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Fozia
11/06/03 at 18:17:30
US-Muslim Gulf Widens



(Islamweb) By Roger Mitton  


  WASHINGTON -- Aboard Air Force One, en route from Bangkok to Singapore on Oct 21, a senior administration official travelling with President George W. Bush gave a background briefing to the White House press corps.
 
  He was asked about how risky it would be for the President to visit Indonesia after Singapore. He replied, and this is from the official transcript: 'Well, I don't think the President has any worries about his personal safety if that's what you're trying to imply.
 
  'Don't forget, Bali is a peaceful island, 95 per cent Hindu.'
 
  It is a shocking statement. But there is no need to overreact. Yes, it was a senior White House official saying that Bali would be safe because it has a majority Hindu population. By implication, he meant that were it Muslim, it would be dangerous.
 
  But caution should be exercised in concluding, as some in Washington have done, that it betrays a mindset in which Muslims are viewed as the enemy and that we are at war with Islam.
 
  Yet, it cannot be denied that it is an increasingly common mindset in the United States. If that is not acknowledged and serious remedial action not taken, what the American novelist James Baldwin called 'the fire next time' would be in grave peril of happening.
 
  Consider what appears regularly in the American press and, what is worse, goes unchallenged. Last Monday, the New York Daily News, which has a circulation of three-quarters of a million in the largest US city, carried an article by its senior editorial writer Stanley Crouch.
 
  Mr Crouch, who publicly advocates the US shutting its doors on Muslims, said: 'I have been writing for a while in this space that I believe we should have a moratorium on immigration from anywhere in the Islamic world.
 
  'War always shuts down borders, and we are, ladies and gentlemen, in a war,' he says.
 
  Again, there is need to be cautious about overreacting. It is true that if the New York Daily News had carried an article urging a halt to Jewish immigration, there would have been an outcry that would almost certainly have led to Mr Crouch losing his job. But his opinion is not isolated. It is, increasingly, the consensus in the US.
 
  That is why no voices were raised against his anti-Islamic generalisation. The reaction to Dr Mahathir Mohamad's remarks about Jews ruling the world, made at the recent meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, was very different.
 
  It is worth-noting that in his article about Dr Mahathir's speech, The Washington Post's columnist Richard Cohen wrote: 'Sadly, throughout the Islamic world, anti-Zionism has been corrupted into anti-Semitism.'
 
  It is a valid, and profoundly disturbing, observation. Even more disturbing, yet rarely addressed, is that throughout the Western world, anti-terrorism has been corrupted into anti-Islamism.
 
  The remarks of the White House official and of Mr Crouch attest to this. So, too, does the large advertisement that the American Jewish Committee placed in The New York Times last Sunday chastising Dr Mahathir.
 
  Under the bold headline 'Shame', it said: 'The Muslim leaders assembled for the conference, to their everlasting shame, gave Mahathir a standing ovation.'
 
  It went on to say: 'Bigotry is bigotry. When an entire people or religion is assailed, all people and all religions are threatened.'
 
  Yet when Islam is assailed, as it increasingly is in the US, few voices are raised and no 'Shame' advertisements appear.
 
  If only the advertisement had included a sentence or two rebuking General William Boykin, one of President Bush's senior intelligence officers, for his recent anti-Islam remarks. He likened the US war against Muslim extremists to a battle against Satan.
 
  Instead, while the US Senate voted to stop US 1.2 million (S 2 million) in military aid to Malaysia because of Dr Mahathir's comments, Gen Boykin remains unpunished. Said Ms Bridget Welsh, a South-east Asian expert at Johns Hopkins University: 'The Senate's action is a mistake. It reflects a view that Malaysia is a radical country, which is completely inaccurate.'
 
  Unfortunately, many congressmen regard Malaysia, and the rest of the Islamic world, as radical and in need of censure. Yet, it is no good censoring those who make radical anti-Jewish and anti-Christian remarks, while tolerating those who make virulent anti-Islamic statements. It merely reinforces the corruption of anti-terrorism into anti-Islamism.
 
  On Wednesday, one of Mr Crouch's fellow columnists at the New York Daily News, Mr Zev Chafets, wrote: 'Bush can insist all day long that America isn't at war with Islam. But that misses the point. In varying degrees, the Islamic world is at war with the US.'
 
  He went on to write that whenever Mr Bush says the US is not at war with the Islamic world, he always wins a round of polite applause.
 
  'But not a single one of his guests believes it. They all know better.'
 
  Mr Chafets is right. And while there is no need to overreact, it is important to face up to this. And start doing something about it. Or next time will be the fire.
 
  [From: The Straits Times]
   

Tuesday : 04/11/2003

http://www.islamweb.net/web/misc.Article?vArticle=49379&thelang=E


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