I went to a PROMUDA talk last night entitled "Social and Economic Issues affecting Muslims in the United States and Worldwide Post 9-11" sponsored by the United States Embassy and Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The main speaker was Dr Malik Hassan, Chairman of CAMU, with an opening address by Mr Robert A Pollard, Deputy Ambassador to Malaysia. Panelists included Dato' Dr. Ismail Ibrahim, former Chairman of the National Fatwa Council and Karim Raslan. Suffice to say that the tone of the night was patronising.
It began with Mr Pollard's speech as he struggled to thread together some commonality between America and last night's audience by focusing on globalisation as a common element that all nations need to deal with. He set the foundation for discussion by defining what the US government defines terrorism as (acts of violence against non-combatant targets...) and declared the government's love for Islam (ok, I'm exaggerating here, but it gets better later in the night).
Dr Malik spent almost half of his allotted time talking about the registration process Muslim immigrants had to go through in the US with the INS, focusing on excusing mix-ups and unnecessary jail-time for these Muslims to computer failure. He said that there was no way for INS officers to determine if a Muslim was a suspected terrorist if the system went down, because most have common names such as Muhammad and Abdullah. For those who were kept overnight in jail, his message to them was, "Blame your parents for giving you such names".
I will not go into the details of his subsequent arguments, which was riddled with unbelievably skewed views of world history. This was addressed by Karim Raslan and other PROMUDians in an emotional panel session.
My contribution to this is on how little American awareness of their place in this world has changed in my lifetime. Sometime in the mid-80s, I experienced first-hand how media spin and public opinion reflected the ignorance of America's population of Islam as a major world religion. During the murder investigation of Dr Ismail Al-Faruqi, I remembered the anger of the local Muslim community in Philadelphia of news reports accusing Dr Ismail of homosexuality based on frequent gathering of males in his home. We Muslims call these gatherings 'usrah's and yes, it is gender-segregated as Islam does not allow free mixing of the sexes. As far as I can recall, no attempt was made to correct this error.
Ever since 9-11, news reports generated by Western,especially American media, is riddled with the same level of absurd lack of research and understanding when it comes to reporting news on the Muslim world. This was somewhat made more bearable at one point as world attention was shifted to Al-Jazeera news, but again, what is one news agency?
Last night, this appeared again as Dr Malik indirectly ridiculed 2 of the most sacred names in Islam - Muhammad, our prophet and Abdullah, his father, as he excused the American government's treatment of Muslims in the US during the INS registration process.
Dr Malik declared his opposition to the American government's pro-Israeli policies, yet he said that he 'understands'. He said that we Muslims should embrace this 'gift', the fact that America will attack Iraq to 'save' Iraqis from their tyrant. Dr Ismail Ibrahim made a poignant remark when he asked the question: Will the US come to the rescue of the 60% of the world population who are current living under oppression in some form or another? Karim Raslan was eloquent in his reaction to these and many other arguments which was transparent in its attention to garner Malaysian support for the US cause. So was the other PROMUDians who spoke up, even those who felt that we should have been better hosts.
To those still sitting on the fence, or in support of US action against Iraq, it should no longer matter that those are Muslim lives. No one likes a bully. If the US can find cause with Iraq, there is nothing stopping them from moving across the Axis of Evil and expanding that axis as they see fit.
Posted by Najah Nasseri at 2003年02月27日 13:20