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Islam in
America: The Jihad
of American Muslims
by Ameen Izzadeen
(Deputy Editor The Sunday Times and Daily Mirror-Sri Lanka)
In 2003 Ameen Izzadeen spent nearly a month in the United States
as a guest of the US State Department. This is part one of a series of
observations penned after his visit.
As an outside observer Mr. Izzadeens insights are both enlightening and squarely
on the mark. Mr. Izzadeen addresses the concerns of Post 9-11 Muslims in
America and the campaign to vilify the American Muslims. We present
the series in its entirety.
The Jihad of American Muslims (P-8)
Friday November 28th 2003
Early this month, US President George W. Bush in a
televised Washington speech called for democracy in West Asia and singled out
Iraq, Syria and Iran and accused the rulers of these countries of torturing
and oppressing the people they ruled.
In what could be described as a speech that
lacked any semblance of objectivity - though it underlined the Bush
administration's objective of justifying its occupation in Iraq - the President
left out from blame pro-American regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf
countries where, let alone democracy, even basic human and labor rights are not
heard of or adhered to.
If Mr. Bush's alleged wish for democracy is
realized, the whole of West Asia will be a monolith of anti-American sentiment
with Islamic parties being returned to office in western style democratic
elections. Ironically, it is not democracy that will help Islamic parties come
to office, but rather the lopsided US policies that
strengthen the hands of Islamists.
Despite the barrage of criticism that has now
become common after every Bush speech, the President should be commended for
stating in his 'Democracy in West Asia' speech made at the National Endowment
for Democracy in Washington that "Islam is consistent with democratic rule."
"… To say Islam is incompatible with democracy
is cultural condescension," said President Bush. But a majority of Muslims
living in the United States, a country built on democratic principles, have been
stating this ever since Islam was perceived to be a threat to Western economic
interests.
Why is there no separation of church and state
in Islam? This was the question with which I ended my last column and this is
the question that is fired at US Muslims at every forum.
The answer to this, the Muslims say, is that
Islam flourished within the framework of the State during the lifetime of
Prophet Muhammad. Justice, equality, democracy, human rights, federalism, and
treaties among states and autonomy to minorities within a state were the
hallmarks of the early Islamic state. Unfortunately, today neither the despots
nor the Islamists in Muslim countries give a damn about these hallowed concepts,
which were among the main attractions of Islam during its heyday.
This also sums up the answers we gave when our
group was asked, during a lively inter-faith discussion at the Xavier University
in Cincinnati, why there was no separation of church and state in Islam. Though
our discussion with Professors Joseph A. Bracken and James P Buchanan had many
areas of agreement - for instance, the adverse impact of the globalization
process and the need for inter-faith dialogue - we agreed to disagree on the
subject of separation of church and state.
This was symbolic of the larger picture where
the Muslims in America are trying to explain the Islamic perspective on many an
issue while a large majority of Americans refuse, either through ignorance or
prejudice, to accept their version or give them a hearing.
For instance, a question that was often thrown
at the Muslims in America - also at us when we were there - was, "Why is Islam
associated with violence?" Muslims, individually and collectively, are doing
their best to explain that Islam has nothing to do with violence or terrorism,
but a large majority of Americans refuse to believe them. Besides, when Muslims
deny a statement that is erroneously attributed to Islam, their denial gets
little publicity in the mass media. I am not making a sweeping statement
denigrating the US media. The regional press which does not have national appeal
is more objective in reporting or 'covering' Islam than the national media. It
is easy to get a denial published or aired in the regional media, but the
national media, which are controlled by a few powerful business firms with
vested interests, simply ignore the Muslim pleas.
A case in point concerned an article carried in
the July 28 issue of Newsweek magazine. The article titled 'Challenging Quran'
scoffed at the Muslim scripture, dismissing it as a forged or plagiarized
document. Muslims, especially the intellectuals, world over sent in petitions
and letters challenging the article. But none was published, though the magazine
sent in acknowledgement notes. So much for media freedom in the United States
where there is no press complaints commission, like in Sri Lanka, Britain or
Canada.
Among the television channels, the Muslims rate
Fox as the most prejudiced and anti-Islamic channel while the Public
Broadcasting Corporation (PBS) is credited as the best channel with objective
journalism. Generally, the media, as far as the Muslims in the United States are
concerned, are embedded to a distorted vision of Islam. The early period of the
war on Iraq showed that embedded journalism
was nothing but prostitution of journalism and
production of bastardized news.
Amidst the barrage of media attacks, the Muslims
face a daunting task in defending themselves. In fact, dealing with the media
was the subject of one of the sessions of the Chicago conference of the Islamic
Society of North America that I attended during my stay in the United States.
Making the task of the American Muslims more
difficult are terrorist attacks purportedly carried out by Islamic radicals or
extremists.
Every time a bomb aimed at a US or western
target goes off, it is the American Muslims who pay the price. It is they who
have to defend Islam and it is they who are subjected to hate crimes.
Terrorism has no place in Islam though the fight
against injustice has. Given the power of the Western media, the killing of
civilians by the so-called Muslim terrorists is blown out of proportions but the
killing of Muslims by state terrorism gets little exposure. Hence every time,
terrorism strikes, the image of Islam, which is regarded as the most
misunderstood and misinterpreted religion of the world, is tarnished and the
good work of the American Muslims in projecting
the true picture is undone.
That the Muslims in America have to do this job
amidst a number of problems and challenges is, in itself, a Jihad or a holy
struggle. Their plea to the Muslims living outside America is "strengthen our
hand".
Despite many a problem, the Muslims enjoy
religious freedom. We visited a Madrasa in Atlanta - a Quran school run by
Dar-Un-Noor School. We saw students sporting turbans and wearing 'Taliban' dress
(Afghan-Pakistani dress). It was a surprise to me since the Bush administration
is applying pressure on Pakistan and other Muslim countries to crack down on
madrasas, which it sees as breeding grounds for Islamic terrorism. Atlanta
Muslim leaders said they faced no such pressure from the authorities.
Another surprise awaited us when we attended the
September 11 memorial service at the Martin Luther King Church in Atlanta. The
inter-faith service began with the recitation of verses from Quran by a local
imam. It showed the fruit of the American Muslims' effort to distinguish between
Islam and terrorism - an achievement that they have attained while facing
challenges in the form of anti-terrorism legislation and tough security measures
adopted in the aftermath of
9/11.
Their call to 'strengthen our hand' is a worthy
call, for they not only defend Islam domestically, but also take up the causes
of the world Muslims. Their commitment to Muslim causes is not mere lip service
such as we often hear from West Asian leaders. It is no exaggeration to say that
the road to Palestinian independence could be paved through the struggle of the
US Muslims. The same could be said about the Kashmir and Chechen crises.
The US Muslims are not trying to achieve this
through violent means. They believe in the dialogue of
civilisations as opposed to Samuel
Huntington’s clash of civilisation, a theory that simply ignores coexistence
between Islam and the West.
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