Category Archives: USA

‘Islam-phobia’ abounds in post 9/11 America

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Nearly a third of Muslims in the United States are Black. However, ‘Islam-phobia’ – negative images and buzz words that produce stereotyping, physical and verbal attacks, and racial profiling of Muslims of color, including Muslims of African descent – has exploded in this country since the events of September 11, 2001.”

Charles Hallman reports on a panel discussion on media perceptions and misperceptions on Islam during the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Indianapolis earlier this month.

Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, 30 August 2006

Don’t penalise all Britons – just Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Americans are at last waking up to the threat posed by British-born Islamists…. The fact that Americans are worried is gratifying. This column was among the first to warn about the radicalization of the British Muslim community. But there is a risk that, having ignored the danger hitherto, Americans may now overreact by penalizing all Britons, not just the minority who really do threaten security.

“It is true that opinion polls show that a significant proportion of British Muslims have at least some sympathy for jihadist extremism, and that even their leaders are unwise or unscrupulous enough to use the threat of terrorism to put pressure on Tony Blair to abandon his support for America and Israel. It is also true, however, that the overwhelming majority of non-Muslim Britons are just as hostile to Islamist terrorism as Americans.

“Even more significantly, the British – like the Americans – are now much more concerned about Islam than was the case five years ago. They no longer believe the assurances of ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders or their non-Muslim apologists that Islam is a religion of peace. People are much better informed and understand that there is a real problem about Islamic theology, which is constantly used to justify jihad against America, Britain and Israel, while suicide ‘martyrs’ are glorified.

“About half of all Britons now see Islam as such, not merely its most extreme versions, as a potential threat to their way of life – not before time. It is not only the war on terror that has to be won; there is a culture war, too. This involves resisting the encroachments of aggressive multiculturalism, which acts as a Trojan horse for Muslim demands to live under Shariah law or to censor legitimate criticism or comment.”

Daniel Johnson in the New York Sun, 31 August 2006

Western Union blocks Muslims’ transfer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Western Union, a global money transfer agency, has delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries by American Muslims on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed, drawing rebuke from the community as a yet another form of identity harassment.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights advocacy in the US, insisted that the department has the right to fight terrorism, but not over Arab and Muslim Americans rights.

“A comprehensive policy has to be implemented by the Treasury Department to ensure accuracy in efforts to fight terrorism and stop funneling of money to terrorists,” Husam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR Los Angeles chapter, told IOL.

“But at the same time, those Americans who have not committed any wrongdoing must be able to transfer money without any problems or delays,” he stressed.

Ayloush said CAIR’s national office has met with Western Union to eliminate errors and ensure innocent individuals are able to transfer money without any fears or obstacles.

“We also urged Western Union to change its forms to include the first name, last name and middle initial of the sender and the recipient to help reduce false positives that could delay money transfers otherwise,” he added.

“CAIR also filed an FOIA request with the Treasury Department to become aware of what procedures are used to put the list together.”

Iman al-Asyouti believes these regulations seem like an accusation for every single Muslim American. “It means that they [the government] treat us as terrorists until we could prove the opposite,” she said. “It seems like a joke to me and I still can’t believe that things like this are happening here, in America,” she fumed.

Islam Online, 30 August 2006

Fascism is new buzz word among Republicans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

President Bush in recent days has recast the global war on terror into a “war against Islamic fascism”. Fascism, in fact, seems to be the new buzz word for Republicans in an election season dominated by an unpopular war in Iraq.

Bush used the term earlier this month in talking about the arrest of suspected terrorists in Britain, and spoke of “Islamic fascists” in a later speech in Green Bay, Wis. Spokesman Tony Snow has used variations on the phrase at White House press briefings. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., in a tough re-election fight, drew parallels on Monday between World War II and the current war against ‘‘Islamic fascism,” saying they both require fighting a common foe in multiple countries. It’s a phrase Santorum has been using for months. And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday took it a step further in a speech to an American Legion convention in Salt Lake City, accusing critics of the administration’s Iraq and anti-terrorism policies of trying to appease “a new type of fascism”.

The White House on Wednesday announced Bush would elaborate on this theme in a series of speeches beginning Thursday at the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City and running through his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19. “The key is that all of this violence and all of the threats are part of one single ideological struggle, a struggle between the forces of freedom and moderation, and the forces of tyranny and extremism”, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters traveling with Bush aboard Air Force One.

Conservative commentators have long talked about “Islamo-fascism”, and Bush’s phrase was a slightly toned-down variation on that theme.

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Britain is ‘a hornets’ nest of Islamic extremists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Daily Mail editorialises about the claim in the US magazine New Republic that Britain now presents a greater security threat to the United States than Iran or Iraq:

“Which country poses the greatest threat to America’s homeland security: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea? None of the above, according to a growing body of opinion across the Atlantic. The answer, say many American pundits, is the United Kingdom.

“At first sight, this looks outrageously ungrateful. After all, aren’t British troops dying every week, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, for an American foreign policy slavishly followed by Tony Blair? Yet the more you think about the charge – spelt out in the current New Republic magazine and echoed by American think-tanks of every persuasion – the more truth you can see in it. Hasn’t Britain indeed become, in the words of Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation, ‘a hornets’ nest of Islamic extremists’? How have we let this come about?

“Much of the answer lies in our authorities’ spineless refusal to confront Islamic extremism for fear of being thought anti-Muslim. Americans gape in disbelief when our senior policemen’s first reaction to every terrorist atrocity is to try to appease religious extremists. Or when Ministers employ apologists for terrorism as special advisers to the Foreign Office.”

Daily Mail, 30 August 2006

Hopefully, Mockbul Ali will sue.

Media and politicians incite Islamophobia in the West

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The banning of Muslim prayer from planes and the demands that Muslims should carry special IDs is showing the rapid rate at which Islamophobia is spreading in the Western world.

Islamophobia, quickly increasing following the Sept. 11 attacks has now reached dangerous levels. According to the Gallup Research company, 39 percent of American citizens believe that Muslims should carry a special ID card in society. The occurrence of two events after the revelation of these frightening poll results, however, increased anxiety about the issue.

A U.S. citizen and Muslim, Ahmed Faruk, was kicked out of a plane for praying in his seat. In another event, two passengers were prevented from boarding a flight bound for England from Spain after pressure from the other passengers. The other passengers complained that the two people were terrorists, basing their accusations only on their Middle Eastern appearance.

American specialists speaking to Zaman said that it was politicians and the media which were contributing to the rise of Islamophobia in the West. Joseph Grieboski, Institute on Religion and Public Policy Chairman, said: “The media does nothing to help demonstrate the positive impact of Islam in the U.S.” National Council of Churches (NCC) Chief Bob Edgar said there were two groups that were doing adding pressure on the Islamic religion: the U.S. Government and the Christian religious right. Edgar added “Unfortunately, our government spends more time with the far evangelical Christian right.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Research Center Director Mohamed Nimer emphasized that the U.S. Government did not acknowledge that Islamophobia was an epidemic and serious problem. Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University said there is a “strong and growing” Islamophobic minority in the U.S.

Zaman, 28 August 2006

Muslim groups in the UK – the New York Times investigates

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The groups have drawn renewed attention since the arrests and charges this month in what the British police contend was a plot by Muslims, all of them British citizens, to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners. Anthony Glees, director of the Brunel University Center for Intelligence and Security Studies in London, said: ‘These groups are essentially Islamist cults, hidden communities, open only to “believers” who exist within open communities.’ … Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, along with successor groups to Al Muhajiroun (an organization in London that was ostensibly disbanded in 2004) and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, are engaged in some of the most aggressive activities to recruit followers, British terrorism experts said.”

The “British terrorism experts” include Anthony Glees and Shiraz Maher – who are exactly the people you’d talk to if you wanted to blur the distinctions between Muslim groups with completely different politics and associate them all with terrorism.

New York Times, 29 August 2006

U.S. wages of Arab, Muslim men fell after 9/11: study

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The earnings of Arab and Muslim men working in the United States dropped about 10 percent in the years following the 9/11 attacks, according to a new study. The drop in wages was most dramatic in areas that reported high rates of hate crimes, according to the study due to be published in the Journal of Human Resources.

The study measured changes in wages of first- and second-generation immigrants, from countries with predominantly Arab or Muslim populations from September 1997 to September 2005. It then compared them to changes in the wages of immigrants with similar skills from other countries.

The average wage was approximately $20 an hour ahead of the attacks in 2001 and dropped by $2 an hour after them, Robert Kaestner, co-author of the study and a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of economics, said on Thursday. That drop persisted through 2004 but showed signs of abating in 2005, he said.

“I was surprised,” Kaestner said. “We see an immediate and significant connection between personal prejudice and economic harm.”

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Calling them Islamic fascists can’t help

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“After 9/11, President Bush described our fight against terrorism as a ‘crusade’ – a statement he later retracted. In his first press conference after the recently thwarted terrorist plot to blow up planes flying from Britain to the United States, the president said, ‘This nation is at war with Islamic fascists.’

“The phrase ‘Islamic fascists’ has drawn the ire of the American Muslim community. We use ‘Islamic ethics’ to mean ethics based on Islamic teachings that guide our behavior. Similarly, Islamic art draws its inspiration from Islamic teachings that discourage certain types of art (immodest imagery or certain life forms). When the president uses ‘Islamic fascists’, it conveys that fascism is rooted in or inspired by Islam. This is the way the Muslims see it, regardless of what Bush may claim he really means.

“Bush earlier said that Islam is a religion of peace. Now, caving in to extreme right-wing pressure, he’s equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism. Such rhetoric contributes to fear of and backlash against American Muslims. A recent Gallup poll shows four out of 10 Americans feeling ‘prejudiced’ against Muslims.”

Parvez Ahmed of CAIR at Scripps News, 24 August 2006