Letter to Dr. Beyer: Don’t Invite Bigots!

Dear Dr. Beyer,

 

I am shocked to note that you are providing a platform to the Hate-Islam group, “Middle East Forum” (MEF) in order to “Balance” a simple forum on what it means to be a Muslim in America. This is not unlike inviting members of a local Nazi Party in order to “balance” a talk on Jews and Judaism or, inviting someone from the KKK to “balance” a talk on Blacks in America on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

 

I am sure you are not aware of the activities of MEF and the actions taken by different members of their organization, to discredit Islam and Muslims in order to generate hate and fear towards us. While I am sure you do not have the time to read an exhaustive itemization of the hate-Islam activities of each of the members shown on the MEF website, please allow me to offer you some highlights on a couple of these self-styled “Experts on Islam and Terrorism”:

 

MEF director, Daniel Pipes has said again and again, that no Muslim can be trusted and that the only “moderate” Muslim is one who walks away from Islam.

Steven Emerson is another “expert” who seldom misses an opportunity to attack Muslims and Islam; one of his most notorious attacks came immediately after the bombing on the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City when he proclaimed that the perpetrators of the bombing had to be Muslims because Oklahoma City was home to “five Mosques”.

 

Both these men were involved and featured in the production of the hate-mongering video, “Obsession” that distorted facts about Islam and Muslims, beyond recognition, referred to Islam as being equivalent to Nazism and the Quran as being like Hitler’s “Mein Kampf“. This video was sent out to over 48 MILLION America addresses including (with magazine subscriptions) to institutions of higher learning like yours, with the goal of turning Americans against Islam and Muslims. You should take a few minutes to read a review and analysis of “Obsession” by Jews on First…it is NOT a Muslim organization.

 

Dr. Breyer, these and other hate-mongers have learnt that it is not very kosher to take bald bases at Muslims and Islam, although they do so whenever they feel confident enough. Muslim-bashers, these days, cloak their bigotry by qualifying the words “Islam” and “Muslim” with prefixes and suffixes like “Radical”, “Fundamentalist”. They use language that selects Muslims exclusively under the guise of attacking “terrorism”, such as “homegrown terrorism”…as your May 5th invitee, Raymond Ibrahim has said in his blog:

• Why should Americans not have been a worry two years ago? Anyone even moderately familiar with Islamist ideology knows that it allows for absolutely no national allegiance. The notion that some American Muslims could become radicalized should have been a concern since 9/11-nearly a decade ago, not two years ago.
  More significantly, the fact that Americans are being radicalized not only bodes ill for U.S. security; it also suggests that American efforts in the Muslim world are doomed to failure. Consider: if American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits-including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression-are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that importing these same benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more ingrained form of “radicalization”?

They cleverly select acts of violence by Muslims, ignoring the other acts of violence by non-Muslims in order to skew the perspective into “proving” that Muslims are violent, untrustworthy and “un-American”.

These tactics are not unlike the tactics of the pre-Civil Rights era, when reportage on violence committed by Blacks was listed as “Black crime” while violence committed by non-Blacks was glossed over.

 

Dr. Breyer, I am sure you must have received hundreds of organized phone calls asking you to cancel the CAIR presentation and I am sure you were pressed into considering Raymond Ibrahim in order to “balance the views”, but I must ask you; how does one “balance” a talk of being Muslim in America? by bringing people who will misinform their audience into believing that having Muslims in America is like having a time-bomb?

 

Would you ever countenance “balancing” a presentation on Blacks in America, by having a KKK member tell your students that Blacks in America are all potential drug gangs, rapists and murderers?

Would you agree to a “balance” on a presentation about Jews in America, by having a member of the Nazi Party inform your students of the evil nature of Jews?

 

Would you present these organizations as “having a different viewpoint” as you are doing against Muslims?

 

It appears that you have accepted the arguments against CAIR that these hate-mongers have given you in spite of the fact that CAIR is the ONLY effective Muslim civil rights organization in the US; would you so easily be persuaded that the NAACP is a questionable organization?

Dr. Breyer, bigotry is a poison that should not be afforded protection of “Freedom of Speech” as underwritten by people of good faith or by public institutions…the “Freedom of hate Speech” may be exercised at the expense of the speaker, at will, but not by invitation.

 

We understand that you are now rooted to your position of having the hate-mongers come as well, but you should realize that you are as complicit in their hate-mongering by your acquiescence, as they are in their message. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends“.

 

Jeff Siddiqui

American Muslims of Puget Sound
206.228.5732
We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it, as those who have been. (Greek lawyer, Solon Ca 594 BC)