At a time of stress, the moving music of Islam – The Washington Post

2016/02/09 Leave a comment

A reminder of the richness of Muslim culture:
The Al Firdaus Ensemble, from Granada, Spain, perform at the Diyanet Center of America in Lanham, Md., Saturday. From left are Abdessalam Naiti, Salma Vives, Ali Keeler, Omar Benlamlih and Muhammad Domínguez. (David Montgomery/The Washington Post)

At about the same time that Donald Trump was reminding everyone at the New Hampshire Republican presidential candidates’ debate Saturday evening that he had called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, a violin player and singer of Islamic religious songs named Ali Keeler was about to perform at a Turkish mosque in Lanham, Md., just outside the Capital Beltway.

Keeler, born in London and now based in Granada, Spain, is as surprised as anyone that his band of devout troubadours called the Al Firdaus Ensemble is filling concert halls in the United States. Given all the controversy over Islam in this country, “we didn’t know what to expect,” he said.

Keeler had wondered if there would be problems getting into the country. If there would be an American audience for a quintet of virtuosos playing songs in a style that is hundreds of years old. Then there was all the political rhetoric. Keeler was well aware that if the person in the White House a year from now is President Trump, a tour like this featuring Muslim artists from abroad might be impossible.

But Keeler has faith.

“I think, really, exactly what is going on in the end is going to be very positive for Muslims,” he said with the serene confidence of a man whose lyrics are rooted in mystical Islamic poetry and texts in which amazing marvels do come to pass, if you just believe. “I’m confident that the majority of Americans actually are in favor of a pluralistic, diverse society.”

Ali Keeler, founder of the Al Firdaus Ensemble, performs in a recent music video shot in Spain. (Courtesy Al Firdaus Ensemble and Amar Chebib)Ali Keeler, founder of the Al Firdaus Ensemble, performs in a recent music video shot in Spain. (Courtesy Al Firdaus Ensemble and Amar Chebib)

The remarkably timely tour of Al Firdaus has grown organically, as word spread among networks of young professional Muslims engaged in building vital social, educational and religious scenes in cities across America. The ensemble — which takes its name from the most elevated part of Paradise — played before several hundred people in the Princeton University Chapel on Friday night. Before that, the group performed in a chapel in Chicago. It is eventually headed to the San Francisco Bay area.

…Word of Al Firdaus spread over Facebook, and performances at the Turkish Diaynet Center of America on Saturday and the GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights on Sunday quickly sold out, a total of nearly 450 seats.For those filling the halls, it was more than a night out.

“There’s been an assault on what Islam is and was,” Elashram said. “This is a way to reconnect to that heritage. . . . Islam is a way of life.”

While the musicians of Al Firdaus did not set out to influence the contentious discussions around Islam, they are aware that this tour, at this time, in some small way could have an impact. Their music is far from political. It’s all about beauty and faith and peace and devotion — which is a point in itself. Inherent in this musical tradition is the idea that truth is beauty and beauty is truth. Thus, for an artist to create or convey an Islamic thing of beauty is to tell a truth about Islam.

“When Islam has such bad press, we are ambassadors,” said Muhammad Domínguez, who plays the darbuka, a hand-held drum, in the ensemble. “I think there is no better moment for us as Muslims and believers and followers of the prophet Muhammad to bring these events to the whole world. Once falsehood appears, you should confront it with the truth. Al Firdaus is an open window to show the people the beauty of Islam.”

The Saturday and Sunday concerts were billed as “Sounds of the Alhambra,” referring to the ancient Moorish palace and fortress in Granada that still stands as a tranquil, if crowded, tourist attraction. Most of the people in the audience Saturday were connected to the Muslim community. They ranged in age from babies to seniors, and some dressed in traditional headscarves or robes.

With violin, cello, two darbukas, a harp-like qanun and sinuous vocals, the musicians of Al Firdaus held the audience silently spellbound at some moments and inspired them to ebullient poly-rhythmic clapping and singing at others. The melodies explored the common harmonic river fed by musical tributaries of Arabic, Moorish, Turkish, Celtic, flamenco and Andalusian sources. The words, mostly in Arabic, were composed epochs ago by holy men and mystical poets.

Source: At a time of stress, the moving music of Islam – The Washington Post

Filed under Multiculturalism

Douglas Todd: Canadian aboriginals joining Christian clergy despite residential-school legacy

2016/02/09 Leave a comment

Interesting piece by Douglas Todd on indigenous peoples and spirituality. When I was looking at religious affiliation in my book, Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote, one of the bigger surprises was the low number following traditional Aboriginal spirituality:

The biggest group of Canadian aboriginals, 506,000, affiliate with Roman Catholicism. The National Household Survey found another 134,000 associate with the Anglican Church, 59,000 with the United Church and 36,000 are Pentecostal.

Almost one in five aboriginals say they have “no religion.” And 63,000 say they follow traditional aboriginal spirituality.

Dozens of aboriginal clergy in the Anglican, United Church, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches have trained through the Native Ministries Consortium at Vancouver School of Theology on the UBC campus. Every summer, 40 to 60 aboriginal theology students take programs at The Native Ministries Consortium, says director Ray Aldred, who is Cree.

The students are often from the West Coast — Salish, Haida, Tsimshian, etc. Other indigenous students hail from Ontario, the Arctic and the Prairies. That’s not to mention Lakota, Navajo or Nez Perce from the U.S.

Contrary to most media reports about Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Aldred believes “aboriginal anger about white Christianity” and the legacy of residential schools abated more than a decade ago.

“I think in the 1950s the churches began realizing they had made a mistake with residential schools. But it took another 50 years to get out of them,” said Aldred, 56.

The churches closed almost all residential schools by the 1970s, but the federal government’s billion-dollar compensation and healing program is continuing.

“Now we can do Christian faith on our own terms,” said Aldred, who was baptized in the United Church but is now a minister in the Alliance Church. “That’s the cool thing about Canada. We seem to find ways to get along.”

Both Aldred and Nahanee feel they have integrated Christianity into their aboriginal traditions.

“I believe Christianity is everyone’s religion. It’s not just white man’s religion,” said Nahanee, 63, who also chairs the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council.

Nahanee often holds a talking stick or eagle feather when he’s in the pulpit at St. Paul’s Church, which is decorated with aboriginal designs and where he co-ministers with his Filipina wife, Emma, 53.

The Catholic Church allows deacons, unlike its priests, to be married. However, Nahanee and Emma joked about how the church would not permit him to remarry if she died.

Even though Nahanee would like to see Pope Francis repeat earlier Vatican apologies for Canada’s residential-school system, including one that operated a few hundred metres from St. Paul’s Church, he regrets how some good things that happened in the schools are being ignored.

“People are now afraid to say positive things about the schools,” said Nahanee. He noted, for instance, that in the late 1800s the Catholic priest for St. Paul’s Church and its related residential school stopped an attempt by the legendary Vancouver saloon owner, “Gassy Jack” Deighton, to seize Squamish Nation land.

Nahanee is convinced Christianity, at its best, adds to aboriginal culture. He knows it might not be for everyone, but he urges aboriginals and others who are angry about the past to find ways to transcend it.

“I think forgiveness is a way of healing and getting on with our lives. We’ve had so many problems because of anger and alcoholism. It has to end.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Canadian aboriginals joining Christian clergy despite residential-school legacy

Filed under Aboriginal, Religion Tagged with ,

If Cable Companies Lose Control Over the Cable Box, What Happens to Minority Programming? – The Atlantic

2016/02/08 Leave a comment

Interesting debate in the US:

So which is it? Is it good for minorities or bad?

It costs about $231 to rent that clunky box each year. That earns cable companies $19.5 billion per year. The proposal would open the cable-box market to companies like Apple, Tivo, Roku, and Google. Cable companies are obviously upset. They’d lose out on billions (they’ve raised cable box prices 185 percent in the past 20 years). And in much the way the Internet has disrupted the way we listen to music, watch movies, and consume the news, it could do the same for the way we watch cable. The proposal would also, cable companies say, upend the way they negotiate premium spots on their channel lists.

That’s partly why some black and Hispanic organization are upset. Right now, wealthy programmers––including those that appeal to minority audiences––pay for prime listing space. In return, people see your network and watch it. But if tech companies take over, who will decide the pecking order? The worry is that tech companies would turn their boxes into vast and depthless rooms––much like the Internet is––where minority programs will lose the slight edge they can buy in the current pay-for-queue-style listing.

Another issue is cost. The FCC wouldn’t require consumers to switch to a third-party box, but TiVo costs about $15 a month, and to outright buy an Apple TV box is $150. Cable companies charge around $7.50 a month—though that cost adds up quickly over time.

Cable boxes have long been a shackle of control. Opening the market to competition would likely lower prices. Not to mention that programming for minorities is already pretty abysmal. Telemundo and Univision are behemoths in media, but young Hispanics don’t watch TV in just Spanish. English networks with a Hispanic bias are pretty rare, and as Nogales told Motherboard, there’s really just the Fusion channel, “and that’s it.”

That was Johnson’s same argument for why the FCC should pass the plan. Back when he built BET, he had to first convince the gilded cable companies that enough black consumers wanted to watch his channel just so they’d try it out in their cable lineups. It was a success. But since Johnson started BET 35 years ago, only a handful of black-led channels have joined cable listing. The biggest reason why he supports the plan, Johnson wrote, is because it “would simply increase control by consumers.” No more corporate suits to convince. Each remote is its own vote.

Source: If Cable Companies Lose Control Over the Cable Box, What Happens to Minority Programming? – The Atlantic

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Action Canada: Barriers to Belonging Report and Municipal Voting

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

Attended the presentation of the Action Canada report 5 Feb (I had been one of the people consulted in its preparation)Citizenship and Selection).

Well attended, including the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Arif Virani, who signalled the change and tone of the new government.

The one part of the report that I have a friendly disagreement with is the push for municipal voting.

The main arguments used – Permanent Residents use municipal services, pay taxes, live in the communities – apply also to provincial services (e.g., healthcare and education) and federal services (e.g., Service Canada and related employment programs). Comparisons with Europe are largely irrelevant given the barriers to or length to obtain citizenship in most European countries.

And I have never seen – readers to correct me – any convincing data or evidence on whether extending municipal voting to non-citizens will make a marked difference in voting participation or overall integration.

Recommendations as follows:

  1. Recognize and facilitate permanent immigration and citizenship acquisition as critical to nation building in selection, citizenship, settlement and integration policies. Avoid policies that risk leading to long-term residence without permanent status or citizenship.
  2. Factor the settlement and integration needs of immigrants into selection policy, alongside the long-term social and economic needs of the country.

Designing smarter services:

  1. Engage stakeholders to identify information gaps, design usable data formats, and create platforms for consolidating evidence on what works. Include, at a minimum, settlement service providers, and provincial and municipal governments.
  2. Create a $10M pay-for-success fund – about 1% of the total settlement and integration budget – focused on immigrant inclusion outcomes. This could be modeled on the UK DWP Innovation Fund.
  3. Expand eligibility criteria for settlement services.

Building Bridges to Employment

  1. Engage employers to develop demand-driven employment solutions.
  2. Work with small and medium-sized enterprise business support programs, accelerators, incubators and innovation hubs to create entrepreneurship training, mentorship, loan and venture capital programs targeted to recent immigrants.

Strengthening Political Engagement

TARGET AUDIENCE: PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS

  1. Amend provincial and territorial legislation to remove barriers to non-citizens voting in municipal elections, including school board elections.

TARGET AUDIENCE: PROVINCIAL, TERRITORIAL AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

  1. Remove barriers to non-citizens becoming members of municipal governance bodies.
  2. Publish an annual report card on the extent to which municipal governance bodies reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities should spearhead this initiative, alongside leading municipalities.

View Report

 

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Shunning hatred online won’t make it go away: Cole

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

Desmond Cole on the tendency of media outlets to eliminate online comment sections:

Few people are mourning the disappearance of online comment sections in major media outlets. CBC recently removed public feedback for all stories involving indigenous people; the Toronto Sun and the Star have done away with the feature altogether. Gone is the fear of scrolling down too far in an online story, and taking in the hateful filth of mostly anonymous provocateurs that had become so common. As a bonus, cash-strapped media outlets who kill comment forums no longer have to pay staff to police them. Everybody wins, right?

But beware: the “block” function doesn’t transpose so easily into our live, face-to-face encounters. It’s tempting to ignore the hatred and discrimination we hear at work, in transit, at the dinner table. But while it’s not always safe or advisable to confront such oppression head on, we need to find ways to challenge it. The instinct behind the closing of comments sections is perfectly understandable, but looking away from the worst in our culture is generally not a path to progress, and can leave vulnerable people at the mercy of the haters.

Ontario’s Liberal government, for instance, should be applauded for its work to establish a clear definition of sexual violence and harassment for the first time. The government’s provocative “It’s Never OK” ad campaign against sexual violence has earned lots of attention; a set of proposed legal changes also deserve public consideration. We know, for example, that employers in Ontario regularly encounter sexual harassment in the workplace, and often choose to ignore it.

….It’s dangerous to dismiss oppression anywhere, including the rampant misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and racism that can dominate internet forums. It may be pragmatic for media outlets to eliminate it from their pages, but it endures in the hearts of hateful people. As we move to limit the impact of oppression online, let’s not fool ourselves that we can shun it without consequence in the many places we find it.

Source: Shunning hatred online won’t make it go away: Cole | Toronto Star

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Is being a vegan a human right? Advocates claim protection under new Ontario policy, but that wasn’t the point

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

Interesting how different groups tend to stretch definitions:

It’s a question the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal may soon tackle after an update to the provincial definition of “creed”. Animal-rights and vegan advocates are calling the new policy, released in December, an important recognition of their right to express their beliefs. The 179-page policy, the first update from the provincial human rights commission since 1996, offers guidelines for what defines “creed,” historically treated as religious beliefs and practices, in the more secular 21st century. That opens the door for vegans, atheists and other groups to claim similar protections under the law.

“This is nothing new. For decades we’ve accommodated people who have beliefs about wearing leather or eating certain foods based on their religious beliefs,” said Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice. In a blog post last month, the charity said the new policy offers human rights protections to ethical vegans (people who don’t consume or wear any animal or fish byproducts for reasons of conscience). “This is a recognition that we are becoming an increasingly secular society and people have other reasons behind their beliefs now that aren’t necessarily religious in nature.”

What we were really trying to capture are things like atheism, belief systems that might not have a religious basis

But according to Ontario Human Rights Chief Commissioner Renu Mandhane, that was never the precise intent of the review of the definition of “creed.”

“We did hear from (vegan and animal rights groups) and I have a lot of respect for their advocacy… but in framing the definition, that is not the group that we were attempting to address. That’s not to say the tribunal might not find… in a certain instance for that to qualify as creed,” said Mandhane. “But that wasn’t where we were going.”

Instead, the aim was to provide an update that hedged against growing religious persecution in some areas, particularly against Muslims, and to make it more inclusive of, for example, atheists or those who practice an indigenous spirituality. “Creed” is now much broader than the more strictly religious interpretation intended when the Code was first drafted and is intended to capture more modern belief systems.

That doesn’t mean any belief system can qualify, however. The updated policy uses a five-pronged approach to determining whether a belief system qualifies as a legally protected creed:

  • Is it a sincerely, freely and deeply held belief?
  • Is tied to personal identity and spiritual fulfillment?
  • Is it “a comprehensive and overarching system of belief that governs one’s conduct and practices?
  • Does it address ultimate question of human existence, including ones about life, death and purpose?
  • Is there an organization or community that practices the same belief system?

“What we were really trying to capture are things like atheism, belief systems that might not have a religious basis but are sort of about that ultimate question of our existence and our identity,” Mandhane said, since “we’ve become a more secular society.”

Source: Is being a vegan a human right? Advocates claim protection under new Ontario policy, but that wasn’t the point

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RCMP’s portrayal of Islam in B.C. terror sting ‘dubious,’ expert says

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

The defence appears to have a point:

Police officers posing as spiritual guides in an undercover terrorism sting offered “dubious” and “eyebrow-raising” interpretations of Islam to a British Columbia man with extremist Muslim views, an Islamic expert says.

Omid Safi, head of Islamic studies at Duke University in North Carolina, told a B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday that the RCMP should have helped John Nuttall overcome his radical ideas, instead of preventing him from reaching out to mainstream, moderate religious leaders.

Mr. Nuttall and his common-law partner, Amanda Korody, were found guilty last summer of plotting to blow up the B.C. Legislature on Canada Day in 2013. Their convictions are on hold while lawyers argue the pair were entrapped by the RCMP.

“I have questions about particular aspects of the ways in which the police seem to have presented themselves as a model of spiritual guides, offering highly dubious interpretations of Islam, putting themselves in a position of authority,” Prof. Safi told the court.

“Those are all things that, to a scholar of Islam, certainly seem to be eyebrow-raising.”

Defence lawyers have depicted Mr. Nuttall and Ms. Korody as impoverished former heroine addicts, living on welfare, who spent most of their time playing video games in their basement suite in Surrey, B.C.

Prof. Safi described Mr. Nuttall’s understanding of Islam as shallow and superficial, informed by rambling and incoherent political grievances.

Transcripts from undercover surveillance recordings reveal Mr. Nuttall was searching for spiritual guidance and that he identified the main undercover RCMP officer as a religious authority and his one true Muslim brother, Prof. Safi said.

“I think that deradicalization – religious guidance from an authentic, certifiable imam with command over issues of Islamic law – would be the proper course of action,” Prof. Safi said when asked what the appropriate police response would be when dealing with a person who harboured extremist views.

In her cross-examination, Crown lawyer Sharon Steele pressed him, asking whether his perspective would differ if this person were in the midst of organizing a violent plot.

“It would only add to the urgency of putting that person in touch with a qualified, scholarly source,” he replied.

Ms. Steele presented Prof. Safi with instances in which Mr. Nuttall called into question the authority of mainstream religious leaders and railed against their views of Islam. She questioned whether this behaviour was an precursor to violence.

“I wish I could tell you that that’s a sign of a jihadist. It’s not. It’s a sign of hotheadedness,” Prof. Safi said, adding that he’s encountered that exact situation dozens of times over his 24 years as a university professor.

“[It’s] hotheaded 18-year-old kids who think that they know everything about the faith getting up and telling a professor of Islamic studies, who has a PhD, you’re preaching a soft, watered-down, Westernized Islam for the infidels.

“What you’re seeing here of course is rude, it’s disrespectful. It’s also absolutely a part of the landscape of modern Islam.”

Source: RCMP’s portrayal of Islam in B.C. terror sting ‘dubious,’ expert says – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Antisemitism: Latest figures from UK and France

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

Latest data from UK and France:

The number of antisemitic incidents in Britain fell by more than a fifth last year — but 2015 was still the third worst year on record.

Figures published by the Community Security Trust revealed there were 924 incidents of Jew hatred last year.

It represented a drop of 22 per cent compared to 2014, when, following the Gaza conflict, there was a significant spike resulting in 1,179 reported cases.

cst_incidents
Home Secretary Theresa May said there were “still too many cases” of antisemitism in Britain in 2015. CST chief executive David Delew warned that the latest figures were worse than had been expected.

Incidents included two telephoned bomb threats to Jewish schools in London and Manchester, Jewish schoolboys being spat at while visiting a friend at a Manchester hospital, a cyclist throwing a stone at a Jewish man, a swastika being daubed on a Jewish home in Bournemouth, and similar graffiti at a Liverpool cemetery.

CST said there had been no major trigger incident last year, but January and February 2015 saw the most reports of antisemitism following the murders at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris and the attack on a synagogue in Copenhagen.

The charity, which has charted antisemitism in Britain since 1984, said it was unclear whether better reporting mechanisms or a genuine rise in Jew hatred played a bigger role in the total number, which ranked 2015 behind only 2014 and 2009 for total incidents.

Source: CST figures reveal 2015 was third worst year for antisemitism | The Jewish Chronicle

From France:

A total of 59 per cent of French people think members of the Jewish community are at least partially responsible for anti-Semitism, a survey conducted by the Fondation de Judaisme Français and Ipsos has suggested.

The foundation surveyed 1,005 people who “constituted a sample representative of the French population” online over nine days.

Respondents were asked whether they thought Jews held part of the responsibility for anti-Semitism in France.
​Jews leave France at record rate as Isis-inspired anti-Semitism rises
German Jews ‘no longer safe due to rising anti-Semitism’
Video showing Jews and Arabs kissing disappears from Facebook
Of the 59 per cent that answered yes, three per cent thought they had ‘a very important part’ and 14 per cent said they had a ‘significant’ part.

Over half of respondents said Jewish people had a lot of power and were richer than the average French person.

A total of 13 per cent of respondents thought there were too many Jewish people in France, despite the Jewish community only making up one per cent of the population.

Reported anti-Semitic crimes in France have more than doubled between 2014 and 2015 according to a report by Human Rights First, who stated that the crimes were becoming “increasingly violent”.

Approximately 8,000 French Jews migrated to Israel last year, making France the highest source of immigrants to Israel, and many more have migrated to the UK and Canada.

Board of Deputies of British Jews Senior Vice President Richard Verber said: “it is troubling to consider that more than one in 10 French people believe there are ‘too many Jews’ in the country.

“The sad reality today is that visibly-Jewish French citizens are subject to a range of disturbing reactions, from latent anti-Semitism to acts of extreme violence – a number of which have resulted in deaths. For many, this has led to a decision that Jewish life is no longer viable in the country.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/6-in-10-french-people-think-jews-are-responsible-for-anti-semitism-survey-finds-a6848911.html

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

The Coen Brothers: ‘The Oscars Are Not That Important’ and Comments on Diversity – The Daily Beast

2016/02/05 Leave a comment

The Coen brothers (I like many of their films) on diversity and storytelling:

I asked the Coens to respond to criticisms that there aren’t more minority characters in the film. In other words, why is #HailCaesarSoWhite?

“Why would there be?” countered Joel Coen. “I don’t understand the question. No—I understand that you’re asking the question, I don’t understand where the question comes from.”

“Not why people want more diversity—why they would single out a particular movie and say, ‘Why aren’t there black or Chinese or Martians in this movie? What’s going on?’ That’s the question I don’t understand. The person who asks that question has to come in the room and explain it to me.”

As filmmakers, is it important or not important to consciously factor in concerns like diversity, I asked.

“Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”

“It’s an absolute, absurd misunderstanding of how things get made to single out any particular story and say, ‘Why aren’t there this, that, or the other thing?’” added Joel. “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how stories are written. So you have to start there and say, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’”

He continued: “You don’t sit down and write a story and say, ‘I’m going to write a story that involves four black people, three Jews, and a dog,’—right? That’s not how stories get written. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand anything about how stories get written and you don’t realize that the question you’re asking is idiotic.”

“It’s not an illegitimate thing to say there should be more diversity in an industry,” concluded Joel. “But that’s not what that question is about. That question is about something else.”

Source: The Coen Brothers: ‘The Oscars Are Not That Important’ – The Daily Beast

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Obama’s Mosque Visit: The President Criticizes Islamophobia and Jabs at Republicans – The Atlantic

2016/02/05 Leave a comment

Welcome contrast to some of the language current in the USA:

Obama’s comments were aimed at a triple audience. He placed greatest emphasis on making an impassioned case to the entire American population to accept Muslims, speaking in terms that were reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s famous post-9/11 “Islam is peace” remarks. Second, he spoke to American Muslims themselves, telling them they have a place in the country but also insisting they must help resist extremism. Finally, he spoke to Muslims around the world, calling for religious freedom and pluralism and saying the U.S. is not at war with Islam.

“Most Americans don’t necessarily know, or at least don’t know that they know, a Muslim personally. And as a result, many only hear about Muslims and Islam from the news after an act of terrorism, or in distorted media portrayals in TV or film, all of which gives this hugely distorted impression,” Obama said. “And since 9/11 but more recently since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, you’ve seen too often people conflating the horrific acts of terrorism with the beliefs of an entire faith. And of course, recently we’ve heard inexcusable political rhetoric about Muslim Americans that has no place in our country.”

In rebuke to politicians like Donald Trump, Obama presented Islam as an essential part of the nation’s heritage, going back to Muslim slaves brought to the British colonies and running through Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom up to Fazlur Rahman Khan, who designed two of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers. And he spoke emotionally about mail he received from Muslim American children and parents who felt persecuted and unsafe.

“We’re one American family. And when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation,” he said.

Obama’s visit comes at a time of particular tension for the American Muslim community. Advocates report an increasing number of Islamophobic incidents, which are mirrored in the Republican presidential race. Donald Trump endorsed the suggestion of a registry of Muslims in the U.S., and he suggested barring Muslims from entering the country—even citizens returning from abroad. Other candidates have suggested a link between refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq and terrorism. Although there was a spate of attacks and incidents against Muslims after 9/11, the support of President George W. Bush made them feel that those attacks were mostly from the fringe.

….Obama took pains to condemn Islamophobic rhetoric during his State of the Union address in January. “When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or our fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid is called names, that doesn’t make us safer,” he said. “That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. It betrays who we are as a country.”

On Wednesday he responded to critics—especially Republican contenders to replace him in the White House—who complain that he won’t label Islamic terrorism as such, saying demands to label by religion only play into extremist propaganda.

“I often hear it said that we need moral clarity in this fight. And the suggestion is somehow that if I would simply say, ‘These are all Islamic terrorists,’ then we would actually have solved the problem by now, apparently,” he said. “Let’s have some moral clarity: Groups like ISIS are desperate for legitimacy…. We must never give them that legitimacy. They’re not defending Islam. They’re not defending Muslims.”

Implicitly responding to tiresome calls for the “moderate Muslims” to speak out against terrorism, Obama said that they are speaking—but not enough people are listening. He vowed to work to amplify their voices.

But unlike in the past, when Obama has sometimes sought to question the Muslim bona fides of groups like ISIS, he acknowledged that the group draws its power in part from its interpretation of Islam—even if that interpretation is, as Obama said Wednesday, “perverted.” (That was a vast improvement on Secretary of State John Kerry’s baffling decision to label ISIS members “apostates” in comments Tuesday.)

Before speaking publicly, the president met with a group of Muslims: mostly young, foreign- and American-born, people born into Muslim families and converts, and from various ethnic backgrounds. Speaking specifically to young Muslims during his speech, Obama offered both reassurance that they belong in America, and a lecture on the importance of religious freedom. He said the government can’t deal with Muslim Americans simply through the lens of law enforcement, a nod to consistent complaints about intrusive policing and civil-liberties violations.

“You’re right where you belong. You’re part of America too. You’re not Muslim or American, you’re Muslim and American,” he told young Muslims. But Obama also warned them not to “respond to ignorance by embracing a worldview that suggests you must choose between your faith and your patriotism.”

Source: Obama’s Mosque Visit: The President Criticizes Islamophobia and Jabs at Republicans – The Atlantic

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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