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Advocacy for Principled Action In Government http://www.principledaction.org/additional2.html <Sent by Fax to all members of the United States Congress> On September 10th in a televised interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney stated with little ambiguity that we would have invaded Iraq in 2003 even if we knew that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction. This statement by our nation’s Vice President repudiates the legal and moral principle of non-aggression which has been accepted by the international community and has won the United States international trust and respect. This repudiation must not go unnoticed or unchallenged by Congress and the American people.
Mohamed Elibiary and Ian Benouis: A call to Muslims
Do not let terrorists hijack our religion Mohamed Elibiary: Making terrorists seem like religious spokesmen is wrong - Monday July 18, 2005 Dallas Morning News
President Bush has defined our course as a "global war on terror," and the 9-11 Commission defined our enemy as "Islamist terrorists." It's worth noting how these public relations missteps are strengthening the efforts of our enemies daily in this battle for hearts and minds.
The terminology defining our enemy as "Islamic" or "Islamist" is a PR disaster for the West. Simply explained, defining Islam in terms not native to it is not effectively accurate – and is sometimes offensive – to a Muslim ear.
Also, when translating either of these terms from English to Arabic or any other derivative of the Arabic language, it translates as "pertaining to or supporter of Islam." Defining the civilized world's enemy as "jihadists," "madrasas" (a generic word meaning school) or by any other Islamic term not pertaining to terrorism is also inaccurate.
At a recent meeting with the Texas Conference of Churches director in Austin, we discussed the concept of "jihad" in Islam and "mission" in Christianity. Jihad, a concept of active struggle, can't be removed from Islam, just as mission can't be removed from Christianity. The fact is that one-fifth of the world struggles (jihad) to spiritually submit five times a day when it prays before its lord. Putting faith into action is a struggle (jihad) whether working on social justice, the environment or defending one's homeland.
Now, is Osama binLaden calling for a "militant 'defensive' jihad" against the West every time I see him on Al-Jazeera or the Internet?
Of course he is, but all major Islamic clerics and organizations have rebuffed and condemned the nonsense that he's preaching in his attempt to legitimize civilian casualties because of a perceived Western onslaught on the Muslim world. Bin Laden's global militant anarchist movement is a fringe element driven by a psychological state that appeals to the disenfranchised within a society, to overturn its social order. Sound familiar?
According to Pew research polls, the number of Americans who believe that Islam is more likely to encourage violence has doubled since 9-11 to 46 percent. Demonizing Islam, the Prophet Muhammad or the Quran – or saying Islam is the cause of the violence we suffer from today – is counterproductive to our efforts to win hearts overseas, lessen the potential for a hate-crime backlash and, most important, not marginalize our own Western Muslim youth.
Muslims don't want special treatment, but if you can't substitute Jew or Christian for Muslim and get away with it socially, then it shouldn't be said. The same goes for Islam being substituted by Christianity or Judaism. Islam is a noun referring to a religion equal to Christianity and Judaism. Muslim is a noun referring to an individual who practices Islam and is equal to a Christian or Jew. Identifying a terrorist by religion seems logical when appropriate. For example, a terrorist can be Muslim, Christian or Jewish.
However, slapping the term Islamic on a terrorist if he claims to be fighting under the banner of Islam means you have empowered the terrorist to the level of spokesman for the religion of Islam and attributed his actions to the religion of Islam.
And after we raise a Muslim terrorist to the level of spokesman for Islam by publicizing his work as "Islamic or Islamist terrorism," coming back to blame the 2 percent of Americans who practice the Muslim faith for not speaking louder than the media megaphone and platform given to the terrorist is an unfair and absurd proposition.
Though only 30 years old now, I don't foresee the day in my lifetime when "moderate/mainstream" Muslims will have a media platform that's higher than the American media combined (newspaper, TV, Internet and radio).
If we just report accurately and stop empowering the terrorist and presenting him as a spokesman for a religion, more people would hear the moderate and mainstream Muslim voice.
He's a terrorist! He's usually a male. He has a cultural, ethnic and national identity; he doesn't need another promotion to "Spokesman for a Faith." We're only legitimizing our enemy, insulting the faith's practitioners and disenfranchising our own Western Muslim youth; so how is that productive to our aims?
Mohamed Elibiary is president and CEO of the Plano-based Freedom and Justice Foundation. His e-mail address is me@freeandjust.org. MOHAMED ELIBIARY says it's not just about human rights 12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, April 29, 2006
Darfur has been high profile in the news this week, partly because of the rally planned tomorrow in Washington to bring attention to the suffering there.
To understand the current violence, one must take a trip back in history. The British had – from the time of Gen. Horatio Herbert Kitchener with his young officer, Winston Churchill, from 1898 to 1956 – ruled Sudan as two separate nations, one in the north and the other in the south.
So it wasn't a shocker that as 1956 neared and Sudanese independence loomed, a group from the south decided to launch a civil war for independence from the majority Arabized north. That effort failed, but it put the nation on a secessionist violence track over resources for the next five decades.
Fast-forward to 2003 when, as a peaceful resolution to the southern civil war was becoming clear, a group in western Sudan (Darfur) decided to start its own war with the Khartoum government.
With poverty rampant throughout the nation and the desert expanding, nomadic Arabized tribal herders from northern Darfur were moving into the settled farmlands of southern Darfur, which included non-Arabized African tribes. No one in the central government at first cared about this minor tribal-economic dispute until a group of local non-Arabized tribal militants decided to attack the local military garrison, in effect challenging the central government's authority over the region.
The response from the Khartoum government was to show teeth so that it wouldn't have to fight a civil war on two fronts, in the south and west simultaneously. The crackdown was harsh and left in its wake a militia allied with the interests of the Arabized Darfur residents called the Janjaweed.
These Janjaweed have murdered and killed many folks in their attempt to ethnically cleanse Darfur of its non-Arabized African population.
The West has looked at this conflict only through the lens of human rights for the Darfurian civilian victims, but the reality is much more complex. Darfur's victims are a symptom of a larger problem, and we can't stop the bloodshed in Darfur permanently without tackling that larger problem. Already there is a rebellion brewing in the eastern Sudan and violence recently in the northern Sudan due to relocation efforts over the building of a dam.
The problem in Sudan, much like in Somalia, is one of representative governance and economic development. Oversimplification of democracy vs. dictatorship won't cut it, and we should advocate for three things instead:
1. The territorial sovereignty of the Sudan as controlled by the Khartoum government should be upheld in a U.N. Security Council resolution.
2. A political resolution task force led by the Arab League, African Union and the Organization of Islamic Conference, backed by the U.N. and G8, to help the Sudanese government achieve a national consensus around the rebuilding of federalism and refugee resettlement.
3. A U.N.-sponsored summit to tackle the issue of economic underdevelopment in developing nations and its impact on ethnic conflicts in the 21st century. This summit must conclude with wealthy signatory countries removing agricultural subsidies and promising investment in exchange for good governance in the developing world.
If we as Americans don't pursue a constructive foreign policy, then the lesson of the first half of the 21st century will be our failure as leaders of this planet. We are on a course to hold up Darfur as the "worst humanitarian disaster" and just wiggle our militarism in the world's face, demanding that the bloodshed stop – or else.
Many folks ask what happened to the suffering in Chechnya or Palestine, two populations living either as refugees or under military occupation for much longer, and question our motives. They also ask about the brutal repression in Ache or Kashmir, and all those hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.
Our country cannot solve the ethnic conflicts in Darfur – or elsewhere, for that matter – but what we can do is lead to a brighter future where rising water lifts all boats.
That's what this welcoming nation of immigrants was good at, and it's time we returned there.
Mohamed Elibiary is president & CEO of the Plano-based Freedom and Justice Foundation. His e-mail address is me@freeandjust.org. Mohamed Elibiary: America is too hung up on 'liberalism' in Middle East What matters most is where countries stand on terror 08:04 AM CST on Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Beware the Ides of March" is the warning Julius Caesar heard more than 2,000 years ago. Fast-forward to March 2006, and a pompous strategist for al-Qaeda named Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a video message calling for a new global political transformation.
Having first heard this man's views back in 1998, when a few ragtag mountain jihadis joined forces into a "Worldwide Front for Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jews," I felt in my gut that something was different in the recent Al-Jazeera broadcast. Since the jihad went online during the last eight years, its strategy has achieved unparalleled clarity.
The Islamic revivalist movement is perhaps the most powerful social and political force throughout the Muslim world today. While each country's revivalist movement has its own cultural and philosophical dynamics, at the core is a resurgence of the individual's religious identity. The Islamic revivalist movement, much like its Christian and Jewish counterparts, is not monolithic but includes elements focused on social piety, economics and politics. In America's struggle post-9/11 to extinguish al-Qaeda's militant global "anarchist" movement, our policymakers have unwisely adopted a failed strategy.
Mr. al-Zawahiri comes from the "Islamic jihad" school of thought, which split from the parent Muslim Brotherhood decades ago. The brotherhood believes that government should rule by "Shura," or consultation of the governed. That ideology leaves public opinion, as expressed through elections or other methods, as the great authority on most political issues.
The Islamic jihad philosophy, on the other hand, believes that armed struggle to "bring down the house," whether nationally or globally, is the only way to bring to fruition the "just rule" as embodied in the one sovereign deity. In his message this month, Mr. al-Zawahiri exploited an opportunity handed to al-Qaeda by a combination of American arrogance and the proverbial marketplace of history. He congratulated Hamas, the Palestinian Brotherhood, on its recent election victory in the occupied territories and advised it to not change its people's course from that of armed struggle against the "Zionist forces."
For his "bringing down the house" strategy to succeed, one need only incite more little fires than the system can tackle simultaneously – a strategy explained fairly well by Michael Scheuer, former CIA head of the bin Laden unit, in his book Imperial Hubris.
On the ideological front in the war on terror, America's strategy has been to promote liberalism as a third way between nationalism and Islamism. Americans must recognize the limits of militarism and prioritize needs from wants, because they're not the same. Our democratization policies should draw the line to the right of any group respecting the "rule of law" and willing to work within the system, not on whether we like its stances on liberalism. In the occupied territories today, for example, we find that Hamas has exercised a unilateral cease-fire since October 2004 while Palestinian Islamic jihad has no desire to consider one.
The ball is in America's court as to whether, after Israel's elections this month, we'll engage publicly with Hamas on its founder Sheikh Ahmed Yasin's previous offer for a 100-year truce. Our militarism inside the heart of the Islamic world has propelled moderate Islamists to the political pinnacle. These groups' failure to produce, after the secular nationalists have failed, leaves only one option before the masses desiring "self-determination" – and that choice doesn't bode well for America or our allies worldwide.
The primary factor for us as Americans should not be how liberally people govern themselves, but whether al-Qaeda's global militant "anarchist" movement becomes so mainstream that it's impossible to exhaust. Simply speaking, Shariah law in their countries doesn't equal flying our airplanes into our buildings on our soil. But attempting to liberalize their religious identity by force means America living under siege for many decades – until we either quit or go bankrupt, whichever comes first.
Mohamed Elibiary is president and CEO of the Plano-based Freedom and Justice Foundation. His e-mail address is me@freeandjust.org. At conference, Texas Baptist group seeks to hear new perspectives, gain deeper understanding of world's problems. American-Statesman Williamson , TX February 19, 2007 By Eileen E. Flynn Texas Baptists are going global.
The Christian Life Commission, the ethics and policy arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, is holding its annual conference — dubbed "Ethics without Borders" — at First Baptist Church downtown today and Tuesday. The meeting has what some observers are calling an ambitious agenda, which includes talks on the global HIV and AIDS epidemic, human trafficking, religious oppression, world hunger and Christian-Muslim relations.
They'll hear from several international speakers — and another voice not often featured at Baptist gatherings: a Muslim political activist.
In past years, the conference has not featured as many speakers from different cultures and backgrounds. Joe Haag, the commission's program planning director, said this year's focus on these issues doesn't represent a radical departure from the Baptist mission. The organization has long championed religious liberty and the concerns of the poor, and Baptists support international relief work.
But leaders said they wanted to broaden their perspective, gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced in other countries and mobilize the faithful to respond.
"It's a more global perspective," Haag said. "The idea is to see how global issues have local connections and how local issues have a global scope that perhaps we're not always aware of."
For example, he said, the commission frequently stresses the importance of religious liberty but rarely has the opportunity to hear from someone from a country that doesn't guarantee that right.
The state convention, the largest in the country, represents 5,600 congregations and 2.3 million members across Texas. Members are often at odds with the more conservative national group, the Southern Baptist Convention. The Christian Life Commission lobbies the Legislature on issues of concern to Baptists, including children's health care, education and gambling. The group also distributes church money to causes.
Non-Baptist conference participants say this year's conference theme signals an effort to get Baptists more engaged in a world that's becoming increasingly interconnected.
"I think it's very ambitious," said Kathleen O'Toole, who does church outreach for Bread for the World, a national hunger relief group. "If you look at the spectrum of speakers, it really is calling people to a dramatic effort to look at not just the ethics of these issues but the connections between what's happening in Texas and what's happening in Thailand or Great Britain or the Middle East. It's got a very international flavor."
Bread for the World's president, David Beckmann, will give an address today on how local efforts can have a global effect on hunger and poverty.
Haag said the idea to broaden the scope of the conference came from meetings with Baptist organizations abroad. U.S. church leaders wanted Baptists here to be more aware of the challenges faced by their international counterparts.
One of the more politically sensitive exchanges will come when Charles Kimball, a Wake Forest University religion professor, delivers a talk called "Islam, Christianity and the Clash of Civilizations."
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim public policy group in Dallas, will respond to that talk. Elibiary, a frequent guest at Texas Baptist gatherings, said he hopes the exchange will help enlighten people on Islamic law and the diversity of Muslims abroad.
Elibiary says he thinks Texas Baptists, while still committed to evangelism, are taking pains to learn about the world from different perspectives.
"This is why I think groups like mine are finding them much more tolerant and easy to work with today," he said. The Baptists aren't alone in that effort. Their conference follows last week's annual meeting of the Texas Conference of Churches, an association of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox church bodies, which also featured Elibiary as a speaker. The conference is working with the Baptists on issues such as human trafficking. It has also coordinated a Christian-Muslim dialogue that includes Texas Baptists.
In those efforts, Elibiary sees the seed for future collaboration with both groups. He said he hopes Christian leaders are beginning to recognize his organization as an important ally on public policy issues. "I do believe it is a turning point," Elibiary said.
eflynn@statesman.com; (512) 445-3812 American Muslims gaining a foothold in politics http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-23-american-muslims-cover_x.htm By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY Posted 3/23/2006 11:08 PM Updated 3/23/2006 11:19 PM
TEANECK, N.J. — The mayor of nearby Prospect Park is a 30-year-old high school business teacher with a young son. He was a volunteer firefighter at 18 and has been active in his community ever since. But when he sought the mayor's office last fall, voters received anonymous fliers calling him a "betrayer" tied to the 9/11 terrorists.
City Council hopeful Abdul Waheed, right, talks with Rabbi Yoel Weisshaus this month. By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY
Why? Because he is a Syrian-born Muslim named Mohamed Khairullah.
"I was worried for my family," Khairullah says. "Any crazy person could have just driven by and done something. But we just had faith and went on doing what we had to do." The result: he got the job, open because the previous mayor had moved away, and now is running to keep it.
The 9/11 attacks have had a curious double-edged impact on the political emergence of American Muslims. They are up against more stereotyping and backlash, which they perceived recently in the furor over a Dubai company's thwarted plan to take over port operations in several U.S. cities.
At the same time, the 9/11 attacks jolted Muslims into realizing that they needed to make themselves known to their neighbors and heard by their government. They are voting, running for office and getting more involved in civic and political life at every level, from PTAs and school boards to town councils and state legislatures. At least two — Texas Republicans Amir Omar and Ahmad Hassan — are running for U.S. Congress.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which promotes Muslim political activity, has opened 23 of its 31 U.S. chapters since 9/11. In the 2004 election, two studies found, one in five Muslim voters were first-time voters.
"There was a silver lining. We became more public," says Aref Assaf, president of the New Jersey-based American Arab Forum.
This large-scale entry of Muslims into public life is not only testing the courage of Muslim candidates and the tolerance of voters. It's also prompting politicians to take notice of a community that has growing clout and is open to appeals from both parties.
Could decide close races American Muslims are hard to count. Many immigrants have Muslim names, but African-American Muslims often don't. For example, one of the highest-ranking Muslim officials in the country is North Carolina state senator Larry Shaw.
Mosques in the U.S. - States with the largest number of mosques:
California 214 New York 170 Texas 83 Florida 78 New Jersey 61 Illinois 56 Michigan 54 Ohio 47 Pennsylvania 47 North Carolina 32 Massachusetts 29 Maryland 26
Source: American Muslim Database Project; August 2003
Based on tallies of mosque membership and Muslim names, several national organizations estimate there are 4.5 million to 6 million American Muslims. Most live in a dozen big states, giving them the potential to make a difference in tight races. Aslam Abdullah, editor of the weekly Muslim Observer newspaper, says there are about 15 close races for Congress in districts where Muslims are concentrated and could cast decisive votes.
Mosques, numbering more than 1,200 across the country, are "the grassroots center of our political empowerment," Assaf says. They hold voter-registration drives and policy discussions. They invite candidates to speak, offering access to large crowds at Friday prayers.
Up to a third of American Muslims are African-Americans who vote mostly for Democrats. The rest come from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. Many lived in dictatorships or theocracies and did not participate in politics in their homelands. "It is definitely a new idea," says Mohamed El Filali, outreach director of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson.
The immigrants are in tune with Republican conservatism on issues such as abortion, gay rights and religion, say analysts such as Georgetown University professor Zahid Bukhari. But they agree with Democrats on civil liberties and government social programs.
At this point, Muslims aren't firmly allied with either party. Bush won backing from Muslim leaders in 2000, before 9/11, and outperformed Democrat Al Gore among Muslim voters, polls and studies found. Four years later, dismayed by the Iraq invasion and what they saw as civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act, the leaders endorsed Democrat John Kerry, and he won a majority of Muslim voters.
Sherine El-Abd, 60, an Egyptian immigrant and prominent Republican who lives in Clifton, personally tried to convince a number of Muslims to switch back to Bush. It was, she admits, an uphill battle: "There were more that didn't go."
Analysts say the shift is likely to be temporary. "I wouldn't call it a realignment," CAIR research director Mohamed Nimer says. "What we've seen is just a one-time deal."
Muslims are comparable to Hispanics, a much larger swing voter group, in their diversity and their compatibility with positions of both parties. Analysts say they're also similar to Hispanics in that they are young and likely to wield increasing influence.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation in Dallas, a statewide Muslim advocacy group, cites a 2002 Cornell University finding that 60% of the U.S. Muslim population is 30 or younger: "You have this huge bulge that over the next 10 years is going to mature politically" and be far more active.
His foundation gave that process a jump-start after 9/11. In June 2002, the group held a candidate forum at Texas Stadium, where the Dallas Cowboys play. It drew 7,000 Muslims and registered 2,000 new voters. "It was a reaction to ... feeling like their loyalty to their country was being questioned," Elibiary says. "What could they do? Get politically engaged to prove how mainstream they are."
The ultimate form of involvement is running for office, and by that measure, Muslims are still recovering from 9/11. According to Hazem Kira of the California Civil Rights Alliance, in 2000 there was an "all-time high" of 700 candidates across the country. That plummeted to 70 in 2002 and rose to about 100 in 2004.
There are no statistics yet for 2006. Bukhari, co-director of a project called Muslims in the American Public Square, says grassroots activity is pushing the trend upward. "Muslims are becoming more involved at the county and state level," he says. He says there are three Democrats running for county council and the state legislature in Montgomery County, Md., in suburban Washington, and "that never happened before."
Muslim immigrants who become candidates tend to be observant but not orthodox, and many have U.S. educations. "They are more Americanized," Assaf says.
Of this year's candidates, at least one — Khairullah — is divorced. At least one is a woman: Democrat Ferial Masry, a teacher making her second run for the California State Assembly from suburban Los Angeles. In Saudi Arabia, where she was born, women cannot vote.
Like Masry, whose district leans Republican, Muslims often run as underdogs. The Dallas Morning News endorsed Omar, son of Iranian and Palestinian immigrants, over two rivals in his GOP congressional primary. If he wins a runoff April 11, he'll face a popular Democratic incumbent in a Democratic district.
AP - Khairullah
Khairullah, a Democrat, was in his second term on the Prospect Park Borough Council when the mayor moved away. The flier that said Khairullah should not be living in "our clean town," that contended he would "poison our thoughts" about America, did not stop his four fellow council members from picking him for the mayoral slot. "They were disgusted by the letter," Khairullah says. "I've been living in the community the longest out of all the council members. The entire community knows me."
About-face on Bush In the months before the 2000 election, Muslim leaders were worried about a law allowing the government to use secret evidence in immigration hearings. Leaders were ignored when they approached Gore, says Boston activist Tahir Ali, but Bush was accessible.
In the second presidential debate, Bush criticized the Secret Evidence Act as a form of racial profiling and said he supported repealing it "to make sure that Arab-Americans are treated with respect."
El-Abd, watching at home, says she cried with happiness when she heard Bush acknowledge her community. Ali, author of a book on the Muslim vote, says "we had to go with him" because he seemed responsive to Muslim concerns.
The euphoria of having helped elect a winner quickly dissipated as Bush invaded Iraq and expanded the government's investigative powers under the Patriot Act. Some Muslims refused to get a library card or register to vote, scared of "anything that will put them on a list (that) is retrievable" by the FBI, says Abdul Waheed, 59, a Pakistani immigrant running for Teaneck City Council.
Others were more angry than fearful. Assaf says he was "a lifelong Republican" who voted for Bush in 2000. Now he accuses Bush of a "post-9/11 frenzied attack on Islam" and "purely anti-Arab, anti-Islam" policies.
Ali is also having buyer's remorse, mostly over a war many Muslims tried to avert with calls to contain or oust Saddam Hussein in ways that wouldn't be so hard on ordinary Iraqis. "I go to a lot of communities, (and) people say, 'You are the reason we voted for Bush, and look at what happened,' " Ali says. "I'm feeling ashamed."
Elibiary stuck with Bush in 2004, mostly because he was lukewarm on Kerry. But he says Bush "is about as popular in the Muslim community as he is in the African-American community. Single digits." That remains true even as Muslims say Bush was right to defend a Dubai-controlled company's plan to take over some U.S. port operations. "The Arabs are coming, the Arabs are coming," says Paterson councilman Aslon Goow, 47, a Syrian-American, mocking the uproar that killed the deal.
A self-described independent, Goow voted for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. When he ran for re-election to City Council in 2004, he said rumors spread that "because I was a Muslim, I was a terrorist." He says that may be why he won with fewer votes than the first time.
Waheed, the Teaneck council hopeful, was doing business in a building across from the World Trade Center on 9/11. He saw bodies falling from the towers and escaped in a cab driven by a Sikh.
He'd had the same clients for decades; they knew he was Pakistani. A lot were friendly after 9/11, he says, but "there were a few customers who were not. You can sense certain things. Discomfort." He sighs. "Islam is the most misunderstood religion, and Muslims are the most misunderstood people."
Waheed says he is a Democrat, but "on certain issues, I have been in bed with the Republicans." Collecting signatures for the May 9 town council election outside a supermarket, he talks to voters about education, business development, preserving green space. In his baseball cap, holding his clipboard, he could be any candidate anywhere.
"I am running because I am very conscious of the issues of the town," he explains. "I am not running because I want to represent Muslims." Freedom of religion close to many hearts, diverse faiths By Darragh Doiron and David L. Tijerina The Port Arthur News http://www.panews.com/archivesearch/local_story_185225750.html Published July 04, 2006 10:57 pm - As one of the “boat people” fleeing communism, the Rev. Huyen Viet said he wasn’t focused on his freedom of religion when he sought refuge in America. Survival was on his mind.
Raised in Quang Nam, in central Vietnam, Viet arrived in California in 1981, then spent time in Washington and Florida, before ending up in Orange. He has been headquartered at Buu Mon Buddhist Temple for about 20 years and says he continues to feel welcome in Port Arthur and Southeast Texas.
Viet couldn’t recall one example of unpleasantness directed toward him or his beliefs, and says the community has continued to express interest in and understanding toward him. “I have not had any problems; I’m not lazy, he said, sitting in his saffron robes in the Procter Street temple. “I always work hard.”
Viet implied his quiet, dedicated lifestyle meshes well with American values and it is mostly why he and other Buddhists have made a good home and life in the area.
“I respect other faiths. We need to respect each other,” he said about practicing Buddhism in a nation where so many call themselves Christian. “I am very proud of the citizens of the community here.” “The goal of Buddhism is to live in the present moment,” he said.
Ren Brumfield, a Beaumont native who was raised Baptist but converted to Buddhism, said the religion stresses the responsibility of the individual and Viet added that there are many levels of gods in the Buddhist teaching.
A person’s actions now affect their future, and their past affects the present, the men said. Viet said he is often met with curiosity, not hostility, and he’s glad to answer questions about his faith. He is, in fact, often invited to work on interfaith committees to promote unity.
Unity in the area increased after the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Rita, Viet says. Different faiths were willing to combine efforts to better living standards, he said.
Each year all faiths are invited to the temple in downtown Port Arthur to enjoy the lotus garden and eat Vietnamese food, as well as to celebrate the birthday of the teacher Buddha.
Viet and Brumfield said America is one big country and it’s becoming bigger.
Brumfield joked that there wasn’t much to attack Buddhists about except to tease them about being pacifists and knowing how to meditate.
Like Viet, Mohammed Elibiary, the president and CEO of the Dallas-based Freedom of Justice Foundation, which is the largest representative body for Muslims in Texas, said most people of his faith who immigrated to this country did so for economic reasons after World War II.
Elibiary, 31, said his family immigrated to the United States from Alexandria, Egypt when he was 7. But while his family did not come to the United States to pursue religious freedom, he said it is fundamental to the fabric of American society.
Borrowing a phrase from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, he said, “Religious liberty is America’s first right. That’s what we had before we ever had a constitution.”
Many of the European setters who came to this country did so partly out of religious persecution in their own countries, Elibiary said, adding he believes all the other freedoms Americans enjoy flow from their religious freedom.
Asked what he thought about being able to live in a country where a Jew, Muslim and Christian could all work at a company on a software project, Elibiary said: “Islamically speaking, what we enjoy here in America is the Islamic ideal.
“It’s the closest to what God would want people to act like. I wish more of the world would learn from the example.”
He explained his position by saying the unique thing about the prophet Mohammed was that during his lifetime he had the opportunity to establish his dream state and made a compact with other religious leaders to either allow them to practice their faiths or to practice no religion, if they chose not to do so.
After the prophet’s death, things degenerated and one group tried to change what he established, Elibiary said.
“You’re strongest when you allow people to be different, not when you’re threatened by a different viewpoint,” Elibiary said.
The 9-11 attacks didn’t in any way limit the religious freedoms of Muslims, Elibiary said. “An argument can be made to say our civic rights have been curtailed or denied, but not our right to practice our religion,” he said.
A law has not been passed in the United States which prohibits Muslims from attending a mosque or from running a school, Elibiary said.
In the 15 years the Islamic Center of Beaumont has been in the city, it has not experienced anything bad, Imam Mahmoud Harmoush, who immigrated to the United States from Pakistan said.
“Last summer some children from a synagogue visited our mosque,” Harmoush said, adding a lot of people, including Christians have asked the mosque for copies of the Koran.
“It is mentioned very clearly in the Koran you must respect other people’s religions,” he said. Arab, Muslim Americans Wary of New FBI Outreach Wed October 06, 2004 06:45 PM ET By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI has launched a new drive to seek information from Muslim and Arab Americans to help thwart any pre-election attack, a move some communities consider a racist campaign which will not make America safer.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was working hard to assure Arab and Muslim groups it was not discriminating against them in the renewed quest for information, which began with an FBI circular to field offices last week calling for stepped up outreach, including interviews.
"Unfortunately some of these actions coming from Washington paint us all with a big brush," said Marwan Kreidie, a leader of the Arab American community in Philadelphia which he said wanted to cooperate against terror but were concerned about civil rights.
"I think (Attorney General John) Ashcroft's actions have been racist. I think they've been very wrong and ineffective. More than that, I think they've been shredding the Constitution," he said.
Arab and Muslim Americans say they have received unwelcome attention since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S.-led war on extremist Muslim militants. Many accuse the government of singling them out for questioning, detention and civil rights abuse, and call the latest FBI initiative more of the same.
Some community members say they feel intimidated by the new drive. Others fear they are being strong-armed into snitching on neighbors or revealing political views unrelated to terrorism.
Cassandra Chandler, assistant director and national spokesperson for the FBI, said the fears were unfounded.
She said Muslim and Arab Americans only accounted for a small number of thousands of interviews held since the spring when officials first warned militants may try to attack the United States in the run-up to the Nov. 2 national elections.
"These are voluntary interviews. They are not round-ups. We are coming to ask for help," said Dawn Clenney, FBI special agent in Detroit, which also covers Dearborn, home to one of the largest Arab American communities.
NATIONWIDE CONTACTS
FBI headquarters in Washington wrote to its offices last week "to encourage close coordination (with) ... key minority communities," "to advise them of our terrorism prevention efforts, and that also includes ... explaining about the interviews that we are conducting," an FBI spokesperson said.
The letter also told agents to reaffirm the FBI's commitment to protecting all Americans and their civil rights.
Since then, meetings have been held across the country, including in California, Texas and Florida, with more to come.
Mohamed Elibiary, a community leader in Texas who was briefed by the FBI in Dallas, said the outreach was routine and the meeting was "very friendly. Everybody's happy."
But for many Arab and Muslim Americans who say the war on terror unfairly put their patriotism in question, suspicions about the FBI's motives persist.
"There's a tremendous amount of selectivity and selective enforcement," said Mark NeJame, an Orlando-based lawyer for several Muslim and Arab groups, who attended the Florida briefing. "Do they see they're completely, unnecessarily alienating multiple communities in the United States?"
He accused officials of using counterterrorism "as a ruse to find out about a host of other matters, from taxes to hiring illegal immigrants to hypertechnical immigration violations."
Chandler stressed the FBI was only seeking counterterrorism information, and was restricting interviews to specific questions concerning knowledge about attack preparations or suspicious behavior "that could result in an attack."
But some agents in the field acknowledged the process could alienate some citizens, and said they were trying to address those concerns. Some community leaders, including Kreidie, said local FBI officials were understanding and helpful, and accused headquarters of dictating biased and ineffective policies.
"We want people to consider the FBI a partner," said Joseph Billy, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark, New Jersey division. "But it's not always going to be the case, so that's why it's important that we at least have a dialogue and build a bridge." (Additional reporting by Charles Feldman in Los Angeles) U.S. Muslims bristle at Bush term "Islamic fascists" 15:05 10Aug2006 By Amanda Beck
U.S. officials have said the plot, thwarted by Britain, to blow up several aircraft over the Atlantic bore many of the hallmarks of al Qaeda. "We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counter-productive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group. "We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslims," he told a news conference in Washington. "We urge him (Bush) and we urge other public officials to restrain themselves." Awad said U.S. officials should take the lead from their British counterparts who had steered clear of using what he considered inflammatory terms when they announced the arrest of more than 20 suspects in the reported plot. Hours after the news broke, Bush said it was "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation." Bush and other administration officials have used variations of the term "Islamo-fascism" on several occasions in the past to describe militant groups including al Qaeda, its allies in Iraq and Hizbollah in Lebanon. Many American Muslims, who say they have felt singled out for discrimination since the Sept. 11 attacks, reject the term and say it unfairly links their faith to notions of dictatorship, oppression and racism. "The problem with the phrase is it attaches the religion of Islam to tyranny and fascism, rather than isolating the threat to a specific group of individuals," said Edina Lekovic, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. She said the terms cast suspicions on all Muslims, even the vast majority who want to live in safety like other Americans. "When the people we need most in the fight against terrorism, American Muslims, feel alienated by the president's characterization of these supposed terrorists, that does more damage than good," Lekovic said. Bush upset many Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks by referring to the global war against terrorism early on as a "crusade," a term which for many Muslims connotes a Christian battle against Islam. The White House quickly stopped using the expression, expressing regrets if it had caused offense. Mohamed Elibiary, a Texas-based Muslim activist, said he was upset by the president's latest comments because he was concerned they would stir up resentment of Muslims in America. "We've got Osama bin Laden hijacking the religion in order to define it one way. ... We feel the president and anyone who's using these kinds of terminologies is hijacking it too from a different side," he said. "The president's use of the language is going to ratchet up the hate meter, but I think it would have caused much more damage if he had done this after 9/11," Elibiary said, adding that tensions were not running as high as they had been in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks. Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on Muslims to step up security at mosques and community centers to counter any negative backlash to news of the plot.
WORKING TOGETHER: Rabbi Neal Katz (left), of Congregation Beth El, talks Friday with Mohamed Elibiary of the Freedom and Justice Foundation about the Shabbat service. (Staff Photo By: Patrick Butler)
RABBI, MUSLIM WORK TO 'DE-MYSTIFY' THEIR
As the Jewish Shabbat service progressed at Congregation Beth El Friday night, an unlikely guest stood on the platform with Rabbi Neal Katz: Mohamed Elibiary, 29, founder of the Dallas-based Freedom and Justice Foundation. To view the full article online in the Tyler Paper: click here
Razi will divide time between Austin, Michigan. By Eileen E. Flynn
It will be a long goodbye, but Imam Safdar Razi, widely known for his interfaith work in Central Texas, is leaving Austin for Dearborn, Mich., where he will take on a broader, national role in the life of American Shiite Muslims.
Razi will lead an institute to train Muslim clerics and scholars, supervise a local religious television program and help interpret Islamic law for English-speaking Muslims. He will begin splitting his time between Dearborn and Austin next month until his congregation at the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association in North Austin finds a replacement.
That could take months, according to Syed Riaz Jafari, the Shiite congregation's vice president. After Razi's successful six-year tenure, Jafari said, "the threshold is very high."
Razi, 41, leads one of Austin's smallest mosques and belongs to the Shiite branch of Islam, a minority worldwide and in the United States. But his influence extends well beyond his congregation of 135 families.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he became an ambassador for all Muslims in Central Texas, gaining the trust of the much larger Sunni faction, and was deeply involved in interfaith efforts to educate people about Islam.
He has visited more than 200 churches, including the Catholic St. Mary's Cathedral and the megachurch Riverbend, as well as synagogues and other organizations, to explain the peaceful principles of Islam.
With his white turban and flowing robes, Razi is instantly recognizable, and he often puts people at ease with his soft voice and easy humor.
"He really made a good image for Muslims," Jafari said, adding that the congregation is looking for a successor who is equally committed to education and interfaith relations.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Dallas-based Muslim organization, said Razi proved himself an exceptional leader in Central Texas.
"Someone on his level is difficult to replace," Elibiary said, "but I think it goes further than that. . . . He was from a minority sect inside the Muslim community. He also made the larger Sunni community feel comfortable. . . . That very rarely happens when someone steps forward and is able to put at ease his larger co-religionists as well as people of other faiths."
Razi's new role will place him in a starkly different setting, a Detroit suburb where the street signs are in Arabic as well as English and the daily call to prayer echoes throughout the city. Dearborn is home to a large and active Muslim community, by some estimates as many as 100,000.
Dearborn's Shiite Islamic Center of America claims to be the largest mosque in the country, with about 3,000 members and thousands more who use the facility.
Razi, who, like many Shiites, follows the rulings of Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is certified to interpret Islamic law and advise people on issues such as divorce and marriage. Sistani is a revered Muslim scholar whose influence over Shiites helped quell some of the violence after the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Razi's focus will be teaching Islamic studies to future imams and scholars. He started a part-time institute in Texas three years ago, teaching college-level classes geared toward young American Muslims "who speak English better than their native languages" to deepen their theological knowledge and possibly help some go on to become clerics. In Dearborn, Razi will establish a permanent base for the school, which is comparable to a seminary.
He said it's important to have an institute for Islamic higher education in the United States because many Muslim communities lack imams or struggle to find leaders who speak English fluently and can relate to Americans and a younger generation.
Imams have found it more difficult to immigrate since the Sept. 11 attacks, Razi said, making it crucial for Shiites to cultivate their own leaders in this country.
The main Islamic seminaries for Shiites are in the Middle East, where students live on campus and attend classes full time. In Dearborn, the institute will allow students to keep their jobs, enroll part time and earn certificates equivalent to bachelor's degrees in Islamic law.
A Pakistani native, Razi spent two decades studying and working in Qatar before moving to Austin to lead the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association. He also served on the board of Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, a community group made up of congregations of various faiths.
Austin will always be his American hometown, he said, and his family will return frequently. Razi and his wife have three children, ages 14, 12 and 11.
Though Razi's congregation has known for months about his plans, some religious leaders are just learning of the move. They praised Razi's tireless efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks to educate people about Islam.
The Rev. Tim Tutt, a North Austin pastor and fellow Interreligious Ministries board member, said Razi often added clarity and wisdom to meetings.
Once, when an interfaith group was discussing how to promote the similarities among religions, Tutt said, Razi offered this advice: "I don't think God wants a fruit smoothie; I think God wants a fruit cocktail."
What most impressed Rabbi Kerry Baker was Razi's ability to engage in civil debate.
Baker, who leads Congregation Kol Halev, said that he and Razi do not agree on everything but that the imam "is absolutely capable of having an intelligent conversation which includes disagreement. That's something that is not always part of the debate between the western world and Islam. And it's sad to say it's not always the case in American civil society anymore."
Though Dearborn puts Razi on a larger Muslim stage and provides an opportunity for him to pursue his passion of teaching, he said that leaving Austin will be difficult.
"Austin is beautiful," he said. "People are understanding and open-hearted."
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