Remembering 9-11, How can I forget?
NEVER FORGET!
I remember 9-11 as if it happened yesterday. I came downstairs after awakening and turned on the TV like I always did. For some reason, the TV was muted as I saw the scenes. I was not wearing my contact lenses so I could not see with clarity but I saw the aircraft hit one of the towers. Still dozy, I assumed it was some special effects scene, which is what I told my wife as she came down. Then the sound got turned on, I put on my contacts and with a shock, I realized this was real; someone had hijacked aircraft and they were crashing them into buildings. With a sick feeling, I saw the buildings collapse, judging from the size of the towers, I assumed there must have been at least over ten thousand people killed in the collapsed buildings.
Then I learned that the hijackers were Muslims and their purpose was presumed to be “Islamic”. I cursed the people involved in the slaughter as I do to this day, May God hold them responsible and keep them in Hell for the horrors they perpetrated on innocent people!
A few people called me and asked what kind of response should Muslims make?
How can one respond, thoughts and prayers? It would be foolish to say anything that could mean that we, as Muslims, were collectively assuming any responsibility for the heartless, thoughtless, inhuman and definitely un-Islamic, actions of a few.
As the day unfolded, I realized that the decision to respond would ne with massive military resources and that Muslims would indeed, be held accountable.
In the, months and years that followed, the sympathy for the victims and their families transformed into concern for Muslims and fear for the Muslim families that were (and still are) being targeted as “terrorists” by the President, Congress and by all US agencies, most notably, the FBI. We were suspects and targets of unrelenting persecution. Within a year, under the direction of John Ashcroft, the US Attorney-General, the FBI had “detained” or jailed, over 14,000 Muslims in all jails…City, county, state and all.
I remember at one time there was a Congressional hearing in which Ashcroft admitted there was nothing material against the Muslims being held, but that he looked upon them “as pieces of a mosaic” and that some patterns will emerge from them. Nothing ever did, but most of the Muslims held, had their lives destroyed in the time they were “detained”, some for years, without charges or trials. They lost jobs, finances, their homes and in some cases, even their marriages.
There was mourning across the nation and across the world. In Muslim-majority countries, people marched in support of the victims and condemned the terrorist actions of the people. With tears in their eyes, Muslims were seen showing solidarity with the American victims.
In the US, there were efforts to compensate victims, memorials were built. It was as if Muslims did not exist as humans, Muslim survivors of the attacks were denied support in the face of the solidarity shown to other victims of 9-11. It was as if Muslims could not exist among the virtuous; only among the evil ones. Even newspaper cartoonists ignored Muslims as among the innocent. We were never recognized.
Radio talk shows and TV programs pivoted to focus on Muslims and Islam as the focus of all evil, even school books were re-written to show Islam and Muslims in as terrible a picture as possible. The FBI planted paid “informants” in Mosques and other Muslims communities, who were actually agents provocateurs tasked to find vulnerable, impressionable Muslims, incite and motivate them to violence so they could then be arrested by the FBI with great fanfare. A massive industry was born, with the sole goal of proving Islam and Muslims to be evil, but done disguised as “Anti-Terrorism Training”.
The nation’s Police sucked it up; there were no safe places in America to be a Muslim. Even many Churches and Synagogues got into the act, venting their hatred against Islam and Muslims by inviting self-declared “experts” on Islam AND Terrorism, to explain to their congregations why a Muslim cannot possibly be a good American. Targeting us Muslims, still remains a good source of fundraising for many of them.
Personally, I had people call me all sorts of names, “traitor” being the least of them. I was accused of being “a Sleeper-cell leader”, an “Islamist”, “Terrorist”, “Terrorist Sympathizer” and that I belonged in Gitmo. Friends turned against me, joining the accusations of being a terrorist, one threatened me with implied shooting claiming, HE was afraid for his family from me. There were other incidents where people threatened to shoot me just because I am Muslim. It became so serious that I feared someone would shoot at me while I was in the car with my kids. I was pretty sure they would miss me but I was equally certain they may injure or kill my children. I proceeded to train my 11 year-old daughter and my 7-year old son to unbuckle and fall on the van’s floor if I yelled, “Get down!”. I almost purchased a gun to protect my family then reason prevailed and I decided not to join the gun-nuts. Most Muslims went quiet, dressed more “American”, they lived in constant fear for themselves and their families, not from the local civilian, but from the agencies such as the FBI, The Police and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Not far behind them were other agencies, even the USDA (Department of Agriculture) got in on the Muslim-hunting game. For the same “crime”, Muslims were imprisoned for as many as 17 years, while non-Muslims doing even more, were praised for their heroic work.
The chronicles of individual attacks and humiliations to Muslims are so many that it would take books to write them. But this should suffice for now.
Today, on the 20th anniversary of 9-11, it is time to rip off the collective scab of the pain of the attacks and feel it afresh; that is the patriotic thing to do. In the meantime, one might assume that targeting of Muslims, the persecutions and the hate-industry would have finished by now, sadly, not so. Bush Jr, opened the gates and lit the fires of Islamophobic hate, making it a Across America, Anti-Semitism has been declared a hate-crime, racism against Blacks has been declared a crime but Muslims have to beg to get the Police or the FBI to recognize violence against Muslims as such. Islamophobia has yet to be even defined; it is met by an indulgent shrug.
In my own country, agencies and administration still consider me to be “The other”.
Today in America, it is a mark of patriotism to target Muslims, Obama did not move the needle down. Trump actively fueled it, generating active hate towards Blacks, Muslims and everyone from, as he termed it, “Shithole countries”. Biden has yet to show any signs that he recognizes the threat to Muslims.
Taxes in Washington State; Ethnic Cleansing or Gentrification?
Oh, happy day! Real estate property prices are stratospheric. Much money is being made by investors, real estate brokers and the mortgage industry. Cities and states are flush with the taxes from increased sales and increased values, how can we not be happy?
Amid the shouts of joy and the popping of champagne corks, the moans of the people at the other end of this celebration go unheard, their tears, unnoticed. These are the people who bought their modest homes decades ago with the intention of living out their lives in their homes. That was not to be, because they are now forced to sell their homes and move to distant homes while their homes make way for mansions.
Several years ago, I was a real estate broker helping a client sell their home in a Seattle’s predominantly Black district. I was standing outside when I met an older Black gentleman and we chatted for a brief while. He told me he lived “down the hill”, he bought his home decades ago for just a few hundred dollars. Now, he continued, he does not know what to do because his property taxes are more than the money he makes. “I have to think about moving South but even there, the prices are high, where do I go?”
Does Anyone Owe Black Americans?
A friend forwarded me a video (The Dan Rongino show) from Tik Tok. It was Mark Robinson, Republican Lt. Gov. of North Carolina, he was making the point that Black people’s call for reparations is false; That today’s Black people owe their ancestors for getting them to this place (“Nobody owes you anything, in fact YOU owe THEM!”).
My friend forwarded it with this message, “Made me want to get up NOW and do some more for this country and my family!! GREAT Speech!!! AND color hasn’t got a damn thing to do about it!! This is character, balls and a true love of country!!!”.
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians
It remains a huge shock that there are people who are quite satisfied with what Israel is and has been, doing to Christian and Muslim Palestinians, even to its own Arab (Palestinian) citizens or, that there are people who believe themselves to be “civilized” and who don’t care.
Israeli Jews were up to usual tricks of trying to wipe out all presence of Arabs (Christian and Muslim) from lands the Jews want. This time they went to Sheikh Jarrar, claiming Jews owned the land before the Palestinians. This time, Israeli Jews know they have international support for “the right to defend themselves” or, in plain language, the right to slaughter Arabs in wholesale numbers and nobody will do anything about it.
Israel has been using every new and old law from the Ottoman period through today and when a law did not exist t cover a situation, they created a new one tailored to suit their needs. The court system in Israel is also a joke as far as Palestinians are concerned, even when they are Israeli citizens. The stated and clear goal for Israeli Jews is to get rid of as many Palestinians (Arabs) as possible, by whatever means possible. Israel has been on a genocide track against Palestinians ever since its independence, which is particularly tragic because of the Jewish experience of the Shoah and before. This is Israeli Jews’ openly-stated policy even though they avoid using the word, “Genocide”.
US; Turning Point or, Business as usual?
Trump’s coming to power did not change America, the disease has been in the nation’s body since inception. Trump only made it acceptable to publicly display mob strength and bigotry. Thanks to major support of and by, the National Rifle Association (NRA), owning and displaying guns has become fashionably patriotic. Support from the NRA and its servile politicians, tens of millions of guns…pistols and rifles…have been sold to Americans over the past 12 years. Thanks to the NRA, all agencies in the US are prohibited from holding any kind of inventory of who owns guns or, even from digitizing the bullet signatures from guns.
FEAR. Guns have been purchased by goons and fools who believe they are in “real danger”; Whites who are terrified that “the Blacks” may be taking over the country. Ironically, some Blacks are now starting to buy weapons as well because they see how many Whites have how many guns. According to the Swiss organization, Small Arms Survey, there are about 120.5 guns per100 Americans…that was back in 2007!
FEAR is in the driver’s seat in America and has been since the slavery days. Politics is also driven by fear; politicians are forever telling their bug-eyed, fearful audiences that the end is here….unless you vote for them. We end up voting for a potential savior, not a leader. That’s how America got Trump.
FEAR is also the excuse used to hide bigotry. Police almost always say how they “feared for their lives” as they pour more than ten shots into an unarmed and sometimes, unsuspecting, victim. Black, of course.
Dangers to Society…Who? Why?
Muslims, of course, who else could be a threat to society?
“Civilized society”, of course! such as France, Germany and the US. We love to assign fault and responsibility so this article will do the same.
I suppose Muslims are “identified” as dangerous “Islamists” because we (yes, I include myself as a Muslim) can be differentiated by name, by our faith and often, by our ethnicities. Being able to identify a group is the simplistic approach many societies take, in order to negatively sort people out. Thus, Blacks in America are the most persecuted. After 9-11, MUSLIMS were the target du jour in the US. Muslims could be fairly sure they may have their bank accounts shut down, they could lose their government jobs or, be persecuted into leaving. They could also be sent to another country (“Extraordinary Rendition”) to be tortured under the guidance of the FBI. Muslims could be taken to a “Black Site“, a super-secret US military site overseas for torture or “disposal” and of course, they could be kept in jails (“Detained”) for days, weeks or even years, without charges or trials, only to be let go as “no longer a threat” by which time, their lives were destroyed. Muslims are still targeted by the FBI and many Police departments but we don’t hear of torture..not yet anyway.
Since 2001, White supremacists have gained ground in the US. These private, civilian militias, are armed with automatic weapons and even 50-mm cannon (hard to call them “guns” at that caliber). They train to fight, they move around the country, openly displaying their weapons and they challenge an unresponsive authority everywhere. They are seen “defending” borders against the (as Trump termed it) “Rapists and Murderers” from the Southern border and they are there when Muslims are being intimidated. As time went on, they have become bolder and more aggressive…with the support of the government and even Police departments. Many states that tried to shut down unhealthy operations due to COVID-19 had their captols surrounded by armed White Supremacists determined to defend their “Freedom”. In Michigan, militias moved into the legislative buildings, denying access to lawmakers and staff. More recently, waving their guns, they even tried to run a Biden campaign bus off the road.
The Governors and Police did nothing to stop them; FBI is not allowed to monitor White Supremacists.
Organizations’ Support for French Islamophobia…Boycott France
Under the guise of “fighting RADICAL ISLAM”, France is taking exceptionally harsh measures against Muslims in France. It has ordered some Muslim rights organizations to disband because of “suspicious connections to radicalism” and now it is telling Muslim schools to effectively shut down. France is also mandating oaths of allegiance from Muslim organizations, among many other harsh and rather stupid decisions.
Now Jewish organizations in France are applauding and supporting France in its anti-Muslim actions (a FEW on the “far left” are opposing these measures).
This is not limited to Jewish organizations in France. I have personally witnessed rabid, anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic, promotions by American Jewish organizations such as the ADL, the AJC and the Seattle Holocaust Center, often comparing Islam to Nazism and Muslims to Nazis. Even the venerated Southern Poverty Law Center is not above supporting Islamophobia now and the. Sadly, they are joined by many Jewish Synagogues who regularly keep the fear of Islam and Muslims, alive among their congregations. Jewish organizations and their Jewish members need to understand that the path to supporting and defending Israel does not run over the existence of Muslims. In their misguided haste to protect Israel, they are needlessly creating enemies across Muslim world by their attacks on Arabs and Muslims.
To France. The move to boycott France because of their support for the right to publish anti-Islamic cartoons, is misplaced, even the prophet Mohammed allowed people to insult him. When he went to Taif to seek support against the pagans of Mecca, he was scorned, and stoned. Eventually, making his escape to an orchard the prophet prayed to God, “Lord, do not punish them, because they do not know I am your Prophet.”. It would be against the true practices of the prophet Mohammed, to commit violence in response to a perceived insult.
However…France seems to have declared an irrational, unjust, war on Islam and Muslims in France. France is using a veneer of civilization to convert an long-standing hostility against Muslims, into a national effort the focuses attention of the bureaucracy as well as citizens, against anything French. So much so that one mayor was heard condemning a specialty groceries shop as not being French because it was promoting non-French goods (he later apologized).
Given that France is whipping such an anti-Muslim hysteria, it is entirely reasonable for Muslims across the world, to boycott French goods. It may not add up to much, but the principle of fairness and justice demands such a boycott action.
The curse of leadership in Israel and Palestine
Palestinian leadership says another Trump term would be a disaster.
Palestinians have an enemy that is definitely going to destroy them, that enemy is not Trump, it is not “The Joos”, it is the Palestinian leadership…Hamas and Fatah.. Those two factions are so focused in being the sole leaders of a now-fantasy Palestine, that they have lost the skill of calculating their advantages when they have them.
I am not talking about refusing the many “wonderful opportunities” that Israel offered Palestinians because those were the most mean-spirited choices anyone could get, but packaged as gifts from Heaven. I am talking about the FACT that nothing can give them a Palestine that has any hope of survival, that can ever expect to be more than an Israeli Bantustan.
Palestinian leadership should publicly give up the idea of a Palestine for Palestinians and agree to merge with Israel as a single country with equal rights, protections and opportunities for ALL, regardless of whether they may be Jews, Christians or Muslims. The new Israel CAN be called Israel and it can also be called Palestine, that is immaterial. After all, Switzerland remains an internationally-respected, neutral country in spite of the fact that it has FOUR ethnicities and Four official languages…French, German, Italian and Romansh. Those languages are being used in the whole country. Switzerland also has names in each language, for the same city and geographic areas such as lakes and mountains. Quite importantly in contrast with Israel, the different ethnic groups are often not accepting of one another but in expression only. Perhaps the one thing they have in common with Israeli Jews is that they too, hate Muslims but to a much lesser extent.
Jews and Palestinians are being forced apart largely because of Western support against Palestinians. There is NOTHING keeping a united Israel-Palestine from happening except for the egotistic, bigoted, leaders in Israel and in Palestine. In this tragedy, only the Palestinians will continue to suffer deprivation, deaths, genocide, and humiliations. It is time for the Jews of Israel and their supporters to forget the idea of a “Jewish character” of Israel, because thus far, the only “Jewish character” in evidence, is that of a genocidal organization against Palestinians. It is also time for Palestinian leaders to help Palestinians lose the idea of a “Free Palestine” for what would appear to be a single-faith (Islamic) nation. Get used to the idea of a multi-faith nation working together with Peace and Justice for all. The current Palestinian leaderships (Hamas and Fatah) offer neither Peace, nor Justice, nor any semblance of a democracy; one is totalitarian and the other corrupt.
Oh, the ever-arrogant French!
French President Emmanuel Macron is proposing legislation to “protect” the “French identity”. His proposals supposedly aim to oppose “religious separatism” such as (of course!), “Islamic Separatism”.
The rhetoric has mass-appeal…elections in France are not far…because only the most naïve would believe people other than Muslims are the targets in spite of the insistence that “White separatists” are also targeted. “Secularism is the cement of a united France” insists Macron but in France as in other countries, “United” means abandoning your own faith and cultural identities to become on with the majority identity.
Among the measures proposed include money allocated to help control “Islamic separatism”, mosques will be placed under local government control, imams will be required to be trained and certified in France, bar foreign imams, increase surveillance of organizations suspected of “Separatism”, ban foreign funding of mosques. There is also a €10 million funding for teaching Islam and Islamic civilization.
Some aspects of the proposed legislation can be for the good. Imams must understand other faiths as well as other Islamic sects in order to better minister to their own congregations; mono-theistic faiths are NOT outside of Islam as defined in the Quran and mono-theistic faiths are more than just the three Abrahamic faiths (Islam Christianity and Judaism). The question is, are the other dominant faiths (Catholicism and Judaism) also subjected to such rules in the Oh-so-secular France? Would they be required to also understand Islam in order to not spread false stories about Islam?
Of course not!
There are most likely, not enough locally-educated Muslim imams to fill the needs of the faithful in France. Would it not be reasonable to have imported imams undergo a six-month comparative religions education?
Placing Mosques under local control simply allows local governments to impose their bigotry on Muslims because the local governments would be setting the rules. Similarly, placing organizations that may be suspected of “separatism”, under surveillance is simply a fig-leaf for placing all Muslim organizations under surveillance.
The €10 million to teach Islam and Islamic civilization across France will barely make a dent on educating people, it is merely symbolic to show how sincere Macron is, instead, it shows as a shallow gesture.
What is “Religious Separatism” anyway? Muslims are neither in sufficient numbers nor in sufficient concentrations to mount a separatist movement. Why is France so paranoid about Muslims and not so much about other groups who are actually separatists within France?
Corsica for example, maintains its own language and has a largely autonomous identity. In spite of all these special treatments, there is an active separatist movement in Corsica. Provence has an active separatist movement. Brittany actually has a political party that aspires to the independence of Brittany. The Basques have been agitating for independence for a long time. The Alemannic-German speaking region has historically wanted to separate from France and join the Swiss Confederacy.
The French in France do not feel threatened by the REAL separatist movements of the above groups because those groups are still “Judeo-Christian”. No, the “Separatism” that the French fear is the creation of another religious identity in France…Muslims, who are neither “Judeo” nor “Christian”. It took France a long time to accept Judaism and Jews as French; the French had no problems with allowing the Nazis to truck away uncountable French Jews during WWII. But MUSLIMS are an entirely different, foreign, group that will not be accepted as French by the Judeo-Christians of France for a long time. France is more used to fighting the Muslims in colonial wars, colonizing them, exploiting them and then slaughtering them in mass numbers (as in Algeria) if they dared to demand freedom. True. Some Muslims have defiled the name of Islam by murdering some people in France, but how does that differ from other groups who did similar things but were Christians? French Jews and Christians are not forced to live in the squalor of ghettos like Muslims are. Jews and Christians are not denied jobs because of their faith like Muslims are. Muslims are persecuted, targeted and treated like less than humans, they are not permitted to wear what they feel, are religious symbols such as hijab. On the other hand, Orthodox or Hasidic Jews may maintain their markedly-different appearances and nuns may wear their hijabs.
As if to justify their position that Muslims do not believe they are French, an IFOP poll showed that 74% of French Muslims place their faith ahead of the French Republic . More like the FRENCH do not believe Muslims are French. Are there ANY devout faith-followers (Christians, Jews etc.,) that would place their God and their faith AFTER their country? I would pay to find such a poll among Christians or Jews.
The French have gone out of their way to fight Muslims when they should be fighting extremism and when they should be treating Muslims as equals in France. Helping Muslims feel they actually do belong in France, means recruiting Muslims in government jobs and promoting Muslim jobs in the private sectors, getting Muslims out of their ghettos and not banning their traditions that harm nobody. Once Muslims feel French, extremism will wither. Instead, France is seeking to hammer a mono-culture as French that is actually working like poison within its own body. No successful country today, can claim a mono-culture and any country that does (as many are) make a pretense of a “united”, mono-cultural, nation, is mired in internal divisions, there are no forced national identities. But France is too arrogant to understand or accept such a reality.
Pakistan’s Dive into the Sewer of Religious Intolerance
The religious zeal and violence we see in Pakistan has nothing at all to do with religion, it is simply a function of manipulation of ignorant masses in order to get control of the country. It appears that even the leaders, the so-called “scholars of Islam” who whip up mass hysteria, do not understand the very basics of Islam. Often the very respected “religious scholars” themselves are too illiterate to even understand the local language, let alone the Arabic of the Quran. The most illustrative example of ignorance and illiteracy that drives fanaticism in Pakistan is the picture below. It is a recent demonstration led by a large sign that is supposed to declare, “Punishment for rudeness towards the prophet is beheading, beheading”. On the sign, however, they omitted a crucial accent which changed the meaning to read, “Rude prophet’s punishment is beheading, beheading”. It should have started with, “Gustakh-e-nabi…” but it was printed as “Gustakh nabi…”.
The demonstrators themselves, are guilty of “blasphemy”!
Tragically, even as we discuss Pakistan’s situation, we run the risk of being accused of “blasphemy”; no idle accusation for, it can carry a death sentence or, result in a lynching death before the trial takes place. Anything can be twisted such that it becomes an accusation of blasphemy in fact, simply an accusation without evidence, can result in a guilty verdict (or pretrial death) from judges who are terrified that THEY will be killed by some mob or, their families will be attacked by an ignorant public whipped into a murderous frenzy, justified by religion and led by “religious scholars”. Continue reading
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