Why American Muslims Remain Silent

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TCS Daily Why American Muslims Stay Silent Four years after September 11, 2001, numerous non-Muslim Americans repeatedly ask, ﾓWhy do American Muslims stay silent in the face of extremism and terrorism? Why do they not act to cleanse their religion of the reputation it has acquired?ﾔ Paradoxically, Muslims in the US and Great Britain are, today, far more dominated by Islamist extremism than their counterparts in various Muslim countries. In many lands where the majority follows Islam, a struggle is underway between mainstream moderates and radicals inspired by the ultra-Wahhabi preachers of Saudi Arabia, the agitators of the Muslim Brotherhood in various Arab countries, and the virulent and volatile adherents of Pakistani jihadism. In some places, from Bosnia-Hercegovina to Indonesia and from Morocco to Mozambique, the moderates are winning. Yet the Islamic communities of the U.S. (dominated by the Saudis) and Britain (run by radical Pakistanis) suffer under a totalitarian regime of thought-control. What happens when ordinary Muslims rebel against radical domination in America? They are ostracized, thrown out of mosques, and subjected to extraordinary public insults and threats. I myself was harassed in a Long Island mosque in 2003, as noted in this article. Shia mosques are excluded from ﾓSunni,ﾔ i.e. Wahhabi-controlled bodies, and numerous incidents of expulsions of individual Shias from Sunni mosques in the U.S. have been reported to the Center for Islamic Pluralism, which I have established. The ﾓWahhabi Lobbyﾔ — an assemblage of groupings, headed by the Hamas- and Saudi-backed Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — controls the public life of many American Sunnis. It demands certification as moderate, but not in recognition of real moderation or loyalty to the American constitutional tradition. Instead, their demand for recognition and respect is a preemptive strike to shield them from a proper understanding and appreciation of their tactics and aims. And how does the CAIR gang react when a moderate Muslim activist raises a dissenting voice? It betrays its guilt: accused of extremism, CAIR reacts by the extremist methods of menace and hate-mongering. The latest such case involves one of the founders of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Jasser is a mild-mannered and manifestly moderate individual with a column in the Arizona Republic, the largest daily in the state, on Islamic affairs. Dr. Jasser previously founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He is knowledgeable and devoted to the religion of Islam. Cartoon Controversies Readers around the world have lately been treated to the despicable spectacle of Islamist rhetoric turned against Danish cartoonists, as if the spiritual force of the faith were so weak that trivial media products in the West could threaten it. Compared with the malicious tone of images employed by cartoonists in most Arab countries, the works of the Danes were innocuous. But the U.S. has had more than one ﾓcartoonist caseﾔ — and the latest involves none other than an Arizona Republic editorial caricaturist named Benson. The Republic published a work by Benson questioning why so many mosques are centers of extremist agitation. The cartoon included nothing offensive to moderate Muslims; it simply dramatized an obvious fact. CAIR, which serves as the U.S. equivalent of the Saudi mutawwiyyin or religious militia, leapt into hysterical action, calling for an apology from the Republic for publishing Bensonﾒs cartoon. CAIR, as usual, freely indulged in overheated rhetoric and unjustified demands. It utilized a local extremist scandal sheet posturing as a ﾓcommunity paper,ﾔ the Muslim Voice, with which it has close ties, to stir venom against the Republic, Benson, and Dr. Jasser. They did so only because both are published in the Republic, and because, in the words of the Islamist complainants, ﾓMany Muslims and Islamic organizations in the Valley were outraged by the cartoon and articles printed in the Arizona Republic Newspaper. One of the writers was M. Zuhdi Jasser who wrote articles that led to Bensonﾒs poor depiction of Muslims.ﾔ The link between Benson and Dr. Jasser was purely one of common opinions to which the Islamists objected, including Dr. Jasserﾒs frequent criticism of CAIR. In a gross cartoon, the latter two were portrayed as voracious dogs eating a Muslim. Curiously, the ﾓMuslimsﾔ in the cartoon, both victim and protestors to the Republic, are portrayed in Wahhabi dress, with skull caps of a kind few wear in large parts of the Muslim world but that everybody wears when they join the Wahhabi cult. But the intent of the cartoon is more important than its details. The motive of the CAIRites in Phoenix is to punish the Republic for printing a cartoon to which they object, and to silence Dr. Jasser. The portrayal of this gentle and sincere man as a vicious canine, is the epitome of totalitarian conditioning. It is comparable to the Jew-baiting cartoons of the Nazi era or the anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim caricatures that appeared in Serbian media at the beginning of Slobodan Milosevicﾒs dictatorship. The editor of Muslim Voice is Marwan Ahmad, an appointee to the Phoenix Human Relations Commission. Yet at his paperﾒs website, we find his signature over an editorial blaming Israel for the death of American service personnel in Iraq. What possible justification may be advanced for treating CAIR and papers like the Muslim Voice as anything other than an intrusion of radical ideology and extremist habits into the social life of American Muslims? Numerous ﾓcommunityﾔ periodicals like Muslim Voice have been established around the U.S., are distributed free in mosques and Islamic schools, and are often the only media read by the Muslim rank-and-file. In tandem, CAIR utilizes the camouflage of an alleged civil rights organization to enforce political and social submission to the dictates of the primitive clerics in the Saudi kingdom. Why should this be encouraged in America? A terrible blow has been inflicted on the religion of Islam in America by the refusal of the religious ﾓestablishmentﾔ — including CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and other entities — to abandon and denounce the radical legacy present in their formation and displayed in their long service. They hate Dr. Jasser because he dares to expose their continued devotion to radicalism and their refusal to abide by American norms of religious respect and public dignity. Non-Muslim Americans as well as moderate Muslims must rally to Dr. Jasser and assist him in his just struggle. The Arizona Republic should be commended for providing him a platform, and must stand by its cartoonist, Benson. Dr. Jasserﾒs case illustrates why American Muslims stay silent: because the price of speaking out is immediate, coordinated attack. Sometimes the Wahhabi offensive on American soil is accompanied by physical threats; violence is not excluded. Born Muslims, living ﾓin the community,ﾔ seldom came to America expecting to find Islam in this country run by Wahhabis — to the immigrant, it was inconceivable that such a situation would be permitted in the US. And yet, thanks to the Saudis, it came to pass, and just as President Bush should push the Saudis to quit financing radicalism, ordinary Americans should write groups like CAIR out of the roster of respectability. These are militants with an incurable penchant for intimidation. Their psychological reign of terror in America must end no less quickly than the literal bloodshed brought by their mentors in Iraq. Stephen Schwartz is author of The Two Faces of Islam. http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=122105F

Think Globally, Act Locally-Local Muslim paper prints hate cartoon

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This month’s issue of the print version of the local Arizona Muslim Voice, sadly the only Valley Muslim community newspaper in town, published a pathetically hate-filled half-page feature cartoon on page 2. This cartoon seen above could only be described as despicable hate speech.

Why should this specific cartoon matter to non-Muslim Arizonans if it was only in a throw-away ethnic newspaper with a wide ethnic mostly immigrant distribution in Arizona, Nevada and California? Is it simply crude journalism from a throw away, or is it a manifestation of deep seeded hate speech and an ugly intolerance which is in dire need of the light of day?

For some background, this offensive cartoon is the result of a three month saga where leadership from CAIR-AZ (Council on American-Islamic Relations- Arizona Chapter) gathered their own group of self-appointed Muslim activist leaders and imams to express their disdain for a July 31, 2005 Steve Benson cartoon which appeared in the Arizona Republic. Their initial meeting with the editors in September led to this bizarre accounting in the Muslim Voice. Not only was the veracity of this accounting suspect, but it became clear that their focus was not only Benson�s single cartoon, but there was an inexplicably deep animosity for their fellow devout Muslim activist and columnist, this writer, M. Zuhdi Jasser.

Apparently, CAIR-AZ which intimately shares an office with the Muslim Voice along with a few other �prominent� Valley Muslim leaders were then granted another meeting with the Arizona Republic�s leadership in November. The offensive cartoon with a bizarre and vague patronizing front page editorial by editor-in-chief, Marwan Ahmad, then followed in this month�s issue.

Looking at the cartoon, the Muslim Voice�s publisher and editor-in-chief, Marwan Ahmad seems to be expressing his paper�s opinion that the meetings were a complete waste of time since they were short a formal apology from the Republic. Never mind that Benson�s cartoon actually had many aspects to it which are painfully true for those Muslims willing to set aside their own denials that so many of their mosques are being used to indoctrinate an ideology which condones terror. This founder and former board chairman of the CAIR-AZ chapter wanted the Republic to apologize formally for Benson�s cartoon. Mr. Ahmad even goes further on his front page. Apparently referring to the meeting, he chastises the organizers (his CAIR officemates) stating (sic) �Being active and having connections then compromising in our behalf is not acceptable anymore without consulting the legitimate Muslim leaders and Imams of the community.�

While on the one hand complaining in the Muslim Voice’s same old victimization routine about racism and intolerance, the Muslim Voice then chooses, as it so often is want to do, a grotesquely offensive image of a fellow Muslim and a Republic cartoonist which is beyond hypocritical.

One must also realize that in the Arabic Muslim culture, to call someone or characterize him or her as a dog is to hurl at them one of the most offensive off-color curses one can imagine. Imagine then, the vile nature of characterizing a devout practicing activist Muslim and physician as not only a dog but one who enjoys cannibalizing imams? The ultimate question which must be asked is Why? What deserves this hatred? In fact interestingly, this writer never even participated in any of the meetings between this so-called Muslim leadership and the Republic.

With all that I have written and done in the public record in the effort of defending my faith of Islam against radicalism, terrorism, theocracy and Islamism, why such a deep seeded hatred? Why distribute it in all the mosques and ethnic markets in the Valley? I have been asking Mr. Ahmad and his circle of imams and Muslim community activists for years to speak out against radical and evil Muslims in Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Zarqawi, HAMAS and others by name rather than in platitudes. Their response has always been to deflect naming names as being �un-Islamic.� It appears that they would rather reserve the naming of names and labeling as a �dog� or kelb in the Arabic vernacular not for the ilk of Al Qaeda and the enemies of America but for an activist secular moderate Muslim.

It�s time for Mr. Ahmad and his sympathizers to articulate for us all what it exactly is about my writings and the activities of AIFD (the American Islamic Forum for Democracy) which deserves this ugly hate speech. The public debate is long overdue. It is time that the likes of Marwan Ahmad and his sympathizers in hatred against moderate secular Muslims be finally publicly pressured into an accounting of why vocally secular moderates and vocally anti-terror Muslims bring on their hatred. It reeks of the tired and pathetic technique of the Wahhabi lobby to vilify and demonize those who threaten their control the most rather than to deal with the core issues they raise.

Every advertiser in the Muslim Voice and every facility which distributes the hate speech in the Muslim Voice must answer for that support. Their business� advertising dollar and each mosque�s and market�s distribution permission is tacit support for Mr. Ahmad and his paper�s crude opinion and speech. Imagine what kind of outcry the Muslim Voice and the so-called Valley Muslim leadership would have if a non-Muslim paper or other media outlet in the U.S. referred to Muslims or Arabs as �dogs on a leash who enjoy devouring non-Muslims�.

As an honored appointee to the Human Relations Commission of the City of Phoenix, Mr. Marwan Ahmad must hold himself harmless to acts of racism against his fellow Arab and Muslim American. I guess I missed the Muslim Voice memorandum or perhaps even the Human Relations Commission memorandum which exempted hate-filled cartoons by Wahhabist sympathizing local community throw-away newspaper editors from the definition of anti-Muslim hate and intolerance which the commission was formed to fight. If this cartoon and ideology isn�t profiling, I�m not sure what is?

This throw-away paper is distributed freely at nearly every mosque in the Valley in addition to a vast number of ethnic markets, schools, and community colleges. The generally free large distribution to religious and ethnic centers while avoiding any free market pressures under which a more legitimate subscriber based newspaper would function has insulated its publisher from any subscriber based accountability to its readership. It is distributed generally freely and is apparently dependent wholly upon its advertisers. In a visit to most of the 10 mosques in the Valley one will find a stack well placed for distribution to all who attend.

The advertisers of the Muslim Voice need to wake up from their deep hibernation about the hate speech they continue to fund. The advertisers need to explain to their Valley business consumers why they are actively contributing financially to Mr. Ahmad�s type of hate against moderate Muslims. The businesses and mosques which are the venues of its distribution must understand that they are accomplices in its campaign of hate. These advertisers need to be accountable to their Valley neighborhoods and consumers for the type of propaganda and hate speech it spews on their streets.

The Muslim Voice�s publisher, Marwan Ahmad, may find this type of literature distributed readily in the mosques of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank against Muslim moderates there, but in the United States all who aid and abet his activities are accountable to the Arizona community at large in this secular democracy. While he may certainly have a first amendment right to distribute hate speech for some bizarre reason against defenders of moderate Islam, the greater Arizonan community also has a right to be painfully aware of the intolerance and radicalism of the Muslim Voice distributed in our own Valley. After all the years of circulation at Muslim and ethnic functions locally, its time for us all to wake-up to the reality of this so-called �Muslim Community Newspaper� and investigate the ideology which it really represents. God willing soon the entire Valley will be asking— does the ideology of the Muslim Voice represent the ideology of its advertisers and distributors? Is the Muslim Voice and its supporters a profound local liability in the war on hate and the war on terror and Islamofascism? This issue is too important locally to ignore any longer.

M. Zuhdi Jasser can be reached at Zuhdi@aifdemocracy.org

Think Globally, Act Locally-Local Muslim paper prints hate cartoon

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This monthﾒs issue of the print version of the local Arizona Muslim Voice, sadly the only Valley Muslim community newspaper in town, published a pathetically hate-filled half-page feature cartoon on page 2. This cartoon seen above could only be described as despicable hate speech. Why should this specific cartoon matter to non-Muslim Arizonans if it was only in a throw-away ethnic newspaper with a wide ethnic mostly immigrant distribution in Arizona, Nevada and California? Is it simply crude journalism from a throw away, or is it a manifestation of deep seeded hate speech and an ugly intolerance which is in dire need of the light of day? For some background, this offensive cartoon is the result of a three month saga where leadership from CAIR-AZ (Council on American-Islamic Relations- Arizona Chapter) gathered their own group of self-appointed Muslim activist leaders and imams to express their disdain for a July 31, 2005 Steve Benson cartoon which appeared in the Arizona Republic. Their initial meeting with the editors in September led to this bizarre accounting in the Muslim Voice. Not only was the veracity of this accounting suspect, but it became clear that their focus was not only Bensonﾒs single cartoon, but there was an inexplicably deep animosity for their fellow devout Muslim activist and columnist, this writer, M. Zuhdi Jasser. Apparently, CAIR-AZ which intimately shares an office with the Muslim Voice along with a few other ﾑprominentﾒ Valley Muslim leaders were then granted another meeting with the Arizona Republicﾒs leadership in November. The offensive cartoon with a bizarre and vague patronizing front page editorial by editor-in-chief, Marwan Ahmad, then followed in this monthﾒs issue. Looking at the cartoon, the Muslim Voiceﾒs publisher and editor-in-chief, Marwan Ahmad seems to be expressing his paperﾒs opinion that the meetings were a complete waste of time since they were short a formal apology from the Republic. Never mind that Bensonﾒs cartoon actually had many aspects to it which are painfully true for those Muslims willing to set aside their own denials that so many of their mosques are being used to indoctrinate an ideology which condones terror. This founder and former board chairman of the CAIR-AZ chapter wanted the Republic to apologize formally for Bensonﾒs cartoon. Mr. Ahmad even goes further on his front page. Apparently referring to the meeting, he chastises the organizers (his CAIR officemates) stating (sic) ﾔBeing active and having connections then compromising in our behalf is not acceptable anymore without consulting the legitimate Muslim leaders and Imams of the community.ﾔ While on the one hand complaining in the Muslim Voice’s same old victimization routine about racism and intolerance, the Muslim Voice then chooses, as it so often is want to do, a grotesquely offensive image of a fellow Muslim and a Republic cartoonist which is beyond hypocritical. One must also realize that in the Arabic Muslim culture, to call someone or characterize him or her as a dog is to hurl at them one of the most offensive off-color curses one can imagine. Imagine then, the vile nature of characterizing a devout practicing activist Muslim and physician as not only a dog but one who enjoys cannibalizing imams? The ultimate question which must be asked is Why? What deserves this hatred? In fact interestingly, this writer never even participated in any of the meetings between this so-called Muslim leadership and the Republic. With all that I have written and done in the public record in the effort of defending my faith of Islam against radicalism, terrorism, theocracy and Islamism, why such a deep seeded hatred? Why distribute it in all the mosques and ethnic markets in the Valley? I have been asking Mr. Ahmad and his circle of imams and Muslim community activists for years to speak out against radical and evil Muslims in Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Zarqawi, HAMAS and others by name rather than in platitudes. Their response has always been to deflect naming names as being ﾑun-Islamic.ﾒ It appears that they would rather reserve the naming of names and labeling as a ﾓdogﾔ or kelb in the Arabic vernacular not for the ilk of Al Qaeda and the enemies of America but for an activist secular moderate Muslim. Itﾒs time for Mr. Ahmad and his sympathizers to articulate for us all what it exactly is about my writings and the activities of AIFD (the American Islamic Forum for Democracy) which deserves this ugly hate speech. The public debate is long overdue. It is time that the likes of Marwan Ahmad and his sympathizers in hatred against moderate secular Muslims be finally publicly pressured into an accounting of why vocally secular moderates and vocally anti-terror Muslims bring on their hatred. It reeks of the tired and pathetic technique of the Wahhabi lobby to vilify and demonize those who threaten their control the most rather than to deal with the core issues they raise. Every advertiser in the Muslim Voice and every facility which distributes the hate speech in the Muslim Voice must answer for that support. Their businessﾒ advertising dollar and each mosqueﾒs and marketﾒs distribution permission is tacit support for Mr. Ahmad and his paperﾒs crude opinion and speech. Imagine what kind of outcry the Muslim Voice and the so-called Valley Muslim leadership would have if a non-Muslim paper or other media outlet in the U.S. referred to Muslims or Arabs as ﾑdogs on a leash who enjoy devouring non-Muslimsﾒ. As an honored appointee to the Human Relations Commission of the City of Phoenix, Mr. Marwan Ahmad must hold himself harmless to acts of racism against his fellow Arab and Muslim American. I guess I missed the Muslim Voice memorandum or perhaps even the Human Relations Commission memorandum which exempted hate-filled cartoons by Wahhabist sympathizing local community throw-away newspaper editors from the definition of anti-Muslim hate and intolerance which the commission was formed to fight. If this cartoon and ideology isnﾒt profiling, Iﾒm not sure what is? This throw-away paper is distributed freely at nearly every mosque in the Valley in addition to a vast number of ethnic markets, schools, and community colleges. The generally free large distribution to religious and ethnic centers while avoiding any free market pressures under which a more legitimate subscriber based newspaper would function has insulated its publisher from any subscriber based accountability to its readership. It is distributed generally freely and is apparently dependent wholly upon its advertisers. In a visit to most of the 10 mosques in the Valley one will find a stack well placed for distribution to all who attend. The advertisers of the Muslim Voice need to wake up from their deep hibernation about the hate speech they continue to fund. The advertisers need to explain to their Valley business consumers why they are actively contributing financially to Mr. Ahmadﾒs type of hate against moderate Muslims. The businesses and mosques which are the venues of its distribution must understand that they are accomplices in its campaign of hate. These advertisers need to be accountable to their Valley neighborhoods and consumers for the type of propaganda and hate speech it spews on their streets. The Muslim Voiceﾒs publisher, Marwan Ahmad, may find this type of literature distributed readily in the mosques of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank against Muslim moderates there, but in the United States all who aid and abet his activities are accountable to the Arizona community at large in this secular democracy. While he may certainly have a first amendment right to distribute hate speech for some bizarre reason against defenders of moderate Islam, the greater Arizonan community also has a right to be painfully aware of the intolerance and radicalism of the Muslim Voice distributed in our own Valley. After all the years of circulation at Muslim and ethnic functions locally, its time for us all to wake-up to the reality of this so-called ﾓMuslim Community Newspaperﾔ and investigate the ideology which it really represents. God willing soon the entire Valley will be asking— does the ideology of the Muslim Voice represent the ideology of its advertisers and distributors? Is the Muslim Voice and its supporters a profound local liability in the war on hate and the war on terror and Islamofascism? This issue is too important locally to ignore any longer. M. Zuhdi Jasser can be reached at Zuhdi@aifdemocracy.org ### [IMG51]

Saudis Have Radicalized 80% of U.S. Mosques – (The Jerusalem Post)

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Mainstream US Muslim organizations are heavily influenced by Saudi-funded extremists, according to Yehudit Barsky, an expert on terrorism at the American Jewish Committee. Worse still, Barsky told The Jerusalem Post last week, these “extremist organizations continue to claim the mantle of leadership” over American Islam. The power of the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam in the United States was created with generous Saudi financing of American Muslim communities over the past few decades. Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States “have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence,” Barsky said. Before the 1970s, she explained, “Muslim immigrants who came to the United States would build a store-front mosque somewhere. Then, since the 1970s, the Saudis have been approaching these mosques and telling them it wasn’t proper for the glory of Islam to build such small mosques.” For many Muslims, it seemed the Saudis were offering a free mosque. However, Barsky believes for each mosque they invested in, the Saudis sent along their own imam (teacher-cleric). “These [immigrants] were not interested in this [Wahhabi] ideology, and suddenly they have a Saudi imam coming in and telling them they’re not praying properly and not practicing Shari’a [Islamic law] properly.” This Saudi strategy was being carried out “all over the world, from America to Bangladesh,” with the Saudis investing $70-80 billion in the endeavor over three decades. Barsky, who heads the AJC’s Division on Middle East and International Terrorism and is the executive editor of Counterterrorism Watch, said this means that “the people now in control of teaching religion [to American Muslims] are extremists. Who teaches the mainstream moderate non-Saudi Islam that people used to have? It’s in the homes, but there’s no infrastructure. Eighty percent of the infrastructure is controlled by these extremists.” The same is true, Barsky said, of many of the mainstream Muslim organizations in America. Many of them are “pro-Saudi and pro-Muslim Brotherhood organizations.” As examples, she listed three important groups: the Islamic Society of North America, which “supports the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi regime;” the Islamic Circle of North America, which “is composed of members of Jamaat e-Islami, a Pakistani Islamic radical organization similar to the Muslim Brotherhood that helped to establish the Taliban;” and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), “founded in the 1980s by pro-Hamas activists.” [The remainder of the article can be found on the Jerusalem Post website at this link]