One may ask. If the feverish discourse about the so-called Ground Zero mosque is only about the building of a new mosque or something else? To borrow, Stephan Salisbury of Tom Dispatch, the mosque controversy is not really about a mosque at all; it's about the presence of Muslims in America, and the free-floating anxiety and fear that now dominate the nation's psyche. The dark stain of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim bigotry or Islamophobia had spread far and wide long before the controversy erupted. As Salisbury pointed out, "those opposing the construction of the center in New York City are drawing on what amounts to a decade of government-stoked xenophobia about Muslims, now gathering strength and visibility in a nation full of deep economic anxieties and increasingly aggressive far-right grassroots groups."
Burning of the Quran stunt
Desecration of the Quran, Islam's holy book, the Quran, is another method of bigotry. Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim Pastor Terry Jones of a tiny Florida Church, known as the Dove World Outreach Center, planned to commemorate 9/11 by burning copies of the Holy Quran. He abandoned the Quran burning stunt when US Secretary of Defense phoned him saying that his provocative act would inflame the Muslim world and jeopardize the lives of American troops now deployed in many Muslim countries. However, Jones message was not lost to many. Torn pages of the Quran were found on Sept 10 at the front of the Islamic Center of East Lansing, Michigan. Some of the pages appeared to be smeared with feces.
Amid heightened hate speech and fear-mongering mosques in California, Tennessee, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Texas, and Florida have faced vocal opposition or have been targeted by hate incidents. In one incident, on the 9/11 eve, vandals spray-painted "9-11" on windows and countertops at the Muslim owned Jaffa Market in Columbus, Ohio. Some cash and a laptop computer were stolen, while several display cases were vandalized. On Sept 8, back wall of the Hudson Islamic Center in New York was pained with slur "sand n**gers" and an obscenity. In early September, a Phoenix under construction mosque was vandalized. Paint was spilled on the floor and several tall, arched glass windows were broken by what appeared to be gunshots. There was also anti-Muslim graffiti. The same mosque was vandalized in the February.
The presence of mosques and the building of new mosques have become a divisive issue in several communities across the country in recent years. A church may be a church, and a temple a temple, but through the prism of emotion that grips many Americans, almost a decade after 9/11, a mosque can apparently represent a lot of things.
Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear
Tellingly, spreading hate and fear about Islam is a lucrative business and anti-Islam crusaders are making millions. Muslim-basher Steven Emerson's for-profit company -- Washington-based SAE Productions -- collected 3.39 million dollars in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The payment came from the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, a nonprofit charity Emerson also founded, which solicits money by telling donors they're in imminent danger from Muslims.
Emerson is a leading member of a multimillion-dollar industry of self-proclaimed experts who spread hate toward Muslims in books and movies, on websites and through speaking appearances. Leaders of the so-called "anti-jihad" movement portray themselves as patriots, defending America against radical Islam. And they've found an eager audience in ultra-conservative Christians and mosque opponents in Middle Tennessee. One national consultant testified in an ongoing lawsuit aimed at stopping a new Murfreesboro mosque.(8)
Surveillance of mosques and FBI sting operations against Muslim groups
The American Muslim community, under siege since the ghastly tragedy of 9/11, is alarmed at the FBI sting operations and provocative surveillance of their mosques. Many defense lawyers and civil rights advocates argue that the government's tactics, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks, have raised questions about the possible entrapment of people who pose no real danger but are enticed into pretend plots at the government's urging.
However, US Attorney General Eric Holder, while addressing a Muslim Advocates gathering in San Francisco on December 10, rejected criticism of some counterterrorism techniques used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including sending informers into mosques and creating elaborate sting operations.
Wading into the most controversial recent case, Holder backed the FBI's investigation of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a Somali-born Muslim in Oregon charged with trying to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. FBI technicians had supplied the device, leading many Muslims and civil libertarians to question whether agents went too far by training the man for terrorism.
President of Muslim Advocates, Farhana Khera, argues that the complex "entrapment operations" may be getting people involved in terrorism who otherwise would not have done anything while the operations divert investigators from "actual threats" and stoke "anti-Muslim sentiment."
Law-abiding American Muslims have experienced increasing levels of discriminatory, invasive and abusive conduct by federal agents in the years since 9/11. FBI's extraordinary tools to fight crime are being turned against millions of its own citizens, including American Muslims. Tools intended to protect the country--such as massive data collection and analysis--instead, give the FBI unprecedented and unchecked power to amass huge amounts of detailed information on innocent Americans and community groups.
The Muslim Advocates filed
a lawsuit against the Justice Department, in September 2009, seeking full
public disclosure of FBI investigative guidelines for when and how agents can
engage in surveillance. In July 2010, 29 state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union joined the Muslim Advocates in
an ongoing legal effort to seek full disclosure of the unedited copy of
investigative guidelines the FBI has issued to its
agents.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
