The March of BIGOTRY

Will the rising tempo of Islamophobia lead to greater hardships for Muslims in North America? BY RAMADAN ALIG

The e-mail inbox of "Islamic Horizons" receives dozens of messages every day ... messages of hope, accomplishment, and eagerness to contribute to society. But since 9/11, it has also been receiving messages of hate, such as "Look to the horizon, you rag-headed [expletives]; Christianity and us all Americans will run you; [expletives] hide-behind women and shoot [expletives] out of our country ... go back to [expletives] in Tehran ... YOU CAMEL HUMPIN [expletive] ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY COUNTRY."

Unsurprisingly, the annual report issued on Sept. 18 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (www.cair.com/pdf/2006-CAIR-Civil-Rights-Report.pdf), a national Muslim advocacy organization, said that it had noted a 30 percent jump in reports of anti-Muslim incidents. It attributes this worrying trend to the increasingly "negative and politically charged" environment on the Internet and talk radio. During 2005, CAIR received 1,972 complaints of harassment, violence, and discriminatory treatment, up from 1,522 in 2004.

The number of complaints is the highest since CAIR began issuing the report after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when self-styled "terrorism expert" Steven Emerson blamed that incident on Muslims. As we remember, this action was carried out by Timothy McVeigh, a white American man who was raised in a Catholic family.

"We're seeing a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric fed by the Internet and also on talk radio," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said at a news conference. "You can't turn on the radio without hearing negative, bigoted comments about Islam."

Nihad Awad, CAIR executive director, believes that the driving force behind such incidents is ignorance about Islam. A November 2005 CAIR survey showed that 10 percent of Americans believe that Muslims worship a moon god.

Bigotry continues to raise its head, as the wave of Islamophobia continues to grow. To a large extent, it is being generated by certain sections of the media as well as political and religious leaders, including many in the government. Pope Benedict XVI only exacerbated the situation by repeating the ill-informed opinion of a obscure and largely forgotten fourteenth-century Christian king and then refusing to offer any meaningful apology.

Despite the rising cacophony of hate, both Muslims and leaders of other faith communities continue to strive for understanding. On 21 January 2006, a group of Muslim women in northern Virginia held a fundraiser to help repair the damage done to church properties in Pakistan after a personal feud between a Christian and a Muslim exploded into mob violence. In North America, many churches readily rent and even volunteer their premises to Muslims for the Friday and Eid prayers. However, only one day after this fundraising event, the Islamic center in northwest Austin, TX, was vandalized. Interestingly, the culprits left behind a hate message directed toward Jews on the marquee. Imam Safdar Razi of the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association and his congregation were a little confused about the culprits' intent.

On 12 August, the home of Saqib Ali, who is hoping to become Maryland's 39th District delegate to the state legislature, was confronted by a protester wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: "This mind is an Allah-free zone." He allegedly used Islamophobic slurs when the candidate and his wife took photos of his sign, which read "Islam sucks."

During the first weekend of August, Iqbal Singh, a 66-year-old Sikh living in Santa Clara, CA, was stabbed by Everett Thompson, 25, who thought he was a member of the Taliban. Singh was wailing outside his home with his 2-year-old granddaughter before heading to the temple. Jay Boyarsky, Santa Clara County's supervising deputy district attorney in charge of the hate crimes unit, said: "There are indications that he (Thompson) was seeking to avenge 9/11 and to kill a member of the Taliban."

Another Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was the nation's first fatal victim of a hate crime after 9/11. On 15 Sept. 2001, he was at his gas station in Mesa, AZ, when he was shot by a man who shouted: "I stand for America all the way!" as he was being handcuffed. He later told police that all Arabs should be shot and that he wanted to "slit some Iranians' throats."

The Melville, NY-based Nutritional Health Alliance, which represents dietary supplement makers, was unhappy over Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin's efforts to require them to report serious side effects of their products. In retaliation, it distributed a flier entitled "Keep Congressional Terrorists At Bay." Of course, it came with a photo of the 61-year old Durbin wearing a turban!

On 27 Sept. 2005, Elk Grove, IL, School District officials allegedly allowed FBI agents to remove a 16-year-old high school student from his class and grill him without first notifying his parents. The FBI interview concerned a doodle of the acronym "PLO" (the Palestine Liberation Organization) that he had scribbled on a binder two years earlier. According to CAIR, the "FBI allegedly asked how the student knew about the PLO, whether he was familiar with the investigation of several Muslims in Lodi, whether he had ever traveled to Palestine, and whether he had pictures of terrorists on his cell phone. (In fact, the student had only a picture of a mosque as his phone's background display.) The entire experience left the student badly shaken, and he has since been hesitant about expressing his political views in any context.

A large plywood sign was posted outside Masjid Abu BakrSiddque in southeast Houston, claiming that Muslims are America's enemy. Its authors also attempted to defame Prophet Muhammad. On Feb. 3, a woman walked into the Islamic Center of Claremont (ICC) in Pomona, CA, and left a threat: "We will kill every last one of you; we are at war." The death threat posted on the mosque's pulpit was decorated with drawings of the Christian cross and signed with her name and thumbprint. ICC vice president Radwan Hafuda reported that the woman, who was not named, then walked back through the mosque, turned to a Muslim woman present there, and said: "You see this face? Remember this face. I'll be back." A security camera, inside the mosque, recorded the incident.

CAIR reports that vandalism or other possible bias-related incidents have been reported recently at mosques in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Ohio, California, and New York, Islamophobic incidents continue to be reported daily.