But note that it can only retail the unsupported claims of a “rock star.” No hangings of sharp-tongued teenagers or religiously-motivated murders of hospital patients to report here. “Muslim American: A new identity?,” from the BBC, with thanks to JJohnson and RB:
Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the US, yet one in four Americans regard Muslims living among them with suspicion. What does it mean to be both Muslim and American?
Touring the US with his band Junoon, rock star and Muslim American, Salman Ahmed, wanted to find out how the aftermath of 9/11 continues to shape the lives of Muslim Americans in 2005.
“Following the attack,” he says, “there were human rights abuses against Muslims, using immigration violations as a weapon. Thousands have been detained and others deported.”
Better than being incinerated in your office.
Can Ahmed name any who were deported who didn’t have terror ties or immigration violations? No system is perfect, but the overwhelming majority had one or the other, or both.
One month after the attacks on New York and Washington, Congress rushed the Patriot Act into law to help track down terrorists.
The great thing about the American system is that it is, to a greater extent than most governments, self-correcting. Elements of the Patriot Act that may conflict with Constitutional freedoms have been the subject of endless discussions, and the whole thing is subject to modification by future legislation.
“The Act gave the FBI the right to spy on American citizens, to look into our lives, our email, and even our library records,” he says.
Better than being incinerated in your office.
But anyway, this is a common canard, and is overblown. The Act didn’t really give the FBI anything it didn’t already have — and its excesses are being trimmed in any case.
Even though the hijackers who attacked the Twin Towers in September 2001 represented a militant fringe, some Americans have blamed the entire Muslim world.
And the claims made by terrorists, that they acted in the name of Islam, have outraged many Muslims….
But, still, it’s better than being incinerated in your office…
And anyway, about that last part, it would be nice if these Muslims who are “outraged” that the terrorists claim to act in the name of Islam would come up with a convincing version of Islam that refutes the jihadists’ use of the Qur’an and Sunnah. They haven’t done so yet.