Letters to the Editor

• reply to Golden Boy

  [Read the article: Fox isn't the only "fair and balanced" one]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Is promotion of Islam on CNN or MSNBC any different than Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or any other ‘evangelical’ Christian pushing for a theocracy of their own Christian faith? In my opinion not and further the inbred distrust of Americans against Islam makes the likelihood of Islam establishing a theocratic government here far less likely than the Christian Right doing so. Our recent history of the last six years with Bush and Co. and the media attention to the Christian Right agenda and double speak coming out of the White House is far more dangerous.

  Omar Ahmad, the co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and also former Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP) officer, was captured on FBI surveillance tapes at Hamas meetings in the United States during 1993 explaining that the IAP could not, for political reasons, admit its support for Hamas, and then discussing how the Hamas agenda could be cloaked and advanced.

  I cannot find any reference to the above.

  The article that the statement attributed to Omar starts with this

  “Omar M. Ahmad, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic relations, spoke before a packed crowd at the Flamingo Palace banquet hall on Peralta Boulevard, urging Muslims not to shirk their duty of sharing the Islamic faith with those who are "on the wrong side."

  "Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

  First of all there are disputes to whether the above statement was made or reported accurately. Beyond that though, if the statement was made before a packed crowd at the Flamingo then I think it is safe to assume that it was made before a crowd of ‘believers’ and I find this statement to be typical rallying of the faithful to be no different than Haggard, Robertson or Falwell who by the way have far larger audiences of ‘faithful’. Further, the Islamic faith holds itself out to be the sole and true faith and Allah is God and this is no different than Christians feeling that Jesus was the son of God and is the one true religion.

  Frankly because of the hypocrisy of all religious faiths, I have no faith in religion.

  Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesman who you may have seen on TV, has said, "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

  Again just another religious radical but in this case with different stripes trying to establish theocratic rule. I’m scared of them all.

  Or perhaps you'd simply enjoy reading this roll call:

  These are in the public record and I don’t dispute it but I do dispute that CAIR is the leadership of mainstream American Islam.

  I am no fan of radicalism that uses the sword to convert or suppress anyone, CAIR it would seem leans towards that extreme. Associating all Muslims with them is tantamount to associating all Christians in the U.S. with Pat Robertson or the other of his ilk.

  Now you spent some time to write some anecdotes about Muslims you know, but I'm not sure what that proves. Frankly, I don't understand some of what you wrote - why did the Nation of Islam activist tell you that in Allah's eyes you were a true Muslim?

  You are wrong, I never wrote that it was a Nation of Islam activist who told me the above, he was/is a Muslim but not associated with the Nation of Islam. I mentioned it because we had many conversations about ‘spirituality’ and the experience of reality as we perceive it. Those conversations were interesting and illuminating, I gave him a hard time about some of the rules that he followed and he gave it right back. The point being that we had a dialogue, discussions, and a mutual respect grew out of that meeting of minds and ‘faiths’. Out of dialogue or ‘diplomacy’ people have a greater likelihood of learning mutual respect. If one remains in ignorance and fear of the ‘other’ then the likelihood is more blood, more fear and more war.

  We may very well sit at the same table on many issues however it is my opinion that on the topic of Islam and its threat we would not. I feel that you are painting with a rather large brush the entire culture of Islam as being represented by one organization, that being CAIR and I fundamentally disagree with that assertion.

  As for the problem of Islam in Europe, the discussions I had in the Netherlands regarding it were and are seriously problematic. Islamic radicalism has a much stronger foothold there than it does here.

  The Netherlands prides itself on its long history of ‘liberalism’ and independence. But there are large populations of Muslims living in Europe that want to maintain their previous cultural patterns that we find to be horrific, such as the treatment of women or more the silencing of any criticism of Islam and by any means necessary, usually violence. Europeans as a generality pride themselves on allowing diversity and opinion. The greatest threat is that many radical Muslims residing in Europe do not care nor want a dialogue about Islam and what is currently wrong within the faith. But ignorance abounds on both sides of the coin and what is sad is that people are more content to wallow in ignorance than try to learn about one another.

  But that is another discussion.

  Permalink Friday, November 17, 2006 07:16 AM

• bi-partisanship

  [Read the article: Bush family-planning pick: Marketing contraceptives demeans women]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  with Bush is like going hunting with Dick Cheney.

  Permalink Friday, November 17, 2006 07:18 AM