THE UNCIVIL WAR AGAINST ISLAM

By M. Cherif Bassiouni

Chicago Tribune  October 22, 2002

The slightest bit of anti-Semitism will be met with strong condemnation by the media and the rest of civil society--as it should. But not so for egregious vilification of Islam. Imagine if high visibility Muslim or Christian religious leaders would publicly state to the viewing and hearing of millions of Americans that: "Moses was a terrorist" and "Moses was a brigand and a robber," "Judaism is a monumental scam" and "Judaism is a very evil and wicked religion." The reaction would be overwhelming. President Bush would probably address the nation from the Oval Office to denounce such an outrage, every major newspaper would run denunciatory editorials and TV and radio talk shows would continuously discuss the reasons and the remedies needed. In short, the nation would be swept by a tidal wave of social opprobrium--and rightly so. But these outrageous and insulting statements were not made about Moses and Judaism, but about the Prophet Muhammad and about Islam. Substitute the first two quotes with "Muhammad" instead of "Moses" and "Islam" for "Judaism" and you would have what was actually said, in that order, by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham--all respected leaders of the "Christian right." Falwell made his statement on CBS' "60 Minutes" and Graham was the minister who delivered President Bush's inaugural prayer last year.

Reactions against these slanderous statements from the media and civil society were few, no massive outrage, no presidential denunciation, even though the president went to great lengths after Sept. 11 to assert that America's war on terrorism was not a war against Islam. The measured tones of negative media and public reactions to these hateful attacks attest to the degree of social acceptability of these statements, even though some of the utterers proffered tactical retractions. U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, an adherent of the "Christian right" whose principal ministers made these slanderous statements, did not investigate, let alone indict, these preachers for hate crimes. He did not even publicly denounce their statements.

This in part explains why Muslims are notoriously targeted by the FBI  and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and are frequently treated in the course of their interrogation and detention in a degrading and harsh manner, and nothing is done about it.

Power and influence are the currency of American society, those who have it and know how to use it succeed in advancing their causes, and those who don't remain disenfranchised. Native Americans and African-Americans have had a long time to learn that lesson. Now it is the turn of Muslims and Arab-Americans to learn it--the hard way.

The Muslim world does not fathom the peculiarities of American society. They think that if something is wrong, it should apply across-the-board. They see double standards in America's foreign policy and now domestically as well. They do not understand that if anti-Semitism is met with such opposition, it is substantially because American Jews, to their credit, make it their business to fight against it. And they do not understand that since American Muslims are complacent about anti-Islamism, they will not be heard and that practice will go on. Above all, they do not understand why the Bush administration is silent against Islam-haters when it is trying so hard in its hopeless propaganda effort to win over the hearts and minds of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.

Who needs Osama bin Laden to recruit terrorists when we have such eloquent spokespeople for America's hate war against Islam? To stop this hateful prejudice is a question of principle. It is also a matter of our national security.
 

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0210220311oct22.story?null