standing up to the muslim bashers

Like a circle of small houses and large families facing bulldozers, Islamic organizations are attacked by a well-oiled machine with many parts, from AIPAC to the entities of the Christian Right, American Enterprise Institute and many other so called think tanks. These tanks squash all hope for dialogue in their aggressive attacks.

Do you remember the image of that man alone in Tianaman Square, holding up a flower? Those Chinese tanks won the battle that day but the forces of oppression are still slowly losing their grip. Non-violent individual resistance can be effective.

In publicizing such resistance, the media has indeed helped the democratic struggle in China. However it is easy to manipulate media images to gain political advantage, if you have the resources to do it. I think that CAIR is almost the only Muslim American advocacy organization to effectively respond to negative reporting about US Muslims on a national scale. However I know others would like to do better.

How does the American media end up misleading the public about Islam? Of course to some extent one can look for corporate pressures that drive and determine what is “newsworthy”. Of course well-funded political agendas gain the ear of producers, editors, reporters and the public. But at the same time unconscious bias –not intentional—helps maintain the anti-Muslim momentum. This demands education, in depth dialogue and not slick PR. It also calls to us to develop relationships to our elected officials.

How well do our major Muslim American organizations accomplish this important outreach to officials, to media, as well as to the larger public? While one cannot judge only by what is available online, I took at quick survey of websites of major Muslim American organizations. My sense was that Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) presented their political advocacy in the most accessible form, to encourage community involvement. MPAC includes a useful “activist guide” and CAIR provided some Arabic translation for their site. Of course news articles in both sites were up to date. I would recommend these websites to anyone: www.cair.net and www.mpac.org are the sites.

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) maintains an attractive, well-organized site with less attention to lobbying but some interesting reports and conferences. Muslim American Society (MAS) also contains some useful news information that I did not find elsewhere (details regarding the “Pershing Flier” scandal in Massachusetts) with related activist projects. These two websites are at: www.isna.net and www.masnet.org.

American Muslim Council (AMC) apparently takes a more cozy approach to those in power, and is rewarded with some sort of access, as seems clear from its rather basic website. What is not clear is how AMC is accountable to the community, and there are no features that encourage or empower community involvement. Indeed this could be strengthened in all of the websites. What is needed is a critical annual report of successes and failures with elected officials and media, as well as a record of expenditures. It would be best if translation into several languages would be provided as well. This includes all organizations.

Finally, my own organization’s website should be improved. I know Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is doing so much –including encouraging community empowerment-- but it is not as well presented as well as it should be. Other organizations make much more out of a lot less.

I note that ICNA’s website states, “The website team members are volunteers…. one of our own ICNA website team members Br. Tariq Amanullah used to work on the 96th floor of WTC Tower #2. His remains have been identified by DNA tests on 11/10/2001”. May Allah rest his Soul. However, a good tribute to him however would be to continue to develop this website, and to more clearly show all the social service and international development programs, which are now shown in a separate website. The two ICNA/ICNA Relief sites are: www.icna.org and www.reliefonline.org.

To lead the community in effective boycotts as well as positive engagement, these and other major Muslim American organizations should become more accessible, more communicative, and more active. There is not enough indication that these organizations are coordinating their work. Part of the problem is the crisis we face each day. This will take some time to change. Part of the problem is lack of resources to allow the organizations to better plan long term—and this means your contributions are needed. But there is also our lack of unity, which we must deal with, or perish.

Of course not every Muslm has access to the internet, but web-based services provide a starting place. This newspaper as well is a resource for all such organizations as well as individuals. Hopefully we will all help each other to develop, with respect for diversity.

Have you done your part and has your mosque taken a public stand? The Pipes nomination is a concern shared in most of the organizations; have you written a letter or an email? Are you still supporting Muslim bashers by buying the New York Post? We cannot rely on others to stop the tanks from crushing us all.

At this time when I see at least three recent murderous dictators are “born again Christians” (Eugene Montt of Guatemala, Charles Taylor of Liberia and Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone, who just died) perhaps one can understand the skepticism that secular media people have about religion in general. However, we must succeed in getting these influential Americans to examine their own bias, which links our faith but not others to violence. We can challenge their lazy reporting. And when Congressional Republicans and Democrats compete to see how many can pay friendly visits to Israel this summer (two major trips paid by American Israeli Education Foundation and by AIPAC, respectively) what are we doing? Are we sitting on our hands? If some Muslims are doing something constructive, which they are, how would we even know???






“Facts are stupid things,” said President Reagan several years ago, perhaps in an unconscious slip. But no one has forgotten he said this because it seemed to reflect his disregard –or disrespect--for reality. And Truth has a tendency to emerge, sooner or later. With all his spin-doctors working full speed, President Bush and his advisors can only delay this emergence, not stop it, insha’Allah.

Neela Bannerjee in the 8/8/03 New York Times reports: “The Bechtel Group, one of the world's biggest engineering and construction companies, has dropped out of the running for a contract to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, as other competitors have begun to conclude that the bidding process favors the one company already working in Iraq, Halliburton” (Vice President Cheney’s company, of course). There have been many complaints about what is apparently a form of insider trading benefiting friends of the Bush administration. Enron is not the only major scandal. How can Americans not care?

The President and VP Cheney, advisors Rice, Wolfowitz, and many others in their circle who have played major roles in the oil industry, seek to evade these scandals through charm (and who knows what deals). Yet The Bush administration has repeatedly lied, not only regarding the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but really has developed a culture of secrecy and politicized information that amounts to a heavy smoke screen. As we know, this has helped the authorities to mischaracterize many Muslim individuals and institutions. Also, according to a new report, his administration has also mischaracterized scientific facts to bolster its political agenda in areas “ranging from abstinence education and condom use to missile defense”. This 40-page document, "Politics and Science in the Bush Administration," was compiled by the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee's special investigations division and just released by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

However, our administration is nor the only source of misinformation. People around the world seem to lose touch with reality when they wish to believe something that seems to explain their crisis. In an interesting article (New York Times 8/6/03), John Tierney writes, “Just as truth is the first casualty of war, urban legends seem to be the first creation of a military occupation… After life under Mr. Hussein, people here are accustomed to conspiracy theories and ready to believe the worst about anyone in power. Of course, Americans have been circulating their own kinds of legends… that the occupying troops would be peacefully welcomed by a nation of grateful flower-waving citizens. In the urban legends flourishing here, the soldiers triumphed thanks to Mr. Hussein's treachery and to American technology.”

Some Iraqis say US soldiers take special pills that keep them cool, or wear air-conditioned-uniform stories, X-ray glasses to look beneath hijab, use pages from the Koran for toilet paper and of giving children candy packets containing pornography. According to these stories US soldiers are said to be so demoralized that 30 percent of them have already abandoned their posts and paid $600 apiece to escape by an underground railroad to Turkey or Syria.
Now, I wonder--instead of taking that underground route, through rumor and darkness, how can we live our lives as Truth-loving Muslims in the light of day? Not all knowledge comes from the New York Times, or from The Muslim, or any newspaper. We have the Qur’an and Sunna, but day to day how are we to distinguish and interpret correctly to the best of our abilities?
Dogs know each other through smell, and birds make themselves known through their song. Humans communicate verbally, and sometimes come to a rich and intimate mutual understanding. However, we also communicate non-verbally, that is to say largely unconsciously. We do not have to agree with every aspect of Freudian and Jungian psychological studies to know that we are largely unconscious of what we think and do, one might almost say asleep on our feet.
As Muslims we work towards unity of the self as well as the Ummah. We need help to integrate the self, to harmonize the voices of heart, mind, and body. If only our mind learns the Qur’an, the other part of ourselves will remain restless. However, our Westernized outlook, supported by a thousand technologies, tends to develop the mind at the expense of the rest. Some say we require the guidance of a Guide who really knows the dimensions of the human being.

Whether that is an external or internal guide—a Shaikh/teacher or one’s still small voice of conscience—learning and self-development as a Muslim man or woman is not simply a matter of acquiring information. It is not just what we think but how we think that is important. Are we absorbing the qualities that make us whole and creative Muslims?

This is why I am critical of those Muslim writers who adapt the vocabulary and the outlook of western scholarship, even unconsciously. We must be very concerned about Social Justice issues but are we seeing them through other people’s intellectual frameworks? Do our ideals reflect assumptions we have absorbed unconsciously? This is why I perceive similarities between some of our Islamist philosophers and those of left wing writers, though of course the values and goals diverge.

To know truth, to wake up, we need to reflect. Above all let us question received wisdom short of revelation. A free, creative and critical mind will best serve the Umma, in harmony with a loving and a patient heart, insha’Allah.