Thread: Muslim American Society criticizes America

History: Once and Again
Date Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007
http://www.masnet.org/views.asp?id=4213

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Khalilah Sabra, Director MAS Freedom-NC
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

The Next Election Isn’t About Electing A President; it's About Preserving a Democracy

By Khalilah Sabra
Director, MAS Freedom-NC

RALEIGH, NC (Aug. 22, 2007) A new level of threat-consciousness is emerging in America, underlined by the events of 9/11 and ethnic transition. Fear, pessimism, and even dread, have created a decisive attitude concerning immigrants, and the Bush administration has done little to counter this attitude.

The Administration, in the absence of a comprehensive immigration overhaul sought by the President, moved earlier this month to toughen enforcement of existing laws. The lack of a bill and any reasonable reassurance has pressed immigrants to doubt that they should be hopeful.

The political machinery which controls the passage of an immigration bill rarely favors the less extreme forces of Congress. This inaction suggests a trend which could lead to a stronger force of repression. Our Supreme Court does not appear to be willing to render itself useful, consisting of appointees who were chosen for their willingness to defy Constitutional mandates, rather than the eminence of their guidance.

The chorus of disapproval against illegal immigrants and immigrants rights is louder than ever, while certain leaders show a total lack of insensitivity to the issues involved - the Attorney General lies to Congress about his wiretapping in front of an American people that are critically concerned about his illegal meddling, wiretapping and other forms of eavesdropping; and the President making light of his affinity to the "religious right" at a time when a nation’s stability may be decided on whether that affinity outweighs his affinity to justice.

Scores of association, ranging from mainstream to fringe groups, are shepherding forces in what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "a war here at home" against illegal immigration. He says the controversy is as significant as the warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While many of groups register widespread concerns about the impact of illegal immigration of Hispanics on jobs, social services; our National Security Council and intense rhetoric is generating fears of an impending terrorist attack, evident in growing discrimination against Middle Easterners and a surge of Islamophobia. All of this is only transcended by the executive resistance to obeying American and international laws that would end the archaic and sadistic acts of torture of detainees here and those rendered abroad.

"I don't think there's been a time like this in our lifetime," said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Even though immigration is always unsettling and somewhat controversial, we haven't had this kind of intensity and widespread, deep-seated anger for almost 100 years."

The reality of increased cruelty is consistently felt most keenly by both Hispanic and Arab minority groups, who see an absolute danger to their survival. Interfaith and other groups normally given to moderation and the counsel of forbearance and persistence are increasingly on the forefront, fearing imminent danger to human rights and moral intervention.

The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said the number of home grown extremist organizations advocating against legal and illegal immigration has grown from literally zero just over five years ago to 144, including a dozen classified as hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan supremacists.

Some senators who took part in the summer debate over President Bush's botched immigration bill said they were bombarded with some of the most malicious mail of their congressional careers. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who endorsed the bill that would have legalized illegal immigrants, said he has received death threats because of his position.

"It is unbelievable how this has inflamed the American people," McCain said in a speech at the Aspen Institute in Colorado.

The message here is that we are hearing things that we do not like, even those of us who refuse to listen well. Although we do not like what we are hearing, what is being said is not do to some misinterpretation and is unfortunately very true!

The debate over illegal immigration has been never-ending and seemingly intensified. As prospects for congressional action appeared increasingly in doubt this year, all 50 states have considered immigration restrictions, even though initial court rulings have declared such actions unconstitutional intrusions on federal responsibilities.

Nationwide, many states are considering increasing restriction on immigration by barring illegal immigrants from certain municipal services or prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.

There is no unethical endpoint to this kind of unjustified suppression of rights and freedoms. No monitored state is complete without surveillance, obstinate surveillance to the point of prying into the far recesses of the private lives of its people. Technology and force are the ingredients added to the formation of Homeland Security’s domestic spying. The police, security and military intelligence agencies of the Federal government are quietly compiling a mass of computerized files of hundreds of thousands of law abiding citizens.

We appear to be re-evolving into a society where we cease to identify with men who do not look like us, a natural inclination when selfishness is part of man’s nature. Social contract theorist contend that it is the selfish part of man’s nature, which makes it impossible for him to harm another man- with two exceptions: (1) mental illness, at least temporarily, or (2) a psychic conditioning that dehumanizes the human victim.

Abraham Lincoln once said that it was the duty of black people to leave America. "You and I are of different races." he said to one James McPherson, and continued, "We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is of great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence."

Lincoln was not soliciting the opinions of McPherson or any other in attendance. Racism was not to be a topic for debate as to whether it is founded on reality and justice. He was plainly, he said, presenting a truth: white people didn’t want black people in America and therefore black people would have to go.

"There is," Lincoln said, "an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us." He proposed a settlement in Central America and asked his guests to help him locate black settlers "capable of thinking as white men."

Abraham Lincoln was one of the most distinguished presidents but let us not attribute to him virtues he did not possess. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, not because he was a fighter for the freedom of black people and equal rights for all, but because it was to his political advantage to do so. His did so, moreover, only after the many years of resistance by the true emancipators of black people.

This president represented the masses who claim to love America, but clearly could not stand all Americans. Do we need to go there again?

Once these contradistinctions are accepted, exploitations become possible wherein grievance is based on inhumane interest. Once psychic conditioning has removed one man’s identity from another and he is predisposed to dehumanizing his intended victim.

The problem for Black people then and Arabs now was how to reconcile this fact with an admonition made by Frederick Douglass during the days of slavery and oppression- "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will be imposed upon them…"

In was later during the civil rights era that Blacks came to see what many Middle Easterners still cannot: If equal equality is to come, they must help to bring it! Finding freedom meant being free! In order to get something, you have to give. With this understanding came protest, freedom rides and other forms of civil disobedience.

Obviously, we are responsible for each other’s welfare. Without a measure of solidarity and compassion, no society will be secure. Security depends on human rights and adhering to the rule of law. Still, those most likely to be profiled and detailed cannot pretend to believe that serious changes can occur within their lives, filled with pain and degradation, without their apathetic response being altered. It is not complicated at all. It is an obvious and straightforward matter of a politically asphyxiated people to summon up the courage to denounce the treatment that is being bounced around their heads. Say: "We demand the rights guaranteed to all people of the United States!"

The fine disconnection along lines of time and place has, perhaps, assisted in the process of disassociation. As human beings we tend to deal with things in their close proximity only, separating the bond of solidarity, or the chain of commitment, the moment we have moved away from time and solution.

The Syrian, who lives in the suburbs cares a lot about his former countrymen and senses a wave of intense sympathy every evening as he watches coverage on Al-Jazeera: Sympathy does not "vanish" – but loses deepness, determination, seriousness every day as he returns to his new reality that offers a safe haven from which he has escaped.

The continuous level of profiling and ethnic discrimination is not a force of nature. Inequality is not a passive mistake. It is an unauthorized act that goes against the provisions of the Bill of Rights. However, far too many Americans tend to accept it as something necessary, perhaps the fault of those who come from "those" far way places.

Rarely does anything of value come free! Those who are content to undergo political suicide without a response within a society that prides itself on being a democracy can probably be counted on, as well, to look upon the colonization of their brothers in far away lands also in a passive state of mind. Which of us have the courage to restore for others what we do not feel it worth our while reviving for ourselves?

Conquered before convicted, detained and tried by military tribunals in violation of moral and international law are the consequence of Egyptian style dictatorships, but not democracies. Detainees, ill from health complications and mistreatments that cause mental derangement are expected to be found within Syrian cellblocks, not in a country which appeals to the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

It may well be there have been in other places, other social orders, or in other times, in which the risk were so great that these kind of problems could not be fought. In situations like this it may not be of great importance to stage a sit in or march in front of a legislative building; or demonstrate in a form that would create a lot of difficulty for other human beings. There are, however, times and places where thousands of protesters and ten million voters are worth hundreds of politicians whose promises become paper milestones.

Americans cannot pretend to live in a great society if they are not willing to fight the fights that are worth fighting.

There are people genuinely disenfranchised and underrepresented, residing here in America. They are hungry for even the crumbs off of democracy’s table; the majority of them are children. It is these crumbs, pure and simple, that have made their place in life pathetic. It is the same situation for millions of children all over the world, but this is America! Looking at these facts objectively, it is hard not to wonder whether we did not export our democracy a long time ago and now do not have a very much of it left for our own citizens. It is certain that we do not have a great deal of it to spare for immigrants.

The next time Americans avoid going to the polls, remember that the next election isn’t about electing a president; it is about preserving a democracy. Those of you who don’t are endangering the ability of some of the most desperate people of the world the opportunity to find real "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." You are endangering their right to a place called home.


Contact MASF toll-free at 1-888-627-8471 or by sending an email to MAS4Freedom@aol.com.
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MAS Freedom (MASF) is a civic and human rights advocacy entity and sister organization of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America – with 55 chapters in 35 states. Learn more at http://www.masnet.org.
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MAS Freedom
3606 Forest Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302
Tel: 1-(88-627-8471
Fax: (703) 998-6526
URL: http://www.masnet.org/index_publicaffairs.asp
Email: MAS4Freedom@aol.com

I’ll vote for giving them all the footbaths they want at the airports. But they can only be used on their way TO the airplane!

Originally Posted by MadInChicago

I’ll vote for giving them all the footbaths they want at the airports. But they can only be used on their way TO the airplane!

.....and with a "one way" ticket.

Related to this topic, read what a National Review writer says about CAIR and the Holy Land Foundation — the biggest Islamic charity in the United States:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Ym ... gyNzFjNzA=

Originally Posted by Populist

Related to this topic, read what a National Review writer says about CAIR and the Holy Land Foundation — the biggest Islamic charity in the United States:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Ym ... gyNzFjNzA=

Dose this mean we no longer have to put up with their BS? Their credibility (as if they had any) is now publicly crap!

I have no respect for CAIR or any other terrorist organization.

Americans aren't particularly fond of ethno-centric religious bents that want to destroy us and I guess they will have to accept the fact that there is no handbook that tells us which one, with the turbin on, is a terrorist and which one is just confused about which country they want to be a part of. We are also sick of being constantly harassed because we just want to protect ourselves. Maybe you should be talking to the ones trying to blow us all up instead of chastising Americans for not being tolerant and PC enough.

I'm also sick of hearing about detainees. Recently one of the ones they were pressured to release was killed in a battle in Afghanistan. One of the ones that was all innocent!! All the BS about torture when the Red Cross and half the bleeding hearts in the world are standing there just waiting for something to crucify us over. This torture garbage is pure propaganda.

Notice NOT ONE WORD is said in this article about people being beheaded, tortured by those madmen who are proponents of the same religion. It's the entire fault of ISLAMIC madmen that we have all these precautions that you call restrictions on freedom. LIVE WITH IT.

The sheep do not have an ounce of hate for the wolf, the sheep just don't want to be eaten.

...... our National Security Council and intense rhetoric is generating fears of an impending terrorist attack, evident in growing discrimination against Middle Easterners and a surge of Islamophobia.

Lady, then why the **** don't you just take your headscarf and leave! Who invited you and your fellow terrorists here in the first place? It sure as he11 wasn't me.