Dearborn Underground: Misguided Muslim Groups

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Dearborn Underground

By Omran Salman

Focus should be on extremists' war against the West.

On Aug. 10, British police arrested 24 Muslim suspects in a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound jetliners over the Atlantic. If successful, the attack would have killed thousands of people. The terrorists were motivated by religious extremism.

Rather than just condemn the plot and address the scourge of Islamic extremism, Muslim groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) sought to both legitimize terror and portray Muslims as victims.

Do these organizations really represent Muslims in the West? Hardly. It is their apologia of Islamic extremism, rather than discrimination or religious hatred in Western society, which most victimizes American Muslims.

The basic narrative of these self-described civil-rights groups is twofold: The United States provokes terrorism because of its foreign policy, and Muslims in the West face a backlash in the wake of terror.

On July 31, for example, Salam al-Marayati, executive director of MPAC, penned an op-ed piece in the Denver Post arguing that "we should not be surprised" when Islamist extremists "respond with belligerence to their continued humiliation and not-quite-human treatment by the international community." He made no mention of the Saudi religious schools that indoctrinate generations of children into a philosophy of hate and violence.

After law enforcement stopped the mid-Atlantic massacre, Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, warned, "We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslim." He called on Muslims to step up security at mosques and community centers to counter negative backlash to news of the plot.

But does such a backlash exist? According to the 2004 FBI hate-crimes report, the latest published, there were 156 incidents of anti-Muslim hate crimes; in comparison, there were 95 anti-Christian, and 954 anti-Jewish attacks in the United States. Rather than fear American freedom, most Muslims embrace it. At more than $42,000, average income for Muslim families is higher than the American average.

Rather than help Muslims in America, most Muslim organizations hinder them. Self-appointed representatives downplay religious extremism and focus more on the image of Muslims rather than on the loss of innocent life. They remain silent on the assault waged on liberalism by Islamists. Most Muslims in America, though, fled the Middle East for the liberal values of their adopted country.

On Aug. 7, Bush condemned this extremist assault on liberal values, defining it as "Islamo-fascist" in nature. He chose his words carefully. For most Muslims, Islam is a religion of peace. But rather than side with these Muslim victims, MPAC criticized Bush for saying that the British plot was a "stark reminder" the United States is "at war with Islamic fascists."

Edina Lekovic, MPAC spokeswoman, issued a statement saying, "The problem with the phrase is it attaches the religion of Islam to tyranny and fascism, rather than isolating the threat to a specific group of individuals." It is not Bush's wording that makes this attachment, though, but the 24 terrorists in Britain and the imams who instructed them.

Parvez Ahmed, CAIR chairman, sent an open letter to Bush: "You have on many occasions said Islam is a 'religion of peace.' Today you equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism." But what would Ahmed suggest calling people who intend to blow themselves up in commercial airplanes, taking thousands of innocent lives with them? Flying angels? Kamikazes?

If these organizations wish to represent American Muslims, they should be at the forefront of defending both Muslims and non-Muslims against Islamic extremists who hate moderate Muslims almost as much if not more than Western governments. Terrorists deny the legitimacy of Western Muslims, arguing that their Western co-religionists just sit placidly while they, the true Muslims, are "waging jihad against infidels and crusaders."

It is wrong to argue so much over terminology and image that we lose sight of the real threat: Extremists who find motivation in religion to preach intolerance and wage war against Western values and peoples. This is the nonsense that causes Muslims to flee the Middle East. We should not defend its emergence here.

Posted Thu., August 31, 2006
Omran Salman (omrans80@yahoo.com), a Bahraini journalist, is editor in chief of www.aafaq.org.