CAIR poll makes headlines in US press

By William Fisher

A poll conducted by a prominent US Islamic civil rights and advocacy group found one in four Americans believes a number of anti-Muslim stereotypes and negative images of Muslims are 16 times more prevalent than positive ones. The poll, sponsored by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and conducted by an independent research firm, was designed to help the council understand what Americans think about Muslims, identify variables associated with anti-Muslim prejudice and seek out ways to combat the Islamophobic prejudice that often leads to discrimination or even hate crimes. Poll results were widely reported in the US press.

One such account was written by Omar Ahmed, founder and chairman of the CAIR, the leading Muslim civil rights organisation in the United States. He wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "With negative stereotypes prevailing among more than a quarter of the American people, there is no wonder that reported hate crimes and discrimination against Muslim Americans increased 70 per cent from last year alone.

"More than 700 violent attacks, including several murders, against us, or those mistaken for us, occurred in the first nine weeks following Sept. 11. Scores of us were illegally removed from aircraft, sometimes because the flight crew did not feel comfortable flying with someone named Mohammed."

Meanwhile, Curt Anderson of the Associated Press, reported in the Miami Herald that "federal enforcement of civil rights laws has dropped sharply since 1999, even though the level of complaints received by the Justice Department has remained relatively constant.... Criminal charges alleging civil rights violations were brought last year against 84 defendants, down from 159 in 1999, according to Justice Department data analysed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. In addition, the study found that the number of times the FBI or other federal investigative agency recommended prosecution in civil rights cases has fallen by more than one-third, from more than 3,000 in 1999 to just over 1,900 last year."

The national newspaper USA Today carried an article by Ralph Peters, who wrote: "Suicide bombings. Assassinations. The wholesale murder of prisoners. The mass slaughter of Sept. 11. Videotaped beheadings and the execution studios recently discovered in Fallujah. We describe it as `Islamic terrorism'. And we're wrong. The hard-core terrorists spawned by the breakdown of the Middle East quote the Koran. They wear Muslim garments. They perform the daily rituals prescribed by the faith into which they were born. But all of us, in the West and the Middle East, have mistaken the identity of these butchers. For all of their Muslim trappings, the terrorists of Al Qaeda and its affiliates have returned to pre-Islamic practices, to behaviours that Moses, Christ and Mohammed uniformly rejected: They practise human sacrifice."

And the Christian Science Monitor reported: "As Ramadan drew to a close..., Muslims found themselves once again distressed over the impact of US government shutdowns of Islamic charities for possible links to terrorism. The assets of a fourth US-based charity - Islamic American Relief Agency in Columbia, Mo. - were frozen in mid-October at the start of Ramadan. And the following week, a plea from Muslim organisations for the US government to provide a list of `approved' charities for donations was turned down. (It just isn't feasible, US officials said, since new information could come to light at any time.)

"Since Sept. 11, millions of dollars in donations have been seized and frozen, leaving Muslims with unfulfilled obligations. Some have found FBI agents at their doors, asking about specific cheques they have written."

Bill Moyers, one of America's best known and most widely respected journalists, wrote in "Democracy in the Balance", in Soujourner Magazine: "I keep a file marked `Holy War'. It bulges with stories of Shiites and Sunnis in fratricidal conflict. Of teenage girls in Algeria shot in the face for not wearing a veil. Of professors whose throats are cut for teaching male and female students in the same classroom. Of the fanatical Jewish doctor with a machinegun mowing down 30 praying Muslims in a mosque. Of Muslim suicide bombers bent on the obliteration of Jews. Of the young Orthodox Jew who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and then announced to the world that `Everything I did, I did for the glory of God'. Of Hindus and Muslims slaughtering each other in India, of Christians and Muslims perpetuating gruesome vengeance on each another in Nigeria.

"Meanwhile, groups calling themselves the Christian Identity Movement and the Christian Patriot League arm themselves, and Christians intoxicated with the delusional doctrine of two 19th-century preachers not only await the rapture but believe they have an obligation to get involved politically to hasten the divine scenario for the Apocalypse that will bring an end to the world. Sadly, Christians, too, can invoke God for the purpose of waging religious war. `Onward Christian Soldiers' is back in vogue and the 2lst century version of the Crusades has taken on aspects of the righteous ferocity that marked its predecessors."

The Sacramento (California) Bee reported that when Army Captain James Yee, "a terrorist-suspect-turned-hero", was presented with a "Courage and Inspiration Award" by a local Muslim organisation, a diverse audience rose to its feet to congratulate him: Muslims and Christians, Arab Americans and African Americans, imams and politicians. Asian Americans made up an especially large contingent at the CAIR fund-raiser, which drew more than 400 people. Many Asian Americans said they attended because they felt a special bond with Yee, a Muslim Army chaplain formerly stationed at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yee, who is Chinese American, was charged last year with mishandling classified information, and spent 76 days in solitary confinement. Military officials had said they might have a Guantanamo-based spy ring on their hands, but the government's case against Yee disintegrated. The criminal charges against him were dismissed earlier this year..."

This article was published in the Monday, November 29, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.