Her foo poo? Acknowledging that radical Islam has had an unhealthy influence in American cities and towns, including Dearborn.
Mayor Jack O’Reilly took issue with the way Angle said that Dearborn wasn’t under the Constitution (which isn’t what Angle said), and called her remarks “Shameful.” He appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 last Friday, to, as Said Deep said on his blog, “set the record straight.”
As for setting the record straight, all O’Reilly really did was scoff away the idea that there’s Sharia in Dearborn. Hell, Jack says “it isn’t even talked about in Dearborn.” While he was at it, he denied that there is much in the way of “hardly any Sharia anywhere in the Middle East, there’s only about three countries that still carry that out.” (Good luck finding that gem being blogged and denounced in the media).
O’Reilly obviously has a limited concept of Sharia to strictly a government system, such that if it doesn’t look like Saudi Arabia or Iran, then there’s no Sharia. The idea that it can be implemented in small doses doesn’t enter his head.
But the publicity had its effect: The Mayor has now officially declared Dearborn a Sharia-free zone. (Discussion question: If I’m a devout Muslim living in Dearborn, and I love Sharia law and try to practice it, am I offended right now? Discuss why not.)
O’Reilly next sent Sharron Angle a letter explaining that Muslims fought in the War of Independence, and offering to take her on a tour of the Rouge Plant. More accurately, he said he would “personally escort” her to “any venue she you choose to visit in our community.” Jack! You old dog! Maybe they could see the old La Shish, or drive by the old Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization, both closed up for supporting Hezbollah -- both in obedience to Sharia. Or maybe the footbaths at UM-Dearborn). Then they could cruise Marshalls and ask one of the many chador-clad customers why she’s dressed that way -- what with there being no Sharia in Dearborn.
They shouldn’t miss dropping by the Islamic Center of America, to see what a Sharia-free Shia mosque looks like. Just make sure Sharron puts on a headscarf first before stepping foot inside.
In an interview with the Press and Guide Mayor O’Reilly says all these claims about creeping Sharia in Dearborn all have their source in “a group calling themselves the Acts 17 Apologetics. They are the first people who started claims of sharia law in Dearborn. In their own minds, they are experts on the Koran and the Bible, who think their interpretation is the correct one … they think Muslims should not be allowed to stay in the country unless they convert. You want to talk about unconstitutional? Nothing is less constitutional than that.”
I’ve never heard one scrap of evidence that Acts 17 stands for the proposition that unless Muslims convert they should be deported.
More important, many of us in this area were saying Sharia is spreading in Dearborn long before we ever heard of these missionaries. I’ve been blogging here since 2006. Debbie Schlussel has blogged about Dearborn much longer than that. The awareness amongst Dearborn residents of the threat of radical Islam was awakened, just as it was for the rest of the country, on September 11, 2001.
I think what we have here are two politicians responding to questions for which they weren’t prepared. In the Mayor’s case, he sounds as if he simply doesn’t know, and really doesn’t want to know, what’s going on with Islam in Dearborn. All he wants is to keep CAIR from his office door and his Arab constituents from being unhappy.
As to what Sharron Angle said, I think she was right. With all the knucklehead second-guessing of anything anyone says within range of YouTube or other media outlets, I’m a big proponent of not reading too much into incomplete, poorly worded statements that are, to say the least, ambiguous. I’m not sure what Angle meant by “militant terrorist situation.” But the context was an audience question referring to a TV broadcast about “Muslims wanting to take over the United States,” and “taking over a city in Michigan.” Her reference to Frankford, Texas was clearly in error, so I’d give her the benefit of the doubt that she had another community in mind and inadvertently referred to Frankford instead.
What she did say clearly was that the situation with militant terrorism, “isn’t a widespread thing, but it is enough that we need to address, and we have been addressing it.” That happens to be my own view of it. And her declaration that American cities should be under Constitutional law, not Sharia law, is absolutely correct. That she said the problem was not widespread, but still a concern, ought to spare her being portrayed in the media as an hysteric. But could we really expect that kind of restraint from the media when reporting on conservative candidates?
O’Reilly’s denials, on the other hand, were made in what should have been the cold light of day. To a fault, he simply wants to focus elsewhere than on the controversies arising from Islam. His letter to Angle shows how much he’d rather mention “The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, which are visited each year by 1.5 million people from across the world”, and all “the automotive workers who were flocking to Detroit to earn the unheard of wage of $5 a day at the For Motor Co. Model ‘T’ Plant.”
We all haven’t forgotten that Mayor Jack sat on the story about the arrest of Houssein Zorkot for four days because he didn’t want us to connect terrorist activity up with September 11.
To say categorically there’s no Sharia in Dearborn is like saying categorically that there are no foreign cars in Dearborn, because Dearborn “has been the home of the Ford Motor Company since 1917!” The two facts can co-exist, and they do. Sharia can still be alive and well in Dearborn regardless of how many boys at Fordson High dress like gangbangers, or how many churches still have their doors open.
But the Mayor has no idea about any of this, does he?
1 comment:
Mr. Clancy, do you suppose Jack O'Reilly is even capable of digesting what you just wrote? I think you are right, O'Reilly just doesn't want to admit that he doesn't get it, and he obviously hides from anyone who points out the truth.
I have Muslim friends who tell me they can't go to their mosque any more. That started in 2002. The radical imams changed the rules then and forbade any but the Arabic language there. The messages from the imam became radicalized. If some of our Muslim citizens have thought that Dearborn mosques became radicalized almost ten years ago, why does our Mayor refuse to see it now?
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