http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/militant_islamic_awareness_week_begins_on_911.html
September 11, 2011
Militant Islamic Awareness Week Begins on 9/11
William A. Levinson
Islamic Awareness Week is an ongoing project of the Muslim Student
Association (MSA), which has chapters at many universities. One web
site quotes an organizer as saying, "Islamophobia is causing fear in
people's mind and their heart about Islam, and that's basically what
we are trying to cure." While most American Muslims are part of the
cure, a substantial and vocal minority are unfortunately part of the
illness.
Muslims like Egyptian immigrant Mahmoud Fahmy are examples of the
solution. "Post 9/11, anti-Muslim feelings in community seen as
rare" (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, 9/10/11) quotes him on those who
perpetrate violence under color of Islam: "These people defile my
religion. They debase my religion. These people are not Muslims." In
addition, spectacular examples like 9/11 to the contrary, most victims
of violence perpetrated under color of Islam are Muslims. Saddam
Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini killed no less than 800,000 Muslims for
being Shiites and Sunnis respectively. Women who are stoned to death
under Sharia law or are murdered in so-called honor killings are
almost universally Muslims. Sixty Muslim-Americans or Muslim guests of
the United States were murdered under color of Islam on 9/11. We must
finally remember that our country's treatment of loyal citizens of
Japanese ancestry after Pearl Harbor was among the most shameful
episodes in our country's history, and a repetition of such
indiscriminate prejudice against all persons of Muslim identity would
be unconscionable.
A phobia is on the other hand an irrational fear of an imaginary
danger. The individuals who hijacked the airplanes ten years ago did
not chant "Shma Yisrael," "Hare Krishna," or "Jesus Saves;" they
yelled "Allahu akbar!" They were not deranged lone actors like Timothy
McVeigh or (allegedly until proven guilty) Jared Lee Loughner or
Anders Brevik, or even the rare individual who uses Christianity as a
rationale to bomb abortion clinics. No Christian organization in the
Western World will put its name behind the latter. Even Westboro
Baptist Church, which preaches hate but not violence, consists of a
tiny minority that is shunned by genuine Christians. The 9/11
hijackers were on the other hand products of an ideology that
encouraged, supported, and orchestrated their atrocity and then
applauded it. We learned everything we will ever need to know about
militant Islam on September 11, 2001.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "What you are thunders so loudly in my ears
I cannot hear what you say." It is therefore very difficult to hear
the Muslim Student Association's arguments against Islamophobia over
its own disruption of campus events and advocacy of the extermination
of Jews. The University of California at Irvine suspended its Muslim
Student Union for willful disruption of a speech by an Israeli
official. In this video, another Muslim Student Association interferes
with a cameraman until a police officer intervenes. At 2:28, there is
a picture of a poster that refers to the creation of Israel as the
nakba or "catastrophe," which suggests that these Muslims will not be
happy until Israel ceases to exist entirely. In this video (1:25), an
MSA member refuses to condemn the terrorist organization Hamas. At
2:45, the MSA member replies to David Horowitz by agreeing with
Hezbollah that Jews should be exterminated.
This video shows a mass demonstration by Islamic extremists in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. At 3:23 a woman in an Islamic headscarf tells
Jews to "go back to the ovens" and "you need a big oven." At 5:47, a
leader cites the need to educate people on the beauty of Islam and
what Islam really is. The beauty of Islam as practiced by this
particular group includes calls for Jews to go back to the ovens, and
this makes our education both thorough and complete. As for the chant
to "Free Palestine," the best way to do this would be to have Israel
annex Gaza, Judea, and Samaria right now and impose rule of Israel law
(including laws against honor killings and internecine lynching).
Freedom House rates both regions under Palestinian control or autonomy
as Not Free, so the only "free" Palestinian Arabs in the region
currently live in Israel.
European Muslims have meanwhile increased our "Islamic awareness" even
further with rallies that praise Osama bin Laden and call for the
invasion of countries like Denmark so Muslims can "take your women."
The chant to "bomb, bomb Denmark" begins at about 2:05. This is
followed with threats of another 7/7 (the subway bombings in the
United Kingdom) and violent jihad. They throw in "we want Danish
blood" at the end.
Depraved and sadistic torture under color of religion also contributes
to "Islamic awareness." Allah, at least as created in the self-image
of militant Muslims, rewards jailers for raping female prisoners. "If
the prisoner's punishment is execution, then the rape before execution
brings the interrogator a spiritual reward equivalent to making the
Haaj pilgrimage but if there is no execution planned then the reward
would be as much as making a pilgrimage to Karbala." When senior
Islamic clerics say it is acceptable to rape women who do not cover
their faces, that also conveys a very bad impression of Islam: "If she
was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would
have occurred." If Muslims do not want us to fear them, they should
not call the non-Islamic world the Dar el Harb (House of War). They
should not proclaim that Islam will dominate the world, or that they
are going to carve out Sharia-governed enclaves, if they do not wish
to evoke increasingly negative perceptions followed by reactions such
as bans on Islamic headwear.
A Pew Research study from 2007 found that 53 percent of American
Muslims think of themselves as Americans first and Muslims second. The
detailed report adds however that 8 percent of Muslims in the United
States believe suicide bombing is "often or sometimes" justified. That
adds up about 200,000 potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers
in the United States alone who identify themselves as Muslims.
The situation of Muslim-Americans is therefore analogous to that of
German-Americans during the 1930s. The assumption that all Americans
of German ancestry belonged to the German-American Bund or supported
the Bund's agenda would have been prejudice and bigotry, noting
especially that many Germans who immigrated during the 1930s did so
because they wanted nothing to do with Hitler or Nazism. Many Muslims
similarly come to America because they want nothing to do with what
their countries of origin call Islam. On the other hand, the refusal
of German-Americans to repudiate and denounce the Bund and Nazism
would have been denial. Non-Muslims and Muslims in America therefore
have reciprocal duties to reject bigotry and denial respectively.
William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business
management including content on organizational psychology, as well as
manufacturing productivity and quality.