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Beirut: Whatever becomes of the
truly pathetic “Pastor” Terry Jones and his plans to appear later
this month at the largest Mosque in Michigan to condemn Islam and
to generate some media attention while provoking all decent
Americans and people of good will everywhere with his hate speech,
will not be of much lasting import to Muslim and American
relations.
Even as Jones prepares to act as grand inquisitor and plans to
prosecute the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) for various imagined crimes,
it reminds us that when it comes to intolerance, nothing is new
under the sun in our land that beckons with its Statue of Liberty
near Ellis Island in New York harbor:
“Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free/ The wretched refuse from your teeming shore/ Send
these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me/ I lift my lamp before
the Golden Door.”
Muslims and Arabs who began arriving in America in the middle of
the 19th century have in many ways embodied the intended
fulfillment of the American dream promised in the above words of
Emma Lazarus. The reasons that Muslims are often described as
being “As American as apple pie” includes exactly their qualities
that every Westerner observes and often comments on if they are
fortunate enough to live among Muslims abroad or have Muslims as
neighbors in their communities in the USA.
These Muslim qualities, the product of Islamic culture and Koranic
teachings, including the five pillars of Islam, result in strong
law abiding families with respect for their elders, comprised of
fun loving and hardworking individuals who sacrifice for their
children, have respect for education, compassion for humanity and
who perform acts of unsolicited charity for the less fortunate,
and exhibit tolerance of the views of others.
Muslims make up slightly more than 1% of the 308 million
Americans, but according to recent FBI statistics, since 9/11 and
the seemingly eternal US government War on (of) Terror, Muslims in
America are currently the target of nearly 15% of all hate crimes.
Robert Kennedy used to say during US Congressional hearings on
hate crimes that approximately 20% of the American public is
unfortunately quite capable and indeed ready for believing just
about anything and acting violently toward their neighbors while
being easily influenced toward racism, xenophobia, and hate of “
the other.”
It appears that not much has changed since the violence of the
1960’s in America when some of our best leaders were assassinated.
Sociologists claim that the American penchant for irrationally
fearing different cultures has been true since the founding of
America and our history is replete with examples that belie the
passages in our schoolbooks that claim that our country is a
unique example of a grand melting pot. Rather, the current trend
in America appears, according to a range of observers from left
leaning Noam Chomsky to fairly hard right Pat Buchanan, to be an
increasing fracturing along ethno-nationalist cleavages.
When Americans are incessantly exposed to US wars in the Middle
East and the ranting of fellow Americans who support and seek
political advantage from those wars, including the Christian
Zionists and pro-Israel lobby, American society becomes vulnerable
to hate speech and crimes.
While the US political establishment and American society at large
has mounted a significant chorus condemning the views of Terry
Jones, Daniel Pipes, Bridgette Gabriel and hundreds like them who
seek political and cash profit from sowing domestic discord, much
more must be done by every citizen to support real American values
of tolerance and good neighborliness.
On Friday, March 4, 2011, the Zionist Middle East Forum launched
another Israel backed anti-Muslim campaign to try to wedge the
“Pastor Terry Jones” hate campaign against Islam and Muslims.
The current US Zionist lobby, with a reported budget of five
million dollars includes the following ‘talking points’ with which
the lobby intends to saturate the US public:
• “The Koran burning by Florida pastor Terry Jones has created
hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty
people, including U.N. workers, have been killed and beheaded to
screams of "Allahu Akbar!" Western leaders around the
globe—including Obama and members of Congress—have unequivocally
condemned Jones' actions (without bothering to point out that
freedom of expression is a prized American liberty)
• Western leaders rush to profess their abhorrence at what one
American did to one inanimate book, what about what Muslims are
doing to living and breathing Christians around the Islamic
world—to virtually no media coverage or Western condemnation:
• We should also mention the jihadist attack on a Baghdad church,
killing 52 Christians; the New Year's eve Coptic church explosion,
killing 21; Muslim rampages that destroyed several churches in
Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines; Iran's "round up" of some
70 home-worshipping Christians; and Kuwait's—a nation that owes
its very existence to U.S. war sacrifices—rejection to build a
church.
• Such is the surreal and increasingly irrational world we live
in, where irate Muslims and groveling Westerners obsess over the
destruction of one book while ignoring the destruction of many
human lives; where a guaranteed and hard-earned American
right—freedom of expression—receives a lot of condemnatory huffing
and puffing from those charged with protecting it, while murderous
and barbarous—in a word, evil—behavior is devoutly ignored.
With carefully organized and well-funded hate campaigns as
illustrated above, America does, in a sense have a “Muslim
problem” but it can be remedied by every American working in her
or his community exposing profoundly un-American effort to sew
religious and cultural discord.
The above article
first appeared in Al Manar.
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