By Uthayla Abdullah in the Missourian:
Since Sept. 11, 2001, an ongoing debate has been waging about the role of Muslims in the U.S. A prominent voice in this debate has been Arsalan Iftikhar, the legal director of the Council of American Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim advocacy group in the country.
Uh oh.
Iftikhar spoke to a group of about 30 people in MU’s Ellis Auditorium on Friday afternoon about the future of Muslims in the West.“The 8 million Muslims in the U.S. faced a new duality after Sept. 11,” Iftikhar said. “Not only was our country attacked, but our faith, our way of life and our standing in the U.S. were also attacked.”
Now its eight million? And "our way of life" was attacked? What?
According to an FBI report released in 2002, hate crimes against Muslims in 2001 increased by 1,600 percent from the previous year. Muslims, Iftikhar said, have been under “a cloud of suspicion.”The passing of the Patriot Act on Sept. 15, 2001, only helped to foster a presumption of guilt toward the Muslim community, Iftikhar said.
“There is definitely a personal feeling of paranoia or being watched by the government,” said Nabihah Maqbool, an MU student who attended the speech. “You can’t feel comfortable to practice free speech.”
Somehow one doesn't imagine he's thinking of the handful of people willing to identify Islam as violent who are regularly smeared as racists, etc.
Iftikhar referenced a USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,007 Americans that found 58 percent of those surveyed had never met a Muslim and if they had, they did not know it. It also found that 22 percent of those surveyed did not want Muslims as neighbors.
So what does that prove?
“The integral issue is further integrating Muslims in their respective societies,” Iftikhar said, “On a local level, people need to demystify Muslims and Islam.”The issues Muslims are facing now, Iftikhar said, are “the next page of a long chapter of civil rights movements our country has gone through.”
On a local level, Iftikhar said he encourages people to inform themselves on the issues and get involved.
“It’s a struggle and people need to work hard to promote this dialogue,” said Omar Waheed, the President of MU’s Muslim Student Organization.
“The future of America is intertwined with everyone in it.”
Garrison said she feels the problem often is that people are apathetic and don’t take the time to educate themselves.
“People don’t care and that fosters misunderstanding and racism,” she said. “Soon America will have another target group, and so my hope from this is that we rise above acts of blatant prejudice so when that happens again another minority demographic doesn’t fall victim to this cycle.”
The tendency to graft Muslims into the civil rights movement is pernicious. There is no equation between those who fought to end the racist laws held over from American slavery and those who defend an ideology - Islam - that seeks the destruction of American constitutional government.
Greg, that got me chuckling.
Exactly.
Here's a pull-no-punches PDF article from Joint Force Quarterly, a publication for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, i.e., for the top military man in the U.S. Some people high up evidently get what Robert Spencer has been saying: Islam and Terrorism: A Broader Conceptualization
"Garrison said she feels the problem often is that people are apathetic and don’t take the time to educate themselves."
One Taqqiya
Two Taqqiya
Three Taqqiya
She guesses you need some more.
roflmao.
" It also found that 22 percent of those surveyed did not want Muslims as neighbors.
So what does that prove?"
that 22% of those surveyed are very intelligent people
“People don’t care and that fosters misunderstanding and racism”
Oh yeah and since when did a religion become a race?
Next time a Catholic is confronted is that racism too? Or a Methodist? And does that mean murdering buddist rubber plantation workers is an act of overt racism?
And while we're at it does this make the sunni vs. shi'ite a racist conflict?
Oh the spin. It's better then the merry go round.
"On a local level, Iftikhar said he encourages people to inform themselves on the issues and get involved."
That's the same thing we all want - for everyone to inform and educate themselves about islam, and get involved in ridding the West of moslems.
Don't worry, Ifti. Spencer's got the process started. And Pipes, and Hirsi Ali, and Furnish, and Shoebat, and ... well, more of us every day ...
"the 8 million Muslims in the U.S."
-- from the CAIR apologist above
A year ago it was "7 million."
A year before that it was "6 million."
Actual numbers: about 3 million, with 2 million of those being members of the Nation of Islam, and becaue of certain practices not recognized, by the Middle Eastern variety, as completely orthodox.
I fully expect by this time next year CAIR representnatives to confidently assure us that there are "ten million Muslims."
In this case the inflation of numbers is intended to do several things:
First, it is part of that constant patter, entirely unfounded, about how "Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion." No factual evidence is ever presented for this, but that does not stop journalists from reporting this claim as if it were true [when they could so easily add a phrase such as "he claimed" to indicate that they are merely reporting what is said, not accepting it.].
Does it not seem more likely that Christianity, now so appealing to so many Chinese, some of them seeking solace in the unsettling and unsatisfacory bustle of mere rampant economic develoopment [at the expense of Chinese education, of the Chinese language, of a knowledge of Chinese history, of everything that should make China China] is "the world's fastest-growing religion"? And one hears that Muslims, despite the vast sums put into mosques and madrasas by the Saudis, are in parts of sub-Saharan Africa leaving Islam for Christianity -- a development which, whether small or not, could be encouraged by an American rescue of the black African Muslims in Darfur from their persecutors and murderers, the Arabs of the Sudanese government, and behind that government, those of Egypt and the rest of the Arab League -- an Arab League that is so careful to protect Khartoum but which has so far not received the attention it deserves for its not merely indifference, but a malevolent defense of mass murder by a fellow Arab Muslim government in Darfur, as before in southern Sudan,
The inflation, however, is used as a combination rallying-cry (we are Muslims, hear us roar -- all six, all seven, all eight, all next year ten million of us in America) and an appeal to the primitive to Join The Army of Islam (we're the winning team, we're the Strong Horse), and furthermore, to make politicians more pliant, more willing to appease, if Muslim numbers can be inflated.
It's nonsense, and the candidates and citizens who make it a point to vote always and everywhere against Muslim demands, will find that they will have the support of many of us, who have become determined one-issue candidates, or nearly so: that issue is Islam, and the instruments of Islam, and the need to protect the Western world, or rather the larger Infidel world, from the encorachments and undermining of Infidel nation-states, their legal and political institutions and social arrangements, and the physical security of their inhabitants, that necessarily come with the large-scale presence of Muslims, as the situation from India to Thailand to every good-hearted but suicidally naive country in Western Europe so readily demonstrates.
One has a right to defend oneself. And that includes the right to limit the presence of those whose Total Belief System makes them, necessarily, permanently inimical to this country, a Belief System that flatly contradicts, in every way, the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
The problem wih statements by creatures like Arsalan Iftikhar, they do not want real unserstanding of Islam. They want Islam to be understood in a way that hides the truth.
As far as I am concerned, Mohammedans have only one role in the US - leave.
Make like horse manure and hit the trail.
Make like water and evaporate.
Make like the wind and blow.
If Mohammedans are feeling paranoid and uncomfortable, all they need to do is read the internet news sites. Reading the major newspapers or TV's MSM will not provide a true picture of worldwide violence perpetrated by true believers in Mohammedism.
They have every right to feel paranoid and uncomfortable, but it is not the fault of non-Mohammedists.
Every one of these creatures is a potential jihadist, we know it, and they don't like it.
You have to understand, 9/11 happened to them, not us.
Actually the 8 million figure was the first thing that caught my eye.
Repeat a lie often enough an people might even begin to believe it.
“The future of America is intertwined with everyone in it.”
Exactly, Waheed, and its time to start untwining those amongst us who have no intention to participate in the process but to insert their supremist idiealogies in a an attempt to undermine that said process. And as you have stated, Muslims are at the top of the list by a long shot.
If wish they felt so uncomfortable that they would go back and spin around the meteorite in Mecca for another 1400 years.
And leave Civilization alone.
I am not apathetic about islam; I understand islam with crystal clarity and I loathe it. My opinions are based on my knowledge of islam and I have absolutely no doubt that my knowledge is germane. I am resolute and nothing will change my feelings about muslims and islam. Therefore, I will never accept muslims, like muslims, or do anything to make life more pleasant for muslims. I will not physically or verbally assault them unless provoked, but I will make every effort to avoid any and all contact with them unless such contact could assist in exposure of the islamic agenda.
Yes, the Muslims are great at the numbers game...they inflate their numbers, importance, and 'crimes' where they can paint themselves as victims in the West. In countries where they are the majority, they deflate the number of religious minorities, encourage/institutionalize discrimination and violence against minorities and do everything to drive out non-Muslims out of their societies. I continue to wonder.... if Muslims really do believe that things are so bad in the USA for them, a)why they don't leave for a better place? 2)why they would encourage any further immigration by Muslims to the USA? If I truly believed things were so bad, I would tell my friends and relatives to stay put or apply at one of the Islamic paradises, Saudi Arabia or Iran come to mind.
Hugh. There may well be that many card carrying members in the muslim operation here. I was in Casa Grande Arizona last year and found a line of Mexicans out side their offices, they were waiting for jobs and some housing and all they needed to do was to sign the form that made them a member of Islam. I asked one guy, who had just finished in-processing, and he showed me his copy of the letter. He was promised some work and a room for his enrollment and this was enough for him. I asked if he was a Catholic, and he said he was, but he needed some work, and 'what was he to do'? I am returning to Casa Grande next week and will tape this process and post it as soon as I can. I am unaware if all the CAIR offices are doing this but I will try to tape it as well in other parts of the Nation.
As for having an Islamite family living next door, well, I have 3 families next door to me. 1 next door and 2 families across the street. The ones across the street are convert/convicts and are very scary to have there. But I just ask in a loud voice if they have any guns on the premises, and as they are convicted felons, they then keep a low profile, well, for a few days, anyway. But the truth is, it's a pain being here, and I would'nt want to live like this if I had a wife and kids.
from the article: “The 8 million Muslims in the U.S. faced a new duality after Sept. 11,” Iftikhar said. “Not only was our country attacked, but our faith, our way of life and our standing in the U.S. were also attacked.”
But see "The 8 Million Muslim Lie":
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=253930273179676
"...it's the Wahhabi lobby's big lie. CAIR and other militant Muslim groups use it to intimidate politicians, corporations and media to change policy.
"Eight-million-strong Muslims make the threat of bloc voting and boycotts a lot scarier. And the bigger the number, the bigger the foothold Islamists gain in American society.
"But don't buy it. It's a total exaggeration."
"“The 8 million Muslims in the U.S. faced a new duality after Sept. 11,” Iftikhar said. “Not only was our country attacked, but our faith, our way of life and our standing in the U.S. were also attacked.”
........which country was attacked?.....
"our faith, our way of life and our standing in the U.S. were also attacked.”
.....the more people the Muslims kill the more people identify the cause of their loved ones death is ISLAM....as more people understand Islam and Islams goals...the harder it will become to avoid violence....as I view the world today, I see Islam provoking more violence, not less...Islam is under the control of 7th century mindless morons...still trying to rob the rich caravans and kill those who refuse to submit...only now the caravans are larger and the booty is richer....but the caravans have better weapons and are beginning to fight back...Islam is doomed...
There is a way to confront the critical defects of islam without being anti religion or racist.
The root cause analysis of the problem identifies the religous defect as islamic jurisprudence, violent jihad, and dhimmitude as irreconcilable infractions upon Human Rights.
Confrontation of the local mosques and governments that support and fail to condemn these defective principles of islamic life based upon Human Rights values defers the direct conotation of an attack upon muslim individuals or the islamic faith while at the same time forces either defection from such religous defect or forces those individuals to defend the violation of Human Rights of lesser minorities etc within their community and country.
Bottom line: Force the political dissection of Islamic Jurisprudence/Sharia law, violent jihad, and dhimmitude in the court of public opinion. This is not anti religous nor racist, but will create an arena exposing the fact that the koran is defective and fuels public opinion to impose pressure upon our local and governmental leaders to act upon it where it is found. This direction does nothing to muslims or islamic faith beyond gutting the external propagation of their festering servitude. There is no direct attack upon islam or muslim with which the US constitution would provide refuge.