UCI incident showcases dangers of rampant rumors...

UCI incident showcases dangers of rampant rumors

The most disturbing aspect of the pseudo-controversy over

graduation stoles worn by Muslim students at the UCI was seeing the

nation’s leading Jewish advocacy groups morph into purveyors of

anti-Muslim hate and shills for right-wing extremists.

California Muslims were dismayed when the American Jewish Congress

falsely claimed that the Islamic graduates planned to wear stoles

indicating support for terrorism. We were sickened when the

Anti-Defamation League distributed a news release referring to the

Islamic declaration of faith, or “shahada,” as an “expression of

hate” that is “offensive to Jewish Students.”

The shahada, “there is no god but God and Muhammad is the

Messenger of God,” is the core Muslim belief in the oneness of God

and is one of the “five pillars” of Islam. No person can be a Muslim

without believing in the shahada. When someone accepts Islam, we say

they “take shahada.” (Ironically, the Jewish declaration of faith,

the Shema Yisrael, similarly states: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our

God, the Lord is One.”)

This particular conspiracy theory began, as most do, with a lie

spread on the Internet. Earlier this month, right-wing extremists

began claiming that Muslim students at UCI planned to wear stoles

bearing the word “shahada.” They mistranslated “shahada” as the

Arabic word for suicide bomber.

As the controversy spread from Internet hate sites to right-wing

media outlets, few Islam-bashers bothered to mention that the stoles

did not in fact bear the word shahada, they bore the shahada itself.

They also forgot to mention that, along with the declaration of

faith, the stoles bore the Arabic phrase, “God, increase my

knowledge.”

The Jewish leaders pounced on the issue when it hit the legitimate

media. Anti-Defamation League representatives handed out their news

release attacking the shahada at a press conference held by the

Muslim graduates to say their stoles were an expression of pride in

Islam and had nothing to do with Palestinian suicide bombers.

Five members of American Jewish Congress confronted, some would

say intimidated, Muslim students at the UCI graduation ceremonies.

(Imagine if a Muslim group sent its members to confront Jewish

graduates who wore yarmulkes or stoles bearing the Shema Yisrael.)

Perhaps the leaders of both groups should read about other events

that took place as they were demonizing the linguistic essence of

Islam.

On Friday, Muslims in the Tampa suburb of Lutz, Fla., found the

words “Kill all Muslims” scrawled on the interior of their vandalized

community center. On Saturday, a Florida newspaper reported that the

FBI is investigating threats against a Charlotte Harbor mosque. Last

month, three Miami Islamic centers were vandalized.

Incidents targeting mosques and Islamic centers have occurred

recently across America. For example, a man was arrested for

threatening an El Paso, Texas, Islamic center. Also in Texas, an

arson suspect was arrested at the scene of a fire at a Muslim

business in San Antonio, and vandals scrawled racist graffiti on the

interior of a Lubbock mosque.

In May, unknown arsonists torched a UCI student display set up to

challenge the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land. The Orange

County Human Relations Commission recently released its 2003 annual

report that showed a 50% increase in hate incidents directed at

members of the Muslim and Arab-American community. In April, CAIR’s

own annual report on the status of American Muslim civil rights

showed a 70% increase in anti-Muslim incidents nationwide in 2003,

with the largest number occurring in California.

This is the battle that all of us, Muslims, Christians and Jews,

need to fight. Instead of seeking ways to demonize one another in a

zero-sum game of political and religious “gotcha,” let us all work

together to challenge intolerance and to build a better America for

ourselves and for our children.

SABIHA KHAN

Anaheim

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Sabiha Khan is the communications director for

the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic

Relations.

Local commentary might sound like hate

Michael Glueck didn’t like it when Muslim students wore stoles of

religious significance to a recent graduation ceremony at UCI. He

didn’t like it so much that he has demanded that UCI administrators

apologize to the community. He even wrote a commentary about how much

he didn’t like it (“UC Irvive makes an unjustifiable and dangerous

decision” in Tuesday’s Daily Pilot). Is it reasonable to guess, from

what he’s written, that Glueck isn’t a Muslim? And, if he isn’t, then

what makes Glueck think he can dictate to those whose faith he may

not share, or demand that they not be allowed to reasonably express

their faith as they see fit? Did someone appoint Glueck our supreme

leader when we weren’t looking?

Of course, most of what Glueck writes is just factually incorrect.

To bolster his opinion that Muslim students shouldn’t be allowed to

profess their faith by wearing a religious symbol that is meaningful

to them, he misinterprets what separation of church and state

actually means and implicitly suggests that if someone (if that

someone is a Muslim, apparently) wears a religious symbol that can be

seen by others, and if one attends a state-supported school, that

this amounts to a breach of the principle of a separation of church

and state. This is, of course, nonsense.

Such twisted logic could eventually lead to a situation where

people of various religions, who believe they should display their

faith, would be barred from attending state-supported schools that

their taxes support unless they hid the expressions of their

religious feelings.

Wouldn’t that be a little like Jews having to hide that they were

Jews in Germany in 1938? Glueck also indicates that wearing the

stoles might have been an attempt to “polarize the community,” and

that the students were allowed to “provoke rather than pacify.” What

Glueck writes could have been written in Germany against the Jews.

Thus, we might have read in 1938 that Jews were polarizing the

community by wearing Stars of David or yarmulkes, and they were

trying to provoke rather than pacify.

Now, there must be an element of reasonableness and consistency in

all this. It would not be acceptable for someone to justify tearing

down a religious display put up by people of another religion (as was

apparently also done at UCI) or to show up at graduation nailed to a

cross because the person believes his religious faith demands that.

But, in the case at UCI, what got Glueck all worked up was nothing

more than a piece of cloth around a student’s neck.

Perhaps the best way to address Glueck and what appears to me to

be his implicit intolerance for an outward expression of some

religious feelings that he seems to not be in agreement with, is to

turn the situation around: Will Glueck demand that UCI stop Jewish

students from wearing yarmulkes? If not, why not? And, even if he

does so demand, Glueck, as far as I know, hasn’t been given the

authority to demand that others believe as he believes or that they

express themselves in ways that he finds acceptable.

Of course, in his misguided commentary, Glueck attempts to find

cover for what appear to be intolerant views when he makes a

ridiculous comparison between the simple wearing of stoles and

“bring(ing) in gladiators and horses and start(ing) World War IV.”

Glueck’s commentary isn’t the stuff born of reasoned, even-handed,

fair-minded thinking. To Muslims, it probably sounds like hate.

Freedom does not mean that we must all be homogenized and

“Stepfordized” into plain-wrap Americans, consistent with Glueck’s

views, but that we may all live our lives and worship as we each see

fit with a minimum of intrusion by those of different views and

religions.

When people of one religion can force people of another religion

to not wear their religious symbols, we’ve entered a dark day for

American notions of freedom. If Glueck doesn’t like looking at the

Muslim stoles, then he should look in the other direction, not demand

that they not be worn. If Muslims don’t like looking at whatever

expressions of faith, or lack thereof, that Mr. Glueck chooses to

show to the world, then they, too, can simply look in the other

direction.

It’s called freedom of expression. Glueck should go back and read

the 1st Amendment and try to understand why the founders of this

nation made it No. 1 on their list.

M. H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa