We last got together about ten days ago, when I put up a story that hoped to explain to the Islamic world that, Qur'an burning aside, we don't really hate either them, or our own Constitution.
I pointed out that, just like everywhere else, about 20% of our population are idiots, that this means about 60,000,000 of us might, at any time, be inclined to burst into fits of random stupidity, such as the desire to burn Qur'ans to make some sort of statement, and that the same First Amendment that protects the freedom of stupid speech also protects the rights of Islamic folks to freely build mosques...and finally, that this apparent "paradox of freedom" is exactly why the US is the kind of country that many Islamic folks the world over wish they lived in as well.
I then went off to enjoy my Godson's wedding, and I ignored the posting until the next Monday.
On the two dozen sites where it could be found, this was apparently considered to be a fairly innocuous message...with one giant exception, which is what we'll be talking about today.
Long story short, some portion of this country's population has some bizarre ideas about Islamic folks...but maybe if they knew my friend Wa'el, they might see things a bit differently.
Child-beating. Brainwashing. Turning parishoners into personal servants. Just your normal everyday man of God, right?
He seems to be your garden variety religious grifter/sociopath. At least that's the impression I got from reading this account from SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Islamophobe's Past in Germany
Terry Jones Accused of 'Spiritual Abuse' at Cologne Church
By Yassin Musharbash and Dominik Peters
US fundamentalist pastor Terry Jones, who wants to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, ran a church in the western German city of Cologne until last year when members of the congregation expelled him. Former members have spoken of his hate-filled sermons and insistence on "blind obedience."
....
'Climate of Fear and Control'
In the United States, Jones has already attracted attention on several occasions as an Islamophobic provocateur. What is less well known is that the pastor led a charismatic evangelical church, the Christian Community of Cologne, in the western German city up until 2009. Last year, however, the members of the congregation kicked founder Jones out, because of his radicalism. One of the church's current leaders, Stephan Baar, also told the German news agency DPA that there had been suspicions of financial irregularities in the church surrounding Jones.
A "climate of fear and control" had previously prevailed in the congregation, says one former member of the church who does not want to be named. Instead of free expression, "blind obedience" was demanded, he says.
Various witnesses gave SPIEGEL ONLINE consistent accounts of the Jones' behavior. The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord. Terry and Sylvia Jones allegedly used these methods to ask for money in an increasingly insistent manner, as well as making members of the congregation carry out work.
Andrew Schäfer, a Protestant Church official responsible for monitoring sects in the region where Cologne is located, confirmed the accounts. "Terry Jones is a fundamentalist," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Both major churches in Germany have "sect commissioners" who monitor the activities of religious groups, sects and cults. Although they are obviously not totally impartial, the officials' findings are usually considered to be trustworthy.
'Delusional Personality'
Former church members are still undergoing therapy as a result of "spiritual abuse," Schäfer said. According to Schäfer, Jones urged church members to beat their children with a rod and also taught "a distinctive demonology" and conducted brainwashing.
"Terry Jones appears to have a delusional personality," speculates Schäfer. When he came to Germany in the 1980s, Jones apparently considered Cologne "a city of Hell that was founded by Nero's mother," while he thought Germany was "a key country for the supposed Christian revival of Europe," Schäfer says.
Terry Jones used his powers of persuasion to expand the congregation. By the end, Schäfer estimates, it numbered between 800 and 1,000 people. They had to work in the so-called "Lisa Jones Houses," charitable institutions named after his first wife who has since died, under very poor conditions.
Increasingly Radical
Jones became increasingly radical as the years went by, former associates say. At one point he wanted to help a homosexual member to "pray away his sins." Later he began to increasingly target Islam in his sermons. A congregation member reported that some members were afraid to attend services because they expected to be attacked by Muslims. "Terry Jones has a talent for finding topical social issues and seizing on them for his own cause," says Schäfer.
By the end of 2007, the community had had enough. Members confronted him and tried to change the direction of the church. But Terry Jones refused to make changes, they say. In the end, Jones, his wife and their fellow preachers were expelled from the church and he moved back to the US. "The community imploded," says Schäfer. It only has some 80 active members today.
Now the whole world is condemning Jones for his planned burning of copies of the Koran. Schäfer, for his part, sees Jones as a fanatic who is courting global media attention because he couldn't cope with the "immense loss of power and significance."
This is why we have freedom of religion, folks. Because the power that religion gives would-be tyrants over people's souls is just so great, and combining it with the power of government makes it inescapable. When you hear folks talk about bringing the country back to God. When you hear talk of returning to Biblical roots. When you hear people talking about theocracy. This is what it means, and this is what our Founding Fathers wanted desperately to prevent.
What better way for a sociopath to prey upon ordinary people, than to convince them that it's God's will? Who would dare contradict God?
Last week, in our discussions of the Park51 Cultural Center, and the surrounding political firestorm, there was a lot of discussion of the First Amendment issue vs. the question of whether the center should be built there. A couple of opposite mis-perceptions seemed to crop up a lot (or maybe it was just me):
(1) The idea that the First Amendment was clear, and that's all there is to it.
(2) The idea that everyone knows about the First Amendment, so that's irrelevant, all that matters is how folks feel.
These may be overly broad, but they're close enough for jazz. A poll from the Economist/YouGov shows that it's more complicated than either of these views. It also shows that even though anti-Muslim views predominate, making this--at least right now--a "winning" issue for conservatives and Republicans--the underlying structure of attitudes shows conservatives and Republicans to be out of step with Americans as a whole--as I'll explain below. I don't just want to talk dry numbers here. I want to talk numbers and values. I want to talk about America as a place for all--liberty and justice for all--vs. America as a place for only one small tribe, where only those on top have anything resembling freedom, and no one has justice at all. I want to talk about America as the land of the free and the home of the brave vs. America as a land ruled by dark fears where no one is truly at home, where no one ever feels safe, where no one is ever secure.
And so, with that in mind, let's turn to the data.
First, we see that barely more than half of all respondents recognize the First Amendment right as protecting the right to build the "mosque", and less than one third of Republicans:
Second, we see that barely more than a third of those who recognize the First Amendment right thnk it's a good idea (17.5% out of 50.2%). Among Republicans, it's far, far less. While just over 30% recognize the Constitutional right, less than 2% think it's the right thing to do:
Obviously, this is a snapshot at a given point in time, and it very much reflects how the story has developed, how it has been shaped and promoted by the rightwing activist network, as well as the more long-range shaping of attitudes. But the snapshot in time captures relational truths that tend to endure even when the spectrum of attittudes shifts one way or another.
To see what I mean, I've got four charts on the flip: opinions on rights and feelings by party ID and ideology. But before turning to them, we should first consider the basic background of attitudes towards Islam:
With "very unfavorable" dominating over the total of all favorable in the total population, there's no doubt of the overall hostile environment. For simplicity's sake in making comparisons, I combined both of the two favorable and unfavorable categories together to get the following compressed table:
This table shows very similar figures for Republicans and conservatives--roughly 10-1 unfavorable opinions, with 11% unsure--and for Independents and moderates--roughly 55% unfavorable vs. 20-25% favorable. This contrasts rather strikingly with the divergence between Democrats--who were no more favorable than Independents (25% vs. 25.5%) and only modestly less unfavorable (45% vs. 56.4%)--and liberals, who were almost evenly split: 39.5% favorable vs. 39% unfavorable.
Clearly, the feelings regarding Park51 are heavily influenced by these background attitudes towards Islam in general. For all groups except conservatives and Republicans, the levels of support for Park51 track levels of approval for Islam relatively closely, but for them, support for building Park51 is just 20% of their already low level of approval of Islam:
Clearly, the attitudes and psychology of conservatives diverge dramatically from that of other Americans--although this divergence is masked by the high level of hysteria they have successfully mobilized.
When it comes to protecting America, Newt Gingrich is a pitiful wimp! Oh, sure he's posturing to protect us against Sharia law:
"And one of the things I'm going to suggest today is a federal law which says that no court in the United States under any circumstances is allowed to consider Sharia as a replacement for American law. Period."
But how many starships does the Muslim world command, anyway? What about the real threats to America and American law? What about the Kingons, Cardassians, and Romulans?
You think I'm joking? Does Cardassian law sound like a joke?:
Cardassian society had the most rigid and, to the Federation, incomprehensible of all legal systems. Every suspect was guilty before even appearing in court, their sentence already spelled out - almost always either death or imprisonment in a harsh labor camp. The criminal was given a Conservator, equivalent to a public defender, except that the Conservator was not supposed to win but to prepare the criminal for a moving confession of guilt on the floor of the court. The accused was also permitted an advocate, the Nestor, to advise them during the trial. The Chief Archon, or judge, of the court played to a televised audience, their duty not to judge the prisoner's innocence or guilt, but rather to give an emphatic display of the futility of crime on Cardassia and reinforce the public's trust in the judicial system. (DS9: "Tribunal", "The Die is Cast")
By the 24th century, the government of Romulus was dependent upon the Tal Shiar, the Romulan secret police, to maintain order and stability among both civilians and the military. The Tal Shiar was known for its brutal tactics, which included routine kidnapping, torture, and assassination. Many Romulans fear even expressing dissenting opinions as not to spark the interest of the Tal Shiar.
And the Klingons? They simply fight to the death!
So what will Gingrich do to defend America from these brutal legal systems? Nothing at all! Worse still, he even denies the very existence of any threat!
This breathtaking disconnect from reality is typical of what we've come to expect from Republicans. Just look at the comparative Google hits results:
Sharia Law: About 878,000 results
Klingon: About 3,120,000 results
Romulan: About 702,000 results
Cardassian: About 294,000 results
I rest my case.
BREAKING! Gingrich has now come out in favor of replacing the US Constitution with the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition! Film at 11!
Confident sheriff's deputy: "I know Muslims." Questions family about Mumbai attacks.
Art imitates life imitates art...This has happened before. In the 2006 Spike Lee movie "Inside Man'" bank robbers release a Sikh hostage early (actor Waris Singh Ahluwalia, above) who is assumed to be an Arab with a bomb and is subsequently roughed up by police. He refuses to cooperate until his turban is returned, taking the opportunity to explain its significance.
From the Sikh Coalition (via TAM): (Houston, Texas) December 8 , 2008 - A Sikh family that reported a burglary last week was handcuffed, asked about the bombings in Mumbai, and told by an officer that "he knows Muslims."
The Sikh Coalition strongly condemns the misbehavior of Harris County Sheriff's Department officers towards the Sikh family. Their behavior sends a loud message to Sikhs, Muslims, and other minorities that they are second class citizens in Houston.
Handcuffs and a Taser Gun At the beginning of the Thanksgiving weekend, the Tagore family came home to find a window broken and their master bedroom ransacked. When they called 911, HarrisCounty police officers were dispatched to investigate the crime.
But instead of pursuing the thieves, the police officers began grilling a family member, Kawaljeet Kaur, about her kirpan. Though Kawaljeet told the officer that her kirpan is an article of faith and it is her constitutional right to carry it, the officer ordered her to "shut up" and that he "doesn't care." The officer called for back up and pointed a Taser gun at Kawaljeet's head.
Kawaljeet offered to leave the house if her kirpan was bothering the officer to no avail. Soon more officers arrived at their home. Harris County officers soon began handcuffing family members, four in all, including Kawaljeet's sixty-year-old mother. None of the other family members were carrying kirpans.
Kawaljeet was forced to the ground and handcuffed by three of the responding officers and a knee was put into her back. Some officers also used extremely foul language repeatedly when speaking to the family.
An eight-year-old member of the Tagore family was in tears as she sadly witnessed her elder's treatment by police officers.
Questions About Muslims and Mumbai Officers asked the family whether they had "heard about the bombings in Bombay" and were told that they "knew about Muslims."
Family members continued to plead that they are not criminals, asking in bewilderment when they were being treated like criminals. Hours after their initial call for help, a supervisor came to their home and ordered the family members released. After hours in handcuffs, no family member was charged with a crime or arrested.
The Coalition Takes Action The Sikh Coalition has been working to demand justice for the Tagore family. The Coalition has taken the following actions in response to the incident:
- Demanded that an Internal Affairs investigation be conducted by the Harris County Police. In response in part to the Coalition's pressure, Internal Affairs officers came to the Tagore family home this past weekend to begin an investigation. The CountyPolice have stated that officers can be disciplined and even fired as a result of the investigation's findings.
- Worked with the mainstream media to place stories on the Tagore family's treatment. As a result, the Tagore family's ordeal has been reported in the Houston Chronicle and local television.
- Reported the incident to the United States Justice Department in part to ensure that all HarrisCounty police officers are trained on Sikhs and Sikh practices.
- Working with local city and federal elected officials to ensure the Department takes strong action against the officers.
Over the weekend, the LA Times caught Amazon.com listing a Halloween mask of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as a "terrorist costume." Though the listing has since been deleted from the "terrorist" page, you can see an image of the Amazon listing here.
The Obama terrorist page listed related searches as "arab costume, terrorist."
For all you Arab/Muslim brothers and sisters out there, here's a mask for you to wear:
Dilaria Hafiz writes: Being the "other" is a fairly new concept for me. While I've never liked being referred to as "the other daughter", I'm accustomed to the label of "the other Fed Fund trader", "the other parent volunteer" or "the other Sunday School teacher" and I'm certainly proud of the fact that I've never been "the other woman" or "the other wife".
But do I want to be the "other" when it implies that I'm somehow less trustworthy, less American - even less human? I read Nicholas D. Kristof's excellent editorial titled "The Push to 'Otherize' Obama" with equal parts horror and dismay. While I realize that politics is a dirty game, the latest dirty tactic of "turning the candidate into a Muslim, maybe even the Antichrist" strikes me as wrong on so many levels that I'm left speechless.
Now that I've taken a deep breath and digested the implications of the current social environment in which the "M" word is the new "N" word, I realize that I can't afford to be speechless any longer. Being identified as a Muslim is now officially considered a smear. Why should I have to speak out against this new form of religious prejudice? Well, if I don't, then I can't blame anyone for misunderstanding me. And there's plenty of willful misunderstanding going around these days.
The human tendency to "otherize" those whom we fear is nothing new, historically speaking. We just have to examine our treatment of Native Americans, African-Americans, Japanese during WWII, Jews, Catholics, each successive wave of immigrants - the list is a long one and unfortunately growing longer by the day. So it seems that today it's the turn of Muslims to receive this "preferential" treatment - this time singled out as a religious group based upon the extremism of a few fanatics.
....
More troubling is the latest round of e-mails which seek to invalidate any Muslim spokesperson based upon the vastly misunderstood notion of "taqqiya". I'm a Muslim, and I had never heard this term until last year, when someone from the audience during a book presentation said, "I know you're lying because your religion tells you to deceive non-Muslims until you've taken over the world."
Hmm, where in the Qur'an is this claim made? Verse 16:106 - "Whosoever denies having once believed, unless he is forced to do so... will suffer the wrath of God" - is twisted to support the claim that the Qur'an encourages Muslims to lie, though the intent of this verse clearly states that the act of concealing one's belief in Islam is only permissible under threat of torture/death.
If you Google this term, it's illuminating to find a string of (anti-Muslim) websites which distortedly explain this concept in a manner intended to instill fear of all Muslims in the reader. Even Wikipedia and the Britannica encyclopedia weakly define this term, but still imply a level of deception on the part of Muslims. Yet no Muslim I've encountered believes that their religion condones, let alone demands, mendacity in any form.
Unfortunately, this rumor currently making the circuit only serves to cast suspicion upon the average Muslim who is asked to take part in an interfaith panel discussion or offer a presentation on Islam. So first, we were blamed for not speaking up. But clearly someone heard us, because now we're being accused of lying. Talk about a Catch-22. It's enough to make conspiracy theorists out of even the most naive optimists among us.
Italy today is experiencing an unprecedented racism and xenophobia. What began as a hate for a religion, Islam, has moved on to race, ethnicity and old fashioned hatred of different skin colours.
A Roma (Gypsy) woman in Milan. Recently, the Italian government decided to fingerprint all Gypsies, including children. What began as a targeted campaign against Muslims is now spreading to become a larger, white supremacist movement under color of a Fascist political takeover.
Gabriele Marranci is an anthropologist who was born and raised in Italy. He is currently doing research in Singapore, but he frequently visits and is closely attuned through family and friends to Italy. Link to complete essay after excerpt.
Gabriele Marranci writes: In Italy, in a new and unrecognisable Italy, everybody is losing. Yet only few Italians seem to notice this. Italy is today probably the most concerning and least friendly country of the EU, marked by the return, from bottom-up, of a fascination with a defeating, and defeated, past called Fascism. Notwithstanding the similarity in the terminology, dress styles, and references (the Lega Nord, the most social nationalist party of Italy, has 'green shirts' only because it cannot refer to brown ones), this revival of fascism is not like the historical one.
The progressive stages of xenophobia that has marked the home of pizza and 'bel canto' began with the fear of Muslims and their cultures. The great majority of Italians, though not hating Muslims, have formed chimerias about Islam. Fallaci helped after September 11 to develop them from 'concerns' and 'fear' of a different unknown religion, to hate for whomever practiced that religion. She wished to bomb mosques, or at least one of them. Although Fallaci and others (in particular within the Lega Nord ) were responsible for, not always cleverly disguised, ideological incitement toward violence, there were other individuals who decided (as usually happens) to make real, what Fallaci and others fantasised about.
The reality is that Italians, the majority of them, do not care. Too busy with economic issues and social instability, endemic unemployment, workers alienation and unbelievable exploitation (my sister had to work without salary for months as 'probation' before she was granted a temporary contract of three months), the majority of Italians remain silent; a minority celebrated the beginning of the new crusades, and a few others, often from the radical left, protested. Lega Nord, with the European MP Mario Borghezio took part in the planned, but than forbidden, Nazi event against Islam organized in Cologne. An event that even Robert Spencer felt the need to distance himself from and rejected.
Lega Nord is a social nationalist, populist party, and a dangerous one, whose main force comes from the fear of others and the idea that immigrants can take over the white-celtic man. Vulgar in its language, reminiscent in its populism of Fascism, Lega Nord, mixes a fake Celticism (to replace Aryanism) with a new idea of the- again fake and historically nonexistent- superior nation, the Padania, Lega Nord shifts recently from targeting mainly Muslims to all not-white (hence non-Celtic) foreigners.
Italy today is experiencing an unprecedented (and unusual in its violence even during historical fascism before the German-imposed racial laws) racism and xenophobia. So unexpected and violent has been the phenomenon that even a post-Fascist like Gianfranco Fini (today president of the Parliament) had to raise the alarm. There is no area of Italian civil society which has not been affected by this new wind of xenophobia and violent racism.
Recently during the match for the World Cup qualification in Sofia, the Italian supporters started to invoke the 'Duce', sung 'Fascist songs' and attacked the hosts because they were 'communist', despite the historical changes in Bulgaria. Children are not spared from this white supremacist new culture: finger prints for little Roma (Gypsy) even when they are Italian, vandalism of children's work representing their perception of multiculturalism, attempts to form 'migrants only' classrooms and impose an 'Italian-ness test' for entry into Italian schools on children of legal migrants. I have been informed of racism within school and even Sunday Church schools.
What began as a hate for a religion, Islam, has moved on to race, ethnicity and old fashioned hatred of different skin colours.
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 8/6/2008) - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said today that the resignation of a recently-appointed Muslim community liaison for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is symptomatic of a nationwide effort by Islamophobes who seek to deny Muslims access to the political process.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is "ironic" that Chicago attorney Mazen Asbahi resigned following Internet attacks on his ties to the mainstream Muslim community, an attribute that would seem to be a requirement for his position.
"Muslim-bashers play a 'six degrees of separation' game of guilt by association with any Muslim who dares to engage in positive social or political activism," said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR's Chicago chapter. "As Americans, we should not allow intolerant and agenda-driven extremists to succeed in their tactics of exclusion based on smears and mischaracterizations of leaders or institutions at the forefront of civic engagement."
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