www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2017)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
January 2017 - page two
In an open letter to US Congressmen: 90 civil advocacy groups oppose anti-Muslim rhetoric
January 17: About 90 national religious, secularist, civil advocacy and civil rights organizations have urged the members of Congress to "support core principles of the First Amendment and religious freedom in our country by denouncing anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy proposals." In an open letter sent today, the organizations said as anti-Muslim rhetoric became more prevalent during the presidential campaign, the rate of crimes against Muslims also increased. "Establishing anti-Muslim policies, such as forcing Muslims to register on a national scale, goes directly against the American principles of freedom of religious belief and of expression." The open letter was sent to mark the Religious Freedom Day 2017. This week the United States celebrated Religious Freedom Day 2017, which marks the 231st anniversary of the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption of the landmark Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the letter said adding: "This statute marks religious freedom for all, on the basis of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Our Founding Fathers believed — as did others involved in drafting and adopting the statute and the First Amendment itself — that religious freedom is a fundamental and expansive right. This means religious freedom for all, not some." The organizations said talk of a national registry based on religion evokes memories of “the deeply shameful policy of interning Japanese Americans on the basis of political fear-mongering after the U.S. entered World War II.” They said Trump supporters “have shamefully cited that horrific moment in our nation’s history as precedent for singling out our Muslim family, friends and neighbors.” [AMP Report]
6 Rules of Islamophobia in America
Jan 23: After the 2015 terror attack in Paris, when Donald Trump and other GOP presidential candidates were ratcheting up their anti-Muslim political speech, we started a running list of Islamophobic acts. Sadly, in less than two months, the list became so long the webpage often wouldn’t load. This made us recognize the very real surge in anti-Muslim incidents sweeping the nation — a surge many wanted to deny was happening at all. (Think Fox News host Eric Bolling saying he “hadn’t heard of any” anti-Muslim hate crimes.) So we developed The Islamophobia Project, and committed to tracking anti-Muslim violence, vandalism, discrimination, public policy and political speech throughout 2016. Having tracked hate for a year, we’re able to see that people who disparaged Muslim Americans are mostly reading from the same old script. It’s possible even to look at our project as a kind of how-to guide for anti-Muslim bigotry ― a list of six “rules” of Islamophobia in America. And if we’re going to help protect our Muslim neighbors, coworkers, friends and family, these are six “rules” that desperately need to be dismantled and destroyed.
Rule 1: Muslims are not American: “Go back to your country,” a man screamed at worshipers leaving a Connecticut mosque. “C**t, you don’t belong in this country. Go back to your fucking country,” another man shouted at a Muslim woman and her family in Ohio. Muslims just can’t be from here, the thinking goes ― even though Muslims fight in our military and die in our wars, and even though a United States without Muslims has never existed.
Rule 2: All Muslims are terrorists: A hate-filled voicemail left at the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR is the largest American Muslim civil advocacy group]. “You’re a terrorist,” a woman yelled at a Muslim woman inside a New Mexico grocery store. “We don’t want n****rs and terrorists here. #Trump,” read a note taped to the door of a Muslim family’s home in Iowa. “When you say the word ‘Islam’ to Mike Goodman, it means ‘terrorist,’” Goodman, a member of a Massachusetts town commission, said of himself. “When you say ‘Muslim,’ it means a person. Islam is nothing but full of terrorists.”
Rule 3: Pork is to Muslims as a crucifix or garlic is to vampires: A Texas anti-Muslim militia group dips bullets in pig’s blood. Why? To send Muslims “straight to hell.” In Florida, a man allegedly trashed a mosque with a machete before leaving bacon on the front doorstep. At mosques in Nebraska and Las Vegas, men wrapped bacon around mosque door handles. In Raeford, North Carolina, a man carrying a handgun left packages of bacon at the mosque and threatened to kill worshippers. Like Judaism, Islam generally prohibits its followers from eating pork. While these pork-based acts of hate are undoubtedly meant as insults, the perpetrators also seem to ascribe mythical or inhuman qualities to Muslims, as if pork could magically fend them off, or send them straight to hell. As one anti-Muslim activist told comedian Samantha Bee on her show this year: “A pig head to Muslims is like a crucifix to a vampire.”
Rule 4: All brown people are potentially Muslim, and are therefore potentially terrorists: Khalid Jabara, an Arab-American Christian, was fatally shot by a neighbor who often called the Jabaras “dirty Arabs,” “Aye-rabs” and “Mooslems.” Simran Jeet Singh was running in the New York City Marathon when he said someone called him a “dirty Muslim.” Harmann Singh said a man called him a “fucking Muslim” inside a Cambridge, Massachusetts, store. “You’re trying to blow up this country, I should (expletive) kill you right now, you know,” Balmeet Singh said a man told him outside a California burger restaurant. All three Singhs, who are not related, wear turbans and are Sikh, not Muslim. Sikhs are commonly perceived as Muslims in the U.S., and are targeted in anti-Muslim hate crimes, even though Sikhism and Islam are completely different religions ― not that it should matter. In Oklahoma in August, a 61-year-old ex-convict named Stanley Majors allegedly shot and killed a 37-year-old man named Khalid Jabara outside his home. Majors reportedly had harassed the Jabara family for years. He called the Jabaras “dirty Arabs,” “Aye-rabs” and “Mooslems.” The Jabaras are Christian immigrants from Lebanon. This phenomenon is sometimes called the “racialization of Islam,” and it helps explain why nearly 30 percent of Americans, including possibly Trump, still think the country’s first black president is secretly a Muslim.
Rule 5: Islam is not a religion, it’s a violent ideology: Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser and an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, saying that Islam isn’t a religion. Islam “is an ideology posing as a religion. Islam is intolerant and deceitful, and its adherents are ordered to overthrow our way of life and to replace it with ‘Sharia’ law,” Republican New Hampshire state Rep. Ken Weyler wrote in testimony submitted to the state House. In Pennsylvania, a school board member said that Islam is “not a religion” and is “not only godless, but pagan.” In Virginia, a member of the Republican State Central Committee tweeted that Islam is a “death cult organized by Satan” and “is not a religion of peace but an ideolgy (sic).” And in Utah, the state’s third-largest political party called for outlawing Islam altogether, arguing that because it’s not a religion, it’s not protected under the First Amendment. Merriam-Webster defines Islam as “the religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Muhammad as his prophet.” It is practiced by 1.6 billion people and is the world’s second-largest religion, after Christianity. It is no more inherently violent or peaceful than any other religion.
Rule 6: There’s a secret Muslim plot to take over and/or destroy the United States and/or Western civilization from within: Frank Gaffney, an advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, has long pushed the “civilization jihad” conspiracy theory. In a press release for a bill that could destroy American Muslim groups, Cruz cited “civilization jihad.” Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson warned of a “civilizational jihad” against the U.S., wherein “jihadists” who “disguise themselves as moderate Muslims” would “infiltrate, multiply and take positions of power” in order to “replace our Judeo-Christian values with Islam.” Former Rep. Michele Bachmann described the influx of Muslim migrants and refugees into Europe and the U.S. as a “planned invasion” meant to destroy “western Christendom.” It’s part of a “civilization jihad,” the tea party Minnesota congresswoman explained, aimed at “Islamizing” the West. The news site The Hill published an article by Frank Gaffney, an adviser to presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in which Gaffney wrote that Muslims in the U.S. have a “civilization jihad” aimed at “destroying Western civilization.” This Muslim conspiracy, he explained, uses “stealthy, subversive means like influence operations to penetrate and subvert our government and civil society institutions.” [The Huffington Post]
President Trump orders Muslim Ban
Jan 27: President Donald Trump signs an executive order dubbed as Muslim Ban temporarily barred citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days, and Syrian citizens indefinitely. It led to chaos at U.S. and international airports as tens of thousands of visa holders were blocked from entering the country or detained after arriving in the U.S. A barrage of protests and lawsuits followed, leading to federal court rulings against the ban in New York, Virginia and elsewhere. One judge in Massachusetts later ruled in Trump's favor, but on Friday, February 3, District Judge James Robart in Seattle halted the policy nationwide, citing "immediate and irreparable injury" to foreigners with valid visas and green cards. Judge James Robart, who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2004, issued the temporary restraining order on Feb. 3 to block the ban’s enforcement nationwide pending further hearings. Robart is one of several federal judges who has blocked parts of the executive order since its announcement on January 27. But his temporary injunction was the most sweeping one yet issued by a judge, effectively negating the order’s core functions. The following day, the State Department and Department of Homeland Security said they would abide by the judge’s order and roll back their enforcement of the ban. Opponents of the travel ban, led by Washington state and Minnesota and including nearly 20 other states, former national security officials and leading technology companies, say the ban discriminates against citizens of certain countries and the Muslim religion. They point to a 1965 law that prohibits discrimination against immigrants based on their country of origin, and claim the ban violates the establishment clause of the Constitution that protects freedom of religion. [Media Reports]
Thousands turn out for Texas Muslim Capitol Day
Jan 31: Days after President Donald Trump unveiled a travel ban on citizens from seven countries with majority-Muslim populations, thousands of people gathered in Austin today for Texas Muslim Capitol Day, the biannual event’s largest crowd yet. “We stand here in the year of 2017 at a dangerous time for our country and for our state, and I say that with regret,” said Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, the legislative sponsor of this year’s event. “So while I am troubled by the turmoil, I am heartened by the resistance.” Muslims from across Texas gathered at the Capitol’s south steps and were surrounded by a human chain of volunteers, who were prepared to protect participants from protests similar to those that erupted at the same event in 2015. Organizers initially said they were expecting at least 500 attendees, but the crowd this morning was nearly four times larger. Tensions were high ahead of the gathering, not only because of Trump’s executive order, but also because of a fire at the Islamic Center of Victoria, said former Rep. Lon Burnam, who helped launch the first Texas Muslim Capitol day in 2003. A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett read a statement from the Democrat outside the Capitol that expressed outrage over recent violent incidents against Muslims. “I am deeply troubled by what happened at the almost completed Islamic Center of Lake Travis at the beginning of this month and, most recently, to the mosque in Victoria,” Doggett said in the prepared statement. “With you, I mourn the loss of life at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Center. I, too, am outraged and appalled by President Trump’s unconstitutional, un-American anti-Muslim immigration order.” [AMP Report]
2017: January February March April May June
July August September October November December