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Muslims
say more action should be taken to ensure protection of their
civil rights |
By Steve Smith, IOL Washington
correspondent
WASHINGTON,
March 27 (IslamOnline) – Arab and Muslim Americans say they are
angry at both the recent raids on Muslim institutions and individuals
and at leaders of the Muslim community for failing to respond to the
encroachments on their civil rights.
“I
do not see what all these Muslim and Arab organizations are doing on
our behalf,” said Othman Amana, a 33-year-old Ethiopian immigrant to
the U.S. “Every day we hear about new raids and new arrests, but
nothing stops. They should try to find ways to stop all this.”
Amana,
a worshiper at the Dar Al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia, which
serves Muslim communities in Arlington, Fairfax and Alexandria,
expressed indignation at Muslim groups for being bent on fundraising
and but achieving very little on the ground.
“There
are many fundraisings at this mosque,” he said. “There are
leaflets all the time asking for extra donations. But they are like
the countries we come from. They do nothing. We will be chased away
here like we were in Africa.”
State
interrogations of and raids on Arab and Muslim individuals and
institutions in the United States over the past week have intensified
recently, sending shock waves through these communities.
The
latest clampdown has followed an announcement Wednesday, March 20, by
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, of a new round of interrogations
of some 3,000 foreigners in the country. They are to be questioned in
a bid to root out any connections they might have with militant
groups.
Muslim
and Arab groups greeted the raids with a barrage of usual
condemnations, press conferences and loud fuming news releases –
none of which has so far managed to rise to expectations of members of
the community or their funds contributors or put the brakes to the
harassment felt by Muslims here.
Amana
was looking at a leaflet for an event organized by CAIR. “I
appreciate their work and I think they are sincere people but I do not
see how they helped the community,” Amana said. “Nothing has
changed and we want to see actions.”
Mahdi
Bray, Political Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council,
defended the organizations saying that they could not push away
something that comes from the government. “It was all beyond our
control,” Bray said.
Although
there are dozens of Muslim and Arab lobbying groups in Washington,
their influence on the U.S. political life remains minimal,
particularly compared to that of the more established Jewish lobby.
Insiders
attribute the feeble performance to the fact that these groups are
relatively new to Washington with some groups being as old as only two
or three years old. “I do not think there is anything better that we
could have done,” said Bray.
“We
are meeting congressmen and women, putting out press releases, and
calling for the protection of the American civil rights.” Bray
admitted that there is always a room for improving Muslim groups’
performance at this stage but pointed that the post September 11
atmosphere, created by anti-Muslim “other advocacy groups”, was
making it harder for activists.
Bray,
a respected figure in Capital Hill, said that the comparison with the
Jewish lobby was also unfair because Jewish activism has started some
80 years ago and many of the pro-Israel Jewish groups are well
established, with connections to the Capitol.
“Comparing
the two groups is like comparing eggs to apples,” he said. “You
need to watch us 10 years from now” Bray was referring to what he
said Muslim groups’ notable successes in Washington DC.
There
is no Arab or Muslim lobby in the sense of a massive, scheming body.
However, many of these groups lobby on behalf of a variety of issues,
including domestic and international concerns.
One
is the Arab American Institute, which supports presidential and
congressional candidates who are receptive to Arab-American concerns.
Another is the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a civil
rights group.
Arab
groups say that they have achieved a lot of success. Muslim American
organizations have organized dozens of pro-Arab demonstrations trying
to influence the U.S. foreign policy on issues of Palestine, Iraq and
Kashmir.
One
indication that influence was on the increase, noted Bray, was that
Jewish rival groups were noting that Arab leaders are trying to build
the Arab American community into a political force.
Arabs
have also launched major campaigns including the anti-Israel boycott
of the Disney Company’s international millennium exhibit; in protest
against Israel unfounded claim that Jerusalem, the host of Al-Aqsa
mosque and the place where Prophet Mohammed (SAWS) was ascended to the
heavens, as its capital.
In
July 1999, Sprint Communications was attacked for using the Dome of
the Rock in an ad for cheap telephone rates to Israel. The Muslim
groups argued that its status as part of Israel was still under
international discussion.
However,
although Arab and Muslim voices have been systematically sidelined,
they managed to shake the Jewish lobby when President Bill Clinton
became the first US president to address a gathering of Arab Americans
and by the more recent meetings between presidential candidates and
Arab Muslim Americans.
In
October 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush held a closed meeting with
Arab American leaders in Michigan, most of who went on to endorse him.
Al Gore met with Arab American leaders a week later in Michigan, the
state with the largest proportion of Arab American voters.
Concerned
by the increasing activism of the Arab lobby, one leading U.S. Jewish
leader warned American Jews not to drop their guard. “We dare not
underestimate the Arab and Muslim lobbies or delude ourselves as to
their ultimate objectives,” wrote David A. Harris, executive
director of the American Jewish Committee, in the Jerusalem Report
last year.
“The
stakes are too high. The call for action by American Jewry, together
with Israel, is clear.”
Key
Jewish leaders in New York have grumbled to the Clinton administration
before about the lack of response by people in the administration to
their requests to censure the activities of the Arab-Muslim lobby in
the United States.
