class home and hear the sound of Bach being played on the piano, the music drifting hesitantly out into the night. With the black out there was deeper silence and I could really hear the music in its texture and its touch and its intelligence. Who knows if it was Christian, Muslim or Jew playing the keys? It could have been a thoughtful old person; or a small, smart child. A bomb would not know.

Of course, a black-out is different than a war. But there is a small taste of danger and the beginning of abandonment. Neighbors help neighbor. After a few days the police show up in overly large numbers.

But despite the loss of revenue and melted ice cream, I have no doubt that we will experience more and more black-outs in the years to come. I read that in 1987 only 15 percent of Americans had computers in their homes; in 2001 that figure was 63 percent and it must be much higher now. And we have printers too. Fifteen years ago only ten percent of Americans had answering machines; by 2001 78 percent had them. In 1987 only 52 percent had VCRs and now over 94 percent have them; also 94 percent have clothes washers and 96 percent have microwave ovens! No wonder we are in trouble here!

Sure we can blame Saudi oil and it pipelines to terror. That is easy crowd-pleasing politics. New York City Mayor Bloomberg stooped to these tactics last week, but he is not the only one. Even so it would be wise to conserve, no? It would be Islamic to use our resources consciously.

Isn’t it interesting how the USA was not content with attacking Taliban but found a pretext to attack Iraq? And Israel went from attacking Hezbollah to attacking and invading South Lebanon? What does all this mission creep tell us? Will the analysis at rallies address this in smart way or an easy way? And can our understanding convince a large percentage of our American Neighbors, who just don’t want their ice cream to melt?

Those people in the Middle East are so violent! What does it have to do with us? Well those billions of our tax dollars pay for arms for Israel. One snafu; it is a violation of the US Arms Export Control Act to provide weapons to foreign countries that are not used for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security. So last week, both houses of Congress passed resolutions stating that Israel is acting in self-defense. The vote in the Senate was unanimous; and the House vote was 410 to 8.

Article 35 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits the use of weapons "of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Like napalm, cluster bombs and white phosphorous fall into this category. Israel is widely alleged to be using these evil weapons.

However Hezbollah is also using bombs with ball bearings that disperse widely in the streets; and maim and wound and kill. In Iraq so-called Muslims kill Muslims through abductions, torture and suicide bombing in the name of our faith. In Darfur, Muslim on Muslim chaos and rape result in generations uprooted and hundreds of thousands killed.

Yes, the politics are complex. But if Kosova was a Genocide, why isn’t Darfur? If Palestine is important, how about Tibet? We must be consistent in our human rights principles. If we care about Lebanese refugees we must care about Refugees in Chad and in the Congo and all human suffering. Otherwise our life is a power game. Otherwise you spend your days jumping up and down screaming death to Israel for no purpose or positive result, while life goes on.

Our Muslim Jewish dialogues have hit some walls. Relationships suffer. Things go undone. Tonight I missed a meeting. I wonder if indeed there is already a low level state of war that includes us on some level. Terror is never permissible but I wonder if it might be allowable to match the tactics that Israel has adopted, assassinations and abductions (including a large percentage of the Hamas parliament) –but then I recall how the logic of retribution is a trap that is so hard to get out of. But we must implement non-violent alternatives effectively—or we will not have any choice. And it is time to stop feeling so powerless. We have to do the work!

When Haq is Right; When Haq is Wrong

2006-08-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

Time for Healing: When Haq is Right; When Haq is Wrong

Seattle police say Pakistani American Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, held a young girl at gunpoint to force his way inside the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, killing Pamela Waechter.

Mr. Haq had suffered from mental illness for about a decade and that he took medication, including lithium, for a bipolar disorder. There are many millions of Americans and many American Muslims who suffer from stress and mental illness. We deny that fact at our peril.

Faced with current events, with media poison and widespread fear and anger, how many more violent outbursts might there be? Who will be next to snap from stress? How will you avoid it?

For more information, you may wish to consult the site www.muslimmentalhealth.com and many other sources of care and healing in your area.

Like individuals in psychic pain, some nations may need a strong dose of lithium, and a individualized program of prayer and reflection. Reflection may help us question this delusion of a bipolar world of East against West; Us against Them. Reflection may help us create space for the Other, not as a demon but as a fellow human being. It may help us adhere to our statements about ceasefires and humanitarian corridors.

Similarly reaching out in their hour of sorrow, Mr Haq’s parents Mian and Nahida Haq hand-delivered a letter of apology to Congregation Beth Sholom in Richland and Temple B’nai Torah.

If only nations could make such humble and dignified gestures! But there is so much ego in nationalism of states and also non-state entities. So much reactionary thinking! Each nation and group believes that it is on the edge of extinction and that it must fight for its life. Israel and many Jews have a deep fear of extermination. Iran’s irresponsible rhetoric has had a high cost.

And increasingly Arab nations and Muslims share that fear. Pakistan has a plan to vastly increase it nuclear bomb production. US Congress is considering allowing India to develop it arsenal as well. This terrible news despite the fact that neither nation has signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Of course—they each imagine they are fighting for mother and her samosas against the void. But Mother and her samosas are in danger everywhere.

Like Israel, will other nations destroy civilian infrastructure and civilian lives? In Lebanon Israelis bombed the port, the Airport, the Red Cross Ambulances, factories, the Mdeirej Bridge and at least 61 other bridges, the Jiye power plant and the Dair al-Zahrani sewage plant. And in villages like Qana, buildings are bombarded into the ground, killing mother, father, grandmother and all the children among the bricks and dust and tears. But Shock and Awe is nothing compared to the will of Allah. Let us have faith in His Mercy.

Why is the world out of balance? Can it be in part due to the number of individuals who are out of tune and out of hope? We have a responsibility to maintain our community’s mental health.

Yesterday a delegation of Muslims and Arabs from Arab-Amerian Anti Discrimination Committee, Muslim Consultative Network and Arab Amerian Institute, among others, visited the office of a New York City Congressman who was opposed to much to the post 9/11 crackdown against our communities.

We expressed deep disappointment with his one sided and unconditional support for Israeli actions. We wanted to ask him to find his balance. We disagreed with him when he said, “Since when should a response to aggression and murder be proportionate?”

But balance and proportion are the essence of law. Without this we have a nuclear arms race and sudden death of nations. As Muslims and as Americans, we cannot allow the law of the jungle to spread its rot and shadow over all things.

America used to be a nation of laws, international treaties and local ordinances. But now apparently we are a nation of blind, bipolar baboons, lurking in the shadows. Where are we going? We are being led over the cliff by a big baboon. Hurray for our side! Watch us fall, we are the best!

So let the rallies begin. There must be public and private response. But what will the message be and will these rallies take us towards or away from that fearful drop to death below? Will madness mislead us? Will shame and fear keep us in the dark? Will we seek the delusion that we are holy martyrs and persecuted heroes?

And Israel seems to imagine it can destroy Hezbollah without creating new levels of resistance. That is Hezbaloney. And some Israelis are asking about the human rights disaster of law, the lack of law and proportion that Jewish tradition requires.

Writing in Yediot Aharonot newspaper, well-known journalist Nahum Barnea affirmed that “ a blanket directive regarding the entire civilian population of southern Lebanon and the Shiite neighborhoods of Beirut is a hasty and lightheaded act, which courts disaster. We saw the outcome of this yesterday, in the bodies of the women and children that were taken out of the bombed house in Qana.”

If like the elder Haqs you are reaching out to officials please email me and let me know (iamourhaj@aol.com). If you are planning trouble like the younger Haq please do not let me know.

Let us remember those weak in mind and spirit and watch over them with compassion and responsibility. Let that soul heal even in the midst of tragedy, and not imagine that terror and hate crimes can bring us out of our shame and anger. But compassion heals.

Lebanon: Are You Ready?

2006-07-24T00:18:00.000-07:00

There you go, Adem, with a teaspoon of sugar in your hand instead of a gun, which would feel more appropriate at this time of crisis. Is this the time for an interfaith tea?

Well, yes, I ask myself such questions. I wonder if my article last week was not overly optimistic in tone. Meet your Jewish neighbor? Yes, but we are not feeling the love right now, and maybe neither are they. We are confronted by images of war, crisis after crisis, war crimes and desperation. We are sad and bitter—do you really think we can possibly share the sweetness now?

Of course there is a portion of Believers among them. We must not demonize all. Many wonderful lovers of truth and justice are found in their civil liberties and peace groups such as Gush Shalom, B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, Seeds of Peace (www.seedsofpeace.org), Jews Against the Occupation (www.jatonyc.org), Brit Tzedek Jewish Alliance for Justice (www.btvshalon.org) and many more. In addition, many Christian and Human Rights groups have called for an immediate ceasefire. We are not alone.

Clearly, as it speeds bunker buster bombs to Israel, the US Government makes no pretence to neutrality. I do not expect the Bush Administration to support Hezbollah or Hamas, yet both of these groups have been elected to power and have some legitimate local standing, despite serious issues. However, instead of a complex situation requiring both force and diplomacy, American media and politicians depict this conflict as a simple security issue, and they loudly proclaim Israel’s right to defend itself by any means necessary.

If we are to appeal to the hearts and minds of such elected officials, though few of them care about our own hearts and minds, then we need alliances with Jewish and Christian and moral forces like the Human Rights movement and the United Nations.

But unfortunately, too many of the signs at our rallies simply express anger and demonize Israel. Not many officials or partners will feel comfortable with this approach. And some signs in New York even read: “Islam Will Dominate.”

The youth who hold these signs should know that many leaders think they must be Israeli spies, that Muslims could not be so misinformed or foolishly aggressive. But not to offend anyone-- maybe you too are a salafist jihadist, who imagines the world an unending series of conflicts like some computer simulation game of Badr and other Quranic conflicts. But let me ask: are not Muslims peacemakers too?

OK I will put away the sugar for now and stop pointing the spoon in your face. Instead, let us retire to prayer and reading and let peace descend on us from high. Yes. The buzzing of the flies dies away. You sit in meditation in the cool fragrant shade of a fig tree. It is as silent as if the storm has passed, or perhaps simply not yet arrived. The air is still.

In that repose we can taste the first sip of coffee and be thankful of the softness of a child’s cheek, a mother’s care. But beware: all these beautiful signs may soon vanish in fire and violence. We may guard our memories like treasure within our hearts. But to Allah alone belongs the dominion of the heaven and the earth.

We live in imaginary gardens, soft as mornings in bed. But rise up, there are strangers at the gate. Action and Reaction demand your response. Time to dialogue with demons and troubled spirits, and the struggle for understanding.

Let our hearts be gardens of Reality and a source of lasting peace. But now they are full of weeds and crawling things. Trust in Him if you would escape the jungle of petty profit and desire. Trust in Him to lead you through fears to untainted wells of living water, pure and cool. Yes, water may be sweet or salty as our tears. But offer some water at the garden gate; let Muslims be known as the best of neighbors.

The Lord promised the righteous and the repentant: “And never will I allow the struggles of anyone to be lost, male or female; you are members, one of another; those who have left their homes, or been driven out therefrom, or suffered harm fought or been slain in my Cause; truly I will erase their sins, and admit them into Gardens with rivers flowing beneath; a reward from the Presence of Allah; and from His Presence is the best of rewards. (Imran 195)”

Now some of the 600,000 refugees from Lebanon may be arriving in your community. Are you ready?

What Dawn is this

2006-07-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

What Dawn is this? Civilians, Death and De-Escalation

One moment life and the next moment a wave of violence. Iraq. India. Pakistan. Gaza, Lebanon, Israel. What next?

Morning at the Mahmudiya market. Life goes on. But then-- dozens of gunmen rolled up in cars and begin walking through the market, shooting people left and right. Cars burst into flames. Bodies lie strewn across the street and slumped in shops, cafes and restaurants.

The Shia victims were apparently killed in retaliation for the July 9 slaughter in the Jihad neighborhood, when 50 Sunni civilians were dragged from cars and homes and shot. And along with killings, hostage taking has increased as well. Even much of the Iraq Olympic Committee has been taken hostage. What madness. What evil!

At Fajr time the phone rings and you jump. The relatives tell you about the rockets. They cannot get out of Gaza. Later, at work an email appears; “You’ve Got Mail!” It’s your friends in South Lebanon.

War spreads like an infection. When you read these words, will others be burning with fever? How many more will die? When attacked, all human beings feel violated, whether they maintain an Islamic home in Iraq or frequent the beaches of Tel Aviv. And all of us feel anger and fear, not just shock and awe of Israel’s disproportionate response. We feel manipulated by unilateral actions. Reaction follows reaction, binding us like a heavy chain across the oceans, free movement almost impossible. Now it seems the fragrant hedges of Bay Ridge are not really so far away from the cedars in the hills of Lebanon; we can see lightening flash on the far horizon, across the sky.

Together with several Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have denounced the “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts” of Hezbollah, though Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei celebrated their protégés as “an example for the Muslim world.” But US officials lined up behind their own protégés, brave little Israel. Senator Hillary Clinton has denounced the “terrorist extremists,” saying; “They do not believe in human rights, they do not believe in democracy. They are totalitarians, they are the new totalitarians of the 21st century.” And while Tony Blair and Kofi Annan called for an international “stabilization force’’ President Bush scoffed at the notion, preferring to escalate his own private War on Terror and the logic of widening conflict.

Will the Bush administration play Saudi interests against Iran? Will Bush follow the Neo-con line and punish Syria? How many of the 12,000 Katyusha rockets will kill civilians? How many of the Iran-supplied Fajr rockets will keep us up at dawn? Like the IRA, will Hezbollah ever agree to lay down their arms in order to fully participate in local politics? Or will the players continue the deadly spitball fight according to the rhetoric of escalation?

And will Israel ever be able to trade its pile of nukes for peace? As their Prophet Isaiah warned, “…this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears; and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn; and I would heal them.” And thus, as we have been taught, “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”

Disaster. If only we could simply red card Hezbollah for their deadly head-butt. If only the UN refs would ensure prisoners would be released. But the tribal rules of this dangerous game are set by private militias as well as by authoritarian regimes. The dogs of war will feast, and men too will profit.

Recently there have been some small signs of hope. Despite a late start, there have been some rallies. But certainly elected officials need to receive visits from us all.

Here in New York City some Muslims and Jews have met over baklava and dates to compare notes, share fears, confess anger and confusion and propose points in common. Some of us tried to envision a third side to the two sides of the conflict. Rallies give us the opportunity to be heard, but also perpetuate the “clash of east and west” -- when the reality is more complex. Is there a way to introduce some common concerns into the conversation? We need to point our leaders away from reactive statements and towards the light of honest dialogue. And hope!

You may wish to start such dialogues in your living rooms, in your communities. Build trust. Envision peace. Let’s accept the darkness around us but look forward to the light of dawn. A peaceful dawn. God’s mercy is for all humanity—can’t we share the good news?

With so many Muslim on Muslim massacres from Iraq to Darfur, we cannot deny our responsibilities or blame others for our shame. Our leadership needs to meet this challenge, with Arab, Muslim, and other allied activists sharing a clear vision of a better world. It starts with you. “No justice, not peace?” But it is not only through Justice that we come to peace, but by Mercy—including to the Jews of Israel. Yes, let’s please keep that in mind!

Zidane and Zananah

2006-07-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

We fear the external threat. News keeps us all on edge. But are we the threat? Non-Muslims think we are, and fear us with each new “terror plot” that is reported in the tabloids and scare-media. Now, even some Muslims are having doubts! In Iraq, Sunnis and Shia fellow citizens drag each other out of cars, check ID cards, slaughter and destroy. Painful as it is, we should not turn away and ignore the external threat of our own violence.

But here at home, we have other external threats; last week, the FBI raided a mosque in Pittsburgh. Someone shot a bullet through all 10 windows of an Indiana mosque. And someone threw a pig’s head into a mosque in Maine.

But what head was Zinedine Zidane wearing when he head-butted Italian player Marco Matterazzi, in the last minutes of the World Cup? Probably setting up France for its loss, minutes later? O son of Algerian immigrants to France, our role model and now our Red Card shame!

“Zidane, Zidane! Zizou, Zizou, Zizou!” called the crowd for over 20 years. How tragic this small aggressive act! And now silence-- of defeat and we hope repentance! May this silence heal his heart.

The external threat is not only the weapons of mass destruction. The external threat is in the weapons of mass distraction. And a talented player may lose himself in the shouts of an adoring crowd, feeling the emotional heat and the pressure of the millions. How to be free of this? Some commentators seek to pass blame, asserting that the Italian player must have made a racial remark against Zidane’s honor. We don’t know. But there is hope beyond honor if we remember God.

Zananah zananah zananah in the sky; the residents know it is the Israeli Drone. It is not televising barefoot soccer matches in the Palestinian dust. This entity, called Zananah because of the sound it makes, has escaped from its Israeli bottle unlike the hundreds of detainees held in Israeli jails. It is a tool of invasion, occupation and control. The Zananah buzzes around the edges of life; and then, finally, comes the missile strike, and death.

However, this external threat is matched by an internal threat. This is the stupid and impractical commitment of the local militants to sending rockets over to Israel. This is infantile-- but dangerous enough to lend legitimacy to Israeli actions. These rockets will win no war.

Small actions-- little rockets and head-butting— come from frustration. The eyes of the world (and the zananah) are watching and small becomes big, sometimes beyond all proportion. Internal threats become external. And if we don’t do something they will be eternal.

In the heat, we become hot-headed. Even off the field of battle, social dynamics can provoke us. Some wives play on husband’s nerves like world-class musicians; some men regularly intimidate other men; and other social groups maintain the strange energy of unresolved sexual tension. It is hard not to react. I just came from a meeting in which I was very reactive, again and again; I felt manipulated, disrespected, and confused. I lost trust. So yes I understand the impulse to butt heads! Alas!

How can we be more conscious and intentional at these difficult moments? It is easy to take revenge for all the annoyances of the world. It easy enough to “blow up.” It is also easier to get a Red Card than a Green Card. You don’t need to be a missile-carrying Israeli drone to see, not just what “they” have done to “us”, but the mess “we” humans have made. But that all-seeing human eye makes many mistakes.

Will the collective punishment of the 1.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip result in peace? Have the restrictions and humiliations on the Palestinian people for decades brought us closer to justice? Surely Israel puts far too much faith in force. Even leading Jews have spoken out. As Rabbi Michael Lerner has written: “..human rights violations in Guantanamo and Iraq are unacceptable, so we need to communicate to the Israeli people that the mass punishment of a million people for the acts of a few is as unacceptable.”

Have you called the Israeli embassy, their allies in the media, and in the US Congress? Just call them on your cell phone! Just be conscious and not reactive. If we Muslims learn to be more conscious we may be better able to advocate effectively.

A just action grows from a peaceful heart. Hope may grow beyond honor, and peace beyond the collective honor of nationalism. The seed of peace may grow from the soil of soul into a beautiful and conscious Ummah. Is it still possible? In this night air, do we sense the fragrance of future gardens of Islam? Or only feel the desert winds of our own bitter human will, blowing, blowing nowhere forever?

Insider, Outsider; the Security Perspective

2006-06-25T00:12:00.000-07:00

Insider, Outsider; the Security Perspective

Who’s in and who’s out? Who lives on the edge, walks the margin of the mainstream, who is most suspect in the media and frightening to us all? There are many ways to look at economic, political and cultural exclusion. But these days we all know outsiders are considered dangerous to insiders, despite all their apparent disadvantages. So Brothers and Sisters of the Straight Path, let’s take a moment off from martial arts practice in the hot warehouse and consider the issue of insider and outside Muslims, from a security perspective.

Last week law enforcement raided the Miami warehouse and arrested seven adherents of a sect named “Seas of David” an apparent spin off of the Moorish Science movement. The government and media depicted them as a terror cell, though FBI was somewhat more cautious than the media, calling the cell “more aspirational than operational.”

In fact, it is not clear if any real danger has ever existed. “The Moorish Science Temple of America was founded in 1913 as a sect of Islam but incorporates teachings from Judaism and Christianity”, said Sr. Aminah Beverly McCloud, Professor at DePaw University; "They're soldiers for God in the same way that the Salvation Army is an army." While details about the splinter group has yet to emerge, some civil-liberties advocates note that informants may once again have helped create a plot that otherwise wouldn't have existed. And yes, we may ask ourselves: are vulnerable individuals and communities deliberately being set up?

CAIR and MPAC quickly distanced the sect from mainstream Muslim communities they represent. They declared the suspects not Muslim. For us Muslims, however, it is surely not enough to loudly say; “These perpetrators are not of us!” since these captives also require support to ensure justice is done. Can justice be done in this age of panic and politics of fear? One way or another, this is an opportunity for good work and healing.

With the Jihad Watch and Front Page folks relentless in their irresponsible attacks of mainstream Muslim American organizations, depicting CAIR and MPAC, ISNA and ICNA all as sinister sects, shall we all stay home in fear and confusion? Certainly not! Both the ICNA and ISNA conventions are coming up the weekend of July1, and there is no risk to attending. Of course, such organizations also have their insiders and outsiders, don’t they?

Authorities all around the world target vulnerable and apparently peaceful populations out of convenience, expedience, misplaced fervor and police paranoia. Seas of David are a tiny sect; but in China, the Falung Gong sect numbers in the millions. Recently, the sect known as the Akramiya came to my attention. Based in Uzbekistan, its founder Akram Yuldashev was originally linked to the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, but profoundly changed his tactics over 15 years ago and has said he has never called for an Islamic State. The comparison with the Seas of David might be suggestive.

Uzbekistan's former chief Mufti, Muhammad Sadyk Muhammad Yusuf, told the human rights group Forum 18 that he believes that it is far removed from politics. Talib Yoqubov, chairman of the independent Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, added; “There is nothing like Akramiya in Uzbekistan now. Several years ago, they spoke of Wahhabi. Then they started talking about Hizb ut-Tahrir. Jamati Tabligh became another accusation under which they imprisoned many people. Now it is Akramiya. I am sure after a while, the authorities will come up with some new name. This is the process we witness in Uzbekistan.” Sound familiar?

However, the 2005 uprising (and tragic Massacre of 500 unarmed protesters) did arise when 23 members of the Akramia movement were put under arrest. These were influential Andijan businessmen who were trying to establish a unique model of "Islamic socialism" in the town. A general social welfare system had been set up at the companies run by the businessmen, who had agreed to pay their employees a higher wage than minimum. Virtually all those gathered on the square were employees of the detained businessmen.

Alarmingly, all those questioned by Forum 18 stated that soldiers from a unit called Bars, trained by American military instructors, fired on people indiscriminately. The Carnegie Endowment has obtained censored government tapes that nevertheless cast doubt on the government version of the massacre. The tape cane be viewed on www.nytimes.com/asia and audio of demonstrators praying and being murdered can be found on the Columbia School of Journalism website, compiled by Uzbek refugee Galima Bukharbayeva.

Those on the right have their Ruby Ridge. Those on the Left have other martyrs to police brutality. An unsubstantiated tip may lead to a terror raid. A sloppy analysis based on the secret mining of the SWIFT global banking network’s 12.7 million daily messages would place all of us at risk. Too bad, since Treasury Under Secretary states, “people do not have a privacy interest in their international wire transactions.” Right and Left, those who care about freedom ought to be alarmed.

But those who are “inside” should not imagine that they will be there forever.

Universality Applied: in Black, White and Color

2006-06-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

Universality Applied: in Black, White and Color

In Mogadishu a new government has replaced the anarchy of the warlords. Will this new Islamist leadership prove repressive? Or, will it find the wisdom to manage power in a traumatized land? A young Islamic warrior tells New York Times reporters: “The name Muslim and the name Al Qaeda are the same to me.” But the leaders do not say this. And these leaders differ. They are not all banning the watching of the World Cup soccer matches. Only some are doing that. They may have ended war, but do they really think they are stronger than the World Cup?!

Exhausted and hopeful, Somalis want to know if there will be peace and justice; Africans wish to know; and of course America wishes to know if investments will be safe. Those who value order more than justice, as the saying goes, will have neither.

An African proverb also states: “Corn can't expect justice from a court composed of chickens.” In any unstable situation, reform must be applied very carefully. Who is in charge? The new leaders meet in their mosques and tents to discuss peace and power. May Allah be with them. But as Otto Von Bismark observed of the Colonial powers, “People who love sausage and people who believe in justice should never watch either of them being made.” May the ingredients be halal in Somalia.

Now here in the USA, imagine you are a Muslim doctor, and a patient comes in who is not Muslim. You look and see a sick person who has made some wrong choices. Perhaps you also do not approve or understand her or his lifestyle. What do you do?

Of course you try your best to heal the sick and the suffering. This service to humanity carries the message of our religion. The extent to which it is not for money and prestige is the extent of the benefit to your soul. Oh shining heart! Service to humanity cannot be provided only to Muslims!

Muslims are spiritually rich. Imagine only providing medicine to the rich! We would be like the Bush Administration driving away so many people to Canada looking for medicine as well as asylum! Are we to only help our family and friends?

Also, a doctor cannot preach to those helpless in his care. In most cases, this would be too close to compulsion. Human desire would damage the delicate healing process. Our message is implicit, not always explicit. As Muslim service providers, we pray and hope that the universal message will be clear in our service. This is true whether we sell meat across a bloody counter, write columns and reports, or sew up a damaged heart. Insha’Allah.

Many of our brothers and sisters can quote sura and hadith, thanks to God. Sometimes I see the brothers and sisters who seem born again, who strive to learn a lot of this knowledge. I sometimes wonder if unlike them I am like one of the Byzantine converts, who adopted the faith without losing an interest in Greek philosophy and the wisdom of the ancients. Maybe too much, my way of expressing insight includes the influences that prepared me for Islam.

But hamduillah early Islam absorbed essential pre-Islamic wisdom and protected it for centuries. Traditions of thought do not begin in seventh century Arabia, nor do they end there.

We 21st Century Muslims need simple and good hearts and stronger understanding of the Prophet and the Companions. But we also will benefit from minds open to diverse inspirations, a compassion for the human enterprise, the capacity to see good in others. If we do not become confused, we can synthesize an effective spiritual understanding. Maybe some cultural forms are not accepted by others. Maybe Sharia is not seen as relevant. But whether we are in Montana or Mogadishu, we can still find common ground for human service in the universal characteristics of Islam.

And between Haram and Halal there is space for human choice. Between the black and white moral laws we accept, there is the colorful universe of human psychology. Transmitting the text means translating it into color of life. For how we live Islam is not always simple, as much as we may wish it to be simple. White light contains all colors; but the prism of our human understanding may allow us to see what we must do to know ourselves. Let us not be among the “slinkers, the runners, the sinkers, by the night swarming.” And let us not live in an imaginary Islam either. In crystal clarity, and in the clearing sky above, the seven colors of the rainbow and other miraculous signs of creation teach us-- in all and everything. Stay awhile and reflect.

Memorial Day Memory--What We Forgot This Year

2006-06-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

It is Memorial Day in America. Millions relax in the summer sun as smoke rises from the barbeque. However, as you devour the delicious meals you might perceive a little smoky seasoning of guilt. This is because in theory, Americans take the day off to remember those who have served and sacrificed in war, our friends and neighbors who have survived bombs, as well as dropped them.

Surely soldiers deserve this basic respect; and yet, according to Congressional testimony last week, a Veteran Affairs Department employee has been taking sensitive data home for three years and a recent theft of his home resulted in compromising the privacy of 26.5 million military veterans. After learning about this very serious threat to security, the agency did not alert law enforcement for weeks. Anyway, so what-- what’s 26 million soldiers and their families to a National Security State?

It is Memorial Day in America. Forget the bureaucracy, the machinery of death. Time to visit the graves. A Pentagon official has said that investigators believe Marines committed unprovoked murder in the deaths of two dozen people at Haditha last November. That’s not just war; it’s murder. It is Memorial Day; but where have all the flowers gone? Gone to Iraqi graveyards, every one.

And yet-- let us not forget there are some positive and human moments among the high crimes and misdemeanors. Last week, Staff Sgt. Phillip Trackey gave his Purple Heart medal to a 13-year-old Muslim student Fatima Faisal who won a contest for writing letters to American troops. "It's important what these children do for us in sending these letters," said the soldier, after giving away the medal he received in Iraq for bomb injuries to the shoulder and head.

I think about the importance of these small human decencies at the grassroots level, and wonder if these seeds of peace will grow. Perhaps more of us need to write those letters.

Yet, inside the beltway, President Bush has promoted democracy as 100 percent American Brand justification of the “War on Terror.” However, since President Bush came to office, the precious checks and balances of democratic government are being challenged in a hundred ways. Here at home, the Republican leadership has allowed much congressional authority to be ignored. It was only the recent FBI raid on Congress that was simply too close to home for our esteemed representatives; they had a bipartisan fit.

Bizarrely, the next day the Capitol was also shut down when a Republican from New Jersey thought he heard gunshots. It was only some construction workers, but machinegun-carrying guards marched many staff out with their hands behind their heads! Despite all this, dysfunctional Congressional leaders continue to make their little deals. For example, last Tuesday the House voted to further choke off the flow of U.S. aid to Palestinian Authority, and to prohibit all discussion with them.

Hard to believe, but at the state and federal level, Republican leadership is in many ways more reactionary than the President. For example, State legislatures have proposed hundreds of measures on immigration in this year alone, most aimed at restricting illegal immigrants access to public benefits and drivers’ licenses.

Yet Muslims are also not always clear about how to organize a democratic and pluralistic society. Some of us can be very reactionary and rigid. Last week, in Malaysia, a nation with a 60 percent Muslim population, demonstrators chanting “God’s Law overrides human rights”, disrupted a forum on protecting Malaysia’s Constitution. Protesters feared the creation of an Interfaith Commission to study how the legal system protects non-Muslims. Intimidated authorities then shut down the event, which had nothing to do with the Interfaith Commission in any case.

In Egypt, the government continues to oppress any dissent. And in Nigeria, the legislature has quadrupled its salaries; lawmakers make $160,000 per year while the average yearly wage is scarcely 600 dollars. Yet other people simply hope to have a government. Last week, hundreds of Somalis marched through Mogadishu calling for the end of war. The country has long been divided into warring clans. No wonder we have immigration! God help us all!

And now the night is quiet; in the distance, few far sounds of traffic. No music or talk from other apartments. People who have somewhere else to go have gone away for the holiday. Downstairs in their front garden, our Greek neighbors are chatting quietly among the roses in the moonlight. We are all neighbors; at this moment, beauty fills us, and suffering is forgotten. With such moments of beauty we may put thoughts and opinions aside and just smell the rose of existence, and be grateful for the sweetness.

The Muslim: Responsible Citizen; Consumer of The Real

2006-06-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

Americans used to be obsessed by UFOs—Unidentified Flying Objects. While around the world much of humanity lived in fear that their neighbor might turn them in to the secret police, Americans feared Aliens sneaking in from Outer Space, their flying saucers using all the gas and electricity and generally driving up the cost of business as usual.

No doubt this belief persists; but more and more, Muslims and immigrants and other “aliens” have taken their place as perceived threat to the Americans heartland. Where are these aliens? Well, they are everywhere—you just have to look with the eyes of fear! You can see the signs.

But when I look, I see other monsters. When I buy my groceries, what is that in the corner of my eye? The dark shadow of the Iraq war; and I realize that the money in my hand will go into taxes that pay the billions supporting this aggressive war. The military industrial complex is huge—and with all its airplanes, more of a threat than the UFOS can ever be.

Anyway, I buy my groceries; let the money go; and see another monster in the corner of my other eye. What was that? It is the system of globalism and exploitation. Who picked the fruit I eat? Who made the toy we buy the child? Was it produced by slave labor in some Chinese prison? Was that why the price was so agreeable that we bought two?

The monsters of materialism are not hiding under your bed. They are in your television; your magazines; anywhere that advertising may reach. They are taking up permanent residence in your heart. You don’t remember giving them a green card? You don’t recall given them the green light to take over brain and heart? And at what point did you agree to sell your children to the monster?

Perhaps you don’t remember. Perhaps you did not mean to agree; it just happened when you weren’t paying attention. Fine! Pay attention. Some people are trying to find some alternatives. Fair Trade Coffee is only one of many examples of attempts to add morality to capitalism. So while you may dream of a system wide change, there are meanwhile smaller changes you may make in your buying habits that will result in less suffering. Be a responsible consumer. For a Muslim, consuming someone else’s labor should be in proportion as in a balanced relationship. And be a responsible citizen; be informed about a range of social justice issues and interact locally with leaders and representatives.

There are some Muslims who are responsible. For example; yesterday I attended an excellent event organized by the Independent Viewpoints, a capable young organization committed to “creating a public space that fosters political awareness by providing a platform for alternative viewpoints, both within the American Muslim community and between Muslims and other concerned citizens.” (http://www.independentviewpoints.org/)

The organization I chair (Muslim Consultative Network) was one of the co-sponsors of the day-long event, “A Dialogue on Shias, Sunnis, and Politics in Iraq.” The initial panel discussion among diverse Muslims was moderated by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now; and the afternoon session featured Noam Chomsky! In addition, the interaction included extensive questions and answers and break-out groups discussion to encourage active participation.

While the existing national groups such as CAIR, ISNA, MAS, ICNA, MPAC and others often seek to encourage civic participation, both individually and collectively as part of AMT, the long established old boys network of Muslim leadership seems to move slowly, too slowly for many of us. There is a lot of political and cultural baggage. Younger people often have better preparation for working pragmatically with diverse partners. In some cases, this means compartmentalizing-- separating religious and other community projects.

Many of the younger people attending the event were concerned about the lack of tolerance in the MSAs, especially towards Shia Muslims. Some of them had horror stories to tell. It is so important that Muslims do not demonize each other. Muslims! Shia and Sunni are not monsters; are not kaffir; and among us, only a small minority behaves monstrously; the media makes use of this to sell and only sometimes question the status quo of exploitation, domination, distraction, and entertainment in the name of freedom.

However, among alternative sources of information, Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky are better teachers of freedom. While they are unafraid to have points of view that clash with mainstream prejudice, they are interested in the gray areas and detail of morality, in ongoing discussion, in actual truth and not some ideal of Received Wisdom. Good teachers should embody honest inquiry. Throughout history, Muslims have always respected the free pursuit of knowledge and self-critical analysis. It is only ideologues that prefer propaganda, to buy and sell information in the game of power.

Insha’Allah let us be among those who think and listen; and not among those who shout. Muslims can be responsible consumers of practical ideas; and producers of honest work in praise of Allah, the Lord of All the Worlds.

False Friends

2006-05-21T00:03:00.000-07:00

In the courtroom I glanced at the young Defendants face. He looked so sad and stricken, sitting quietly in his suit and tie. No, this young man is no martyr. He had not left the world behind. He is a real human being, a Muslim, one who had made some serious mistakes.

This young man had apparently entered into conspiracy to bomb various sites around New York City. However, it was never anything more than talk, stupid talk encouraged and manipulated by a police undercover informant named Eldawoody. The prosecution contended that previous undercover police had noted how the young man would brag and talk trash to his friends, trying to be the tough thug; they claimed in court that this character defect showed a predisposition for terror.

However, against this view, the Defense argued that the constant pressure brainwashed the young man. Eldawoody was an older father figure who met with him and a friend several times a week for months, and a man who claimed special religious knowledge. Video surveillance and audio tape shows how pushy and controlling the informant was with his young accomplices. You could really hear it.

Eldawoody also told one of them, “I see you have a strong heart”—this made the young man feel “he know s something about me that I myself did not know.” He became the authority, and then the corrupter. And perhaps he did this in the same way that real extremists brainwash the young. In some ways isn’t mental and spiritual abuse not similar to the physical and sexual abuse of young men in the Catholic Church? Isn’t it similar to a husband or wide who so dominates the marriage with ceaseless demands and increasing power? And sometimes doesn’t the National Security State abuse its people in the same way?

Is it not wrong to take a vulnerable young man and turn him into a terrorist wannabe? How many young men fantasize about being a martyr or an important man, and how many of us are really angry about the world situation and the politics used against Muslims? Our angry talk is a symptom of frustration and of our immaturity as a community. It is not admirable. But is it right for a Muslim informant to take this material and create a criminal? Is that not an abuse of an older man’s authority and wisdom?

False friends, False teachers. Much of the community may feel “entrapped” or set up by the rhetoric of islamophobes and public hysteria on the war on terror. Government authority also manipulates us and media brainwashes us. So much is false. And yet America is not one vast conspiracy. America is still its people as well as its problems. Though we may criticize its system, in some ways, we need to deal with our neighbors, even our leaders, on a case-by-case basis, on a human and personal basis. We need to live as Muslims, not heartless ideologues!

Therefore let us consider our own youth. Many of them think they know better than their parents. Sure, they may know technology, the way of their own world, and if their parents are immigrants they may also know the language better. They may believe they understand the religion better. They are idealists. What they may not have is settled wisdom and good judgment; many seek the horizontal way of knowledge with peers and internet; not the years of study

What Do You See?

2006-05-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

Playing to the Reactionary Right, on Monday night President Bush announced that 6,000 National Guard members will be deployed to our southern border. However, what the Bush Administration didn’t explain is that this guard deployment is necessary because it has only funded 210 new border agents, instead of the 10,000 mandated by Congress, forcing young men and women fresh back from Iraq to patrol the border for “national security.” Will the politics of fear make immigration reform impossible?

The White House is also seeking to cut the Environmental Protection Library Network's budget by 80 percent and force many of its libraries to close. The Administration still refuses to admit that Global Warming is real, and won’t sign on to the Kyoto Protocols; some studies estimate that because of this climate change, the number of people affected by storms and floods has already increased from 740 million to 2.5 billion people since the 1970s.

But now, oilman George Bush is trying to present himself as a conservationist. “Save fuel!” he says; it is a matter of “national security!” Well, of course, we all know he is trying to create a more populist image to help the Republicans in the coming elections. But who can believe him anymore? His efforts do not compare to those of Democrat President Carter, who got US consumption of imported oil down from 9 to 7 million barrels a day. After him, alas, it was “Morning in America” again, and President Reagan came and took the solar panels off the roof of the White House. Business as usual!

Then over the next 15 years the Republicans took over all three branches of government and now in 2006 the American people import 13 million barrels a day, an increase of eighty five percent. Energy bills give billions in tax breaks to oil and energy interests, who are making their biggest profits ever while gasoline prices continue to rise. Last year ExxonMobil enjoyed 36.13 billion in profits—the highest of any corporate profit in history.

We Muslims also know how energy politics also affects the “War on Terror.” We see how Libya has finally been taken off the list of “supporters of terror” and at the same time the US government has ordered a ban of arms sales to Venezuela, which pursues its own independent and provocative energy policies despite US pressures.

The oilmen say; “You are either with us or against us!” And increasingly they have their answer from the world.

But I cannot celebrate American isolation or American leadership’s moral fall from grace. And I do not believe that this crisis is necessarily the chance that Muslims have been waiting for; or that it represents an opportunity for the Socialists, or any other utopians either. Power corrupts men anywhere and it is up to the people to safeguard their religious and constitutional protections of human liberty. Are we doing so?

Recent reports have informed us that the National Security Agency has data mined- the entire phone records of Verizon, Bell-South and AT&T, almost surely breaking the scores of privacy laws. In addition, law makers care calling for DNA collection from all convicted criminals, no matter how small the offense, and in some states laws are proposed to collect DNA of all those who have been arrested, whether guilty or not. Moreover, if your family member’s DNA is collected, the government will also be able to know yours as well!

Alas, technology serves corrupted power all too well! The people must wake up; human awareness and critical thought must overcome the robotic invasion of the Total Information Awareness programs, the many, many surveillance programs surrounding us in an invisible but tightening net! O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!

In the New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert warns, “There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George Bush has done to his country. If the United States could look itself in a mirror, it would be alarmed and ashamed at what it saw.” Yet as writer Robin Wright adds, we face the "near inability of the United States to see its power from the perspective of the powerless."

Can you and I help wake up the American people? Can we open their eyes? Or are we still too sleepy ourselves to wake others up? Do I have the energy and self-awareness to make any impression at all? What do you see in the mirror? That is where we must start.

Muslims Make a Meal

2006-05-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

Muslims Make a Meal:
Transformation For Self, Spirit and Society

We read the news. Bad news. But Muslims, what is our response? Are you and I really content with the world as it is? The world our children must live in? Are we not hungry for something more?

Of course among ourselves our mouths taste the spice of complaint, mild or bitter. And some of us like spicier speech. But as men and women, can we not cook and serve the media and those in power with some fragrant and intelligent meal and nourish them with good Muslim conversation?

Cooking requires preparation and measure. Many of us understand the basic laws of what we do in daily life. How long to boil an egg. So why not learn similar social rules to influence our powers that be?

In Uzbekistan (supposedly a Muslim nation and a US ally!) the government actually boils its political opponents to death, like eggs, alas. But surely to prevail, we Muslims need to better understand not brutal force but psychology and humanity and the power of truth.

Every day, humanity stirs the pot but the mixture fails to satisfy. So many of us remain spiritually as well as physically hungry in this world. Have we Muslims forgotten the action of heat and light on matter and spirit? Have we, of all people, forgotten the alchemy of souls working towards transformation?

We can share our spiritual cooking to transform the world. It is with love, and trust building, that we may transcend the various difficulties. This does not mean we must stay in the warm kitchen. We must not ignore the marketplace of ideas. But like bread in the warm oven, the heart rises before it is shared; there are preparations of prayer and practicalities of measuring the material before we participate in serving humanity. Take the necessary steps; then invite your congressman (or congresswoman) to tea and cake!

It is good to share the results of such occasions and not hide and hoard relationships with “power” as so many do. And please forget the illusion and packaging of “prestige.” Humility is a crucial ingredient for long-term success– search your shelves—I am sure it is there somewhere!

Yet we may need to share recipes so we do not waste our efforts. Recall the Fool who was sent to buy flour and salt. He took a dish to carry his purchases. “Make sure”, said his master, “not to mix the two things—I want them separate.” When the shopkeeper had filled the dish with flour and was measuring the salt, the Fool said, “Do not mix it with the flour; here I will show you where to put it.” And he turned the dish upside down, to provide on its upturned bottom a surface to put the salt.

The flour, of course, fell on the floor. But the salt was safe. And when the Fool returned to his Master, he said, “Here is the Salt!” But his master asked; “And where is the flour?” “It should be here”, said the Fool, turning the dish over. And of course the salt fell, and the flour was seen to be gone.

So it is with us, doing first one thing and then another. One thought and then another, but little unity. We are hungry for what is next; we forget what we already have. And what we have, our judgments, opinions and opinions about opinions, these we chew on and chew on long after any useful nutrition is gone.

Of course, we hope to serve fresh thought to our guests. But are we really prepared to build trust with our fellow humanity beyond the post 9/11 anxieties? Recall the story of the man who strayed into the Land of Fools. He saw a number of people running in terror from a field where they had been trying to harvest wheat. “There is a monster in the field!” they told him. He looked and saw it was a watermelon.

The man offered to “kill” the “monster” for them. But after he had broken it, he started to eat the watermelon, and the people become so frightened of his power, they drove him away as a security risk! But the next year, another, more perceptive man agreed to help the people—but he was sensitive to their fear—he tiptoed away from the “monster” and spent a lot time with the people planning and educating little by little so by the end they could not only lose their fear of melons but also grow them themselves!

For, Humanity does not live by bread alone!