US Muslims Doubt Gov’t Anti-Terror Policies
“I don’t know how we can have a partnership with the same government that spies on you,” Linda Sarsour, advocacy director for the National Network for Arab American Communities, told The New York Times on Sunday, October 5.
As the US continued its raids on Syria and Iraq against the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIL, Homeland Security officials have been seen in visits to the US Muslim community.
Recently, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson showed up recently at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in the central Ohio town of Dublin to hear grievances from the Muslim community over their fears that their youths may succumb to ISIL’s savvy social media appeal to join its fight on battlefields in Iraq and Syria.
Yet, the biggest problem for many was related to the humiliating border inspections they face from brusque federal agents that wrongly targeted Muslim citizens as terrorists.
They also voiced complaints regarding the US foreign policy that leaves President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in place as a magnet for extremists.
“Our relationship has to be built on trust, but the US government hasn’t given us very many reasons to build up that trust,” said Omar Saqr, 25, the cultural center’s youth coordinator.
Dr. Iyad Azrak, 37, a Syrian-American ophthalmologist, is one of the Muslims who have been facing humiliating treatment at US borders, forced to wait for hours at border crossings while inspectors reviewed his records.
“Not once when we’re coming home do they say to me, ‘Welcome home,’ ” said Dr. Azrak, who said he has been a naturalized citizen for six years.
Concerns
Doubting the effectiveness of the US policies, American Muslims demanded new plans to engage the Muslim youth in activities and dissuade them from joining extremist groups.
During a 90-minute meeting with more than 60 local leaders, police officers and advocates, Ohio Muslims pressed Johnson to prove the government is sincere in its offers of help.
Lila Al Sibai, a 28-year-old mother of three young children and a member of the cultural center’s board, asked for a $4 million federal grant to build a new gym and classrooms for the facility.
“We need to have more activities for our youth,” she said after the meeting in this suburb of Columbus, which is the home of the country’s second-largest Somali-American community, behind only Minneapolis.
Saqr, the youth coordinator, suggested that Johnson’s agency offer a prize to the best countermessage to the Islamic State’s propaganda.
“Our youth are being hoodwinked and hijacked by their rhetoric,” he said.
“We cannot just say ISIS is bad. That’s not an option. We need an outlet,” he added, using another acronym for ISIL.
Hossam Musa, 34, the imam of the cultural center, which draws 4,000 to 5,000 people for Friday Prayer each week, proposed that the Department of Homeland Security hire authoritative Islamic scholars to help combat the Islamic State’s violent narrative.
“How do we beat ISIL? What’s our response to a young man wowed by their message? You beat them at their own game,” he said.
Last month, more than 120 Muslim scholars from around the world sent an open letter to the “fighters and followers” of ISIL, offering a comprehensive Islamic refutation, "point-by-point," to the philosophy of the self-declared caliphate.
The 18-page letter, penned in Arabic and translated into English, was released on Wednesday, September 24, by renowned scholars including Sheikh Shawqi Allam, the grand mufti of Egypt, and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem and All Palestine.
Source: On Islam
