Dick Durbin's Hearings and Islamophobia
Steve Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism has published a critique on the up-coming Durbin hearings on anti-Muslim sentiment.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2719/durbin-flawed-hearing
It's hardly surprising that the ultra-liberal Durbin would jump on this bandwagon, especially after the King hearing, which was disappointing to say the least. Durbin's announcement also coincides with CNN's report which aired last night, "The Muslim next door". Soledad O'Brien's documentary focused on the controversy over the planned mosque to be built in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Though she interviewed several anti-mosque activists, the show was obviously partial to the Muslim community and their desire to build the mosque. Only one of the anti-mosque persons interviewed came across as a reasonable person-an age-old media tactic.
I don't know enough about the Murfreesboro story to form a complete opinion. I am not against the right of Muslims to build their places of worship though I do oppose the New York Ground Zero mosque project. One of the Muslims interviewed was a young girl born in Murfreesboro. She certainly seemed like a sympathetic figure, and it's hard not to feel for her.
What O'Brien's show did not address is why there is negative feeling towards Muslims in America. I am willing to concede that Islamophobia does, indeed, exist in America though I maintain that actual instances of hate crimes toward Muslims are very low-much lower thn acts of anti-Semitism in this country-many of which are fueled by Muslims.
For example, the CNN show did not address intolerance felt, preached and acted out by certain Muslims-even in America, let alone the Middle East and Europe. CNN did not address the fact that many, possibly even most mosques, preach a radical form if Islam-Wahhabism. Many sermons in mosques are in themselves quite hateful toward non-Muslims.
We don't even have to mention 9-11, Ft Hood and other uncovered or attempted terrorist plots here on American soil.
CNN also neglected to talk about activism on college campuses by Muslim Student Associations and their radical sponsored speakers, many of whom have said hateful things about America, the West and Jews. That is intolerance, and many Americans don't feel that they are bashing Muslims so much as they are refusing to tolerate intolerance itself.
In spite of all this, Americans, for the most part, have kept a pretty good rein on their anger, fear or mistrust. With rare exceptions, Muslims are not being subjected to violence or vandalism. In fact, as Emerson pointed out, the hate crime statistics for 2009 show nine times as many hate crimes directed toward Jews as Muslims. I wish that King or Durbin would hold hearings on the rise of anti-Semitism in America-principally on our campuses. Now that would be an eye-opener.
It is undeniable that many Islamic spokesmen have told us openly and brazenly that one day Islam will rule America under Shariah law. For Americans to react defensibly or angrily to that is not bigotry. That is something that the young lady in Murfreesboro needs to comes to terms with.
As for Murfreesboro, hopefully, people can come together and reach an accommodion. There will and should be close scrutiny on who becomes the imam if this mosque becomes reality. If it turns out that a radical imam takes over in Murfreesboro, then the fears of the opponents will be realized.
It would be great if Durbin and King would team up to do a hearing on politicization of religious sentiment in America -- including anti-Muslim vigilantism, anti-Semitism in the name of Islam, and and Roman Catholic clergy interfering with the privacy of the secret ballot or intimidating public officials in the conduct of their official duties. (Sen. Grassley should be on the team too -- Protestant charlatans running their church like a business).
There was some ant-Muslim violence after 9/ll, and ironically, the only death I know of was a Sikh gas station owner in Arizona, targeted because he wore a turban. This exemplifies how dangerous the blind emotionalism can be. Another sympathetic figure, although not in danger of being killed, was the fifth generation Muslim girl in Chicago who said that a small mob, eventually turned back by police, had marched on her mosque and "used my own flag against me." (She was referring to the flag with thirteen stripes and fifty stars).
Perhaps the reason no rational, sympathetic figure was presented in opposition to the Murfreesboro mosque is that only blind, irrational fools were raising objections. Sane rational people would be naturally standing up for the right of the Muslims concerned to build a place of worship on private property they had legally purchased, and applying the RLUIPA. That is quite similar to the Christians in a small town in Montana a few years ago who put up menorahs in their windows, after an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence by... not the Amish... not the Big Sky chapter of the MSA... but the Aryan Nations.
Squid said...
It is becoming very apparent that the hard-Left, Marxists, Communists, Progressives, ultra-Left, or what ever one wants to call these creators of rebellion are becoming strange bedfellows with the Islamists. Most of the Islamists are well organized through the Muslim Brotherhood and the hard-Left, et. al., are also well organized as we have experienced in the past months. Together, they make a very dangerous group that is not friendly to our American core values, put forth by our Founding Fathers. Durbin, a lefty, is no friend, as he is either complicit with the Islamists, or just plain ignorant of the threat that Sharia law poses to the U.S.
Miggie said...
Squid, there is not "hard left" in this country, and if there are any communists, I could count them on the fingers of my left hand. What you seem to refer to are a bunch of comfortably well-off middle class masochists eager to find an oppressed minority to flagellate themselves over. No class struggle involved.
Marxism would indeed be a strange bedfellow to Islamic theocrats and military jihadists -- like the Marxists who USED TO lead what passed for a Palestinian movement, not including Yassir Arafat. He was simply a bold kleptocrat who would have been at home in Chicago.
Siarlys,
Since about 1989, American communists have changed their spots because they know they would be laughed at of town if they called themselves communists. Now its progressives, socialists, peace activists, environmental activists and stuff like that.
Now you are not only being paranoid, but blind. Communists in America don't have enough sense to change their spots. In any event, they are generally hostile to all the causes you name, because said causes are championed by "social democrats," and as every good communist knows, "social democracy = social fascism."
I do work very hard not to let editors insert the word "progressives" into anything I write for publication, because it is such a meaningless, namby-pamby, infinitely elastic term, and it was at times used (long before 1989) by communists who didn't want to say "communist."
There have been peace activists and environmental activists for decades who were not communists, and a few who were. Communists didn't morph into any such thing. As we know, communists who got into power had a really bad environmental track record anyway.
There IS a rather odd history with regard to Israeli-Arab conflict. I used to know a Jewish senior citizens group who all stuck to communist party line on most things BUT had quit the party in 1948 specifically because it did a 180 degree turn from supporting Israel to supporting the "liberation" of "Palestine." The reason the line changed was simply that those socialist Zionist kibbutzniks decided they had more to gain taking aid from the U.S. with its large population of Jewish voters than from the USSR where Stalin was purging Jewish intellectuals from the party.
Yeah, back to the 1960s, when the military and terror operations against Israel were being carried out by people with some sort of leftist ideology, as distinct from the jihadists today, a lot of western communists, and various kinds of socialists (again, those are two different things) did back the "Arab cause." Stupid, but not highly relevant to jihadists today, and the silly gullible student crowds you keep panning grew up (if they did at all) after 1989.