OPINION: Terror Recuitment by Remote Control ...

One of my all-time favourite movies is The Naked Gun. For those who can’t recall the plot, an LA businessman (played by the late Ricardo Montalban of Fantasy Island fame) is hired by terrorists determined to have Queen Elizabeth II assassinated. His solution? A special key ring with a button that, when pressed, will turn anyone into an unwilling assassin.

And in case you thought this only happens in hilariously bad comedies, now al-Qaeda is using the same strategy in its jihad against anyone who isn’t them. Al-Qaeda’s slaughter of tens of thousands of Muslims in Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan obviously hasn’t convinced Muslims to join its cause. Hence it has had to resort to
remote control non-Muslim wingnuts in the United States to help things along.

One of them is a goofy pastor from Florida named Terry Jones who wanted to gather his flock to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of September 11. Jones thought this crazy act would somehow send a message to crazy suicide bombers.

President Obama agreed. Except that he thought the event would be a “recruitment
bonanza for al-Qaeda” and similar groups looking for even more people crazy enough to “blow themselves up” in American, European, Middle Eastern, Asian etc cities. As if the Americans bombing Middle Eastern and Asian cities isn’t enough incentive.

Of course, Muslims who understand their faith will understand that no amount of burning Qurans will have any effect on the book’s appeal to its believers. They believe the promise contained in the Quran’s text that God will preserve and protect the Quran.

Muslims who understand their faith will know this. But here’s the bad news. There are lots of Muslims who don’t understand their faith very well at all. There are Muslims whose dictators, kings, emirs and presidents-for-life hold special key rings. At the press of a button, thousands are transformed into nutty crowds that behave like attendees at a KKK rally.

We all saw how much damage these crazies did in response to the Danish cartoons. And - in a touch of irony - the Danish cartoonist who drew the most offensive one - depicting the Prophet wearing a bomb for a turban - has also come out and condemned the Florida pastor.

In fact, it’s hard to find anyone who won’t condemn the nutty pastor. Sarah Palin has
refudiated him, as has Angela Merkel of Germany and David Cameron of Britain. One Indian politician has even asked media not to print or broadcast images of the event.

Perhaps the wisest words came from a French government spokesman who declared the event would be a grave insult to the 9/11 victims and their families.

For one victim, this especially rings true. On the morning of September 11 2001, Baraheen Ashrafi joined her husband Mohammad Chowdhury for morning prayers and recitation of the Quran. He then left for his work as a waiter at the Windows of the World restaurant, on the top floors of Tower One. Reciting the Quran was one of their last acts together.

Pastors burning Qurans and wingnuts protesting outside proposed mosques won’t reduce Baraheen’s pain. Still, those who share the same types of hatred as terrorists would hardly care for the sentiments of victims.

First published in the Crescent Times Issue 23, September 2010.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Second Column in Crescent Times ...

The Chicago Tribune and LA Times may have gone bust, but the Perth-based Crescent Times just keeps getting published! The Second Edition of the newspaper has just been released, and you can read it online here. My first column can be read here. And in a rare act of deference to my ego, here is my second "Planet Irf" column ...

________________

Could it really be true? Or am I just dreaming? I’m still pinching myself to make sure I’m awake.

Apparently American voters have just voted overwhelmingly for a President named ... wait for it ... Barack Hussein Obama.

Anyone who has been watching the election coverage and seen videos (some of which are on my blog) of Republican Party activists talking about Obama being Muzzlem and Ay’rab will probably share my surprise at an outcome American pollsters were saying for weeks wouldn’t be a surprise. Then again, I didn’t trust the unanimous Australian pollsters who last year predicted John Howard would not just lose the election but also his own seat.

Back at school, my Divinity teacher used to tell us that Jesus, a completely innocent man, died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. And in the US election, I expected Barack Obama to die a political death and pay the price for the prejudice and innuendo Arab and Muslim Americans have had to put up with for years. Thankfully, Obama wasn’t crucified at the polls.

But had Obama lost, I wonder what it would have been like for Americans of Arab descent and/or Islamic faith. Just as I wonder what would have happened if that honest Young Liberal campaigning in the Western Sydney seat of Lindsay had not tipped off the ALP about those nasty Alah Akba pamphlets being stuffed in voters’ letterboxes.

The innuendo Arabs and Muslims collectively faced from certain segments of the Republican Party must have made them feel like foreigners in their own country. If Obama had lost, many would have become totally disillusioned with the political process. American Arabs and Muslims in the Republican Party must have felt (and perhaps still feel) rather uncomfortable.

The question I want to address is this - how should American Muslims, indeed any Muslims living in Western democracies, respond to such prejudice?

I might have some ability to contribute to this discussion, having spent some 10 years in a relatively conservative Australian political party. This included running as a candidate in a federal seat in the House of Representatives in the months soon after the September 11 attacks. By 2003, my financial membership had lapsed.

At present, the NSW Liberal Party (of which I was once a member) seems to be following in the footsteps of the US Republicans, dominated by fringe ultra-conservative religious people. At one time, such people would have been happy for me to join precisely because I was Muslim. Some conservatives are both anti-Semitic and homophobic, and assume that someone of my background would share their prejudices.

It’s no longer trendy in far-Right circles (as it once was) to marginalise and despise gays and Jews. These days, marginalising Muslims has become the norm. The British National Party and other neo-Fascists have overnight become the biggest supporters of Israel on the planet. But their support is less about healing the wounds their ideological ancestors inflicted on the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Rather, it’s a case of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. They assume that all Jews and/or Zionists hate Muslims.

So here’s my solution to prejudice - prove the agents of prejudice wrong. Yes, Muslims have a soft spot for the Palestinians (as indeed do many Jews, especially in Israel). But that doesn’t mean we should assume all Jews have an anti-Muslim agenda. We should leave this kind of simplistic logic to simpletons who attend Republican Party rallies or who seek to take over the NSW Liberals.

That means we should build networks with like-minded people. And under no circumstances should we tolerate any group in society to be marginalised.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Obama's not-Muslim obsession

Here's an awfully silly, immature and almost racist joke ...

What did Hillary say when she found out she lost the final vote in Democratic Party primaries? "Oh bummer!"

Yes, I admit this is exceptionally lame. Poking fun at people's names is as bad as casting aspersions on their religion. Or casting aspersions on the religions of others.

Which makes me wonder why Barack Obama is so-damned intent on keeping away from Muslim American voters. Isn't he aware that some of these voters delivered victory to George W Bush in 2000? And what does it say about the allegedly inclusive America he wants to lead? Does Obama's view of social inclusion have its limits?

Ethnic and religious minorities across America are asking these questions. Is Obama's idea of inclusion limited by the types of exclusion practised by his political enemies? If neo-Cons despise a particular group, will Obama avoid that group in an effort to avoid being labelled by his political enemies?

Or is this an issue of past ghosts coming back to haunt? Many neo-Con writers such as Ann Coulter express hatred for anything related to Islam more because of their past relationships with Muslims than anything else. Mark Steyn also fits into this category. Barack Obama has perhaps better reason to resent Islam if he associates it with his father and step-father.

Whatever the reason, Obama's reluctance to embrace voters of all backgrounds is beginning to worry members of a range of minority groups. Writing in the Detroit Free Press, Jewish-American writer Emily Hauser expresses her discomfort with Obama ...

I am a Jewish American and an enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter. I can't tell you how much I hope he'll be our next president.

But for all my longing for change and insistence that "yes we can," there's a bee in my bonnet, a sense of real dissonance between the Obama rhetoric and the reality: the Muslim thing.

Not the idea that he might be one. No, what has me so bothered is that an American presidential candidate acts as if the word "Muslim" were a slur. And according to recent reports, the Muslim community is feeling the sting, too ...

... the campaign discusses, endlessly, the candidate's Christianity; the third item on its "Fight the Smears" Web site reads: "Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim." Months ago, Michelle Obama characterized references to her husband's middle name, Hussein, a "fear bomb," and recently, two Muslim women were kept from standing behind him at a rally.

Honestly, there's something noxious in all this - as if Obama isn't proudly declaring his own faith, but running as fast as he can from the other ...

I wish that rather than hand out pamphlets declaring him a "committed Christian," Obama had held a prayer breakfast with an Imam; rather than trumpet his own faith, he'd found some praise for that of 1 billion Muslims around the globe.

Or, in the words of Keith Ellison, a Muslim and a congressman from Minnesota: "A lot of us are waiting for him to say that there's nothing wrong with being a Muslim."

In his "Yes We Can" speech, Obama echoed a powerful Jewish notion: tikkun olam, repairing the world -- an idea that embraces not just the physical world, but the people in it, and our relationships.

To my mind, it would be a real step toward repairing the world if Obama were now to consider an equally powerful, Muslim concept: "Allah will put friendship between you and those who have been your enemies. Allah is mighty, forgiving, and merciful."

Obama's campaign team would do well to read and take note of Hauser's sentiments. His attempts to distance himself with one unpopular minority could land him in trouble with other potentially unpopular minorities.

UPDATE I: You can read more about Obama's Muslim problem at AltMuslim.com here.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf