Exclusive: Our Government's Dangerous Partnering With the Wrong Muslims
by M. ZUHDI JASSER
February 2, 2007
Our
government is being duped, through political correctness, into
partnering with organizations which present themselves as being purely
religious (Muslim) or ethnic (Arabic) but are actually solidly
religio-political and Arab-political movements. FSM Contributing Editor
M. Zuhdi Jasser explains the dangers inherent in this short-sighted
policy.
In the past few months we have seen an unusual increase in
publicity
concerning the interactions of the American Muslim "activist" community
with various governmental agencies involved in Homeland Security. The
Justice Department, FBI, DHS, State Department, and others in the Bush
Administration have since 9-11, and especially in the past few months,
aggressively sought out "representatives" of the Muslim community with
whom they can "partner". They cite a number of justifications including:
the development of "mutual trust", opening channels for reporting
suspicious activity, education about Islam and Muslims, and the general
breaking down of cultural, political, and religious barriers through
better-founded relationships. The jury is out as to whom this
relationship benefits and on whose behalf it is being done.
On
January 10, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, met with “American
Muslims” which included the organizations-- the Islamic Society of
North America (
ISNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (
MPAC), the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (
ADC), and the Arab American Institute (
AAI).
A quick, random, browse of just their websites shows heavily political
organizations with an underlying religious movement for the first two
and Arab movement for the last. Their combined product is a heavily
political-religious movement. It has some following, but represents only
a minority of the Muslims in America who mostly remain unaffiliated.
One
would be hard pressed to find precedent in the U.S. of our security
agencies and leadership “partnering” with manifestations of a national
and global political movement within the United States. Simply put, it
seems our government is being duped, through political correctness, into
partnering with organizations which present themselves as being purely
religious (Muslim) or ethnic (Arabic) but are actually upon even a brief
review rather solidly religio-political and Arab-political movements.
It
is not that these organizations have not condemned terrorism as an act
or a means to an ends. It is, rather, that they have not condemned
political Islam (Islamism) and its theocratic foundations as an ends.
Islamism is the end-game of our enemies and its ideological antidote is
Americanism and its multi-religious and mulit-ethnic pluralism. American
Muslims need purely spiritual organizations which are not also
sympathetic to a national or global political-religious movement.
Currently there are few to none. To have our governmental leadership in
any capacity officially and publicly “partner” with current Islamist
organizations is a significant liability in the war of ideas - if we
have any hope of ever defeating the Islamists.
The Proportionality Test and the Islamist Agenda
After the January 10 meeting, MPAC
called upon
the Attorney General to: “publicly acknowledge the positive
contributions of their communities in working to preserve national
security and to expand efforts to promote engagement with all levels of
government and law enforcement.”
If these positive
contributions are so prevalent, shouldn’t their existence be common
knowledge? Why would the Muslim community need the Attorney General to
acknowledge that in order for Americans to believe it? The public
campaigns leading such counterterrorism efforts would speak for
themselves. However, Islamist organizations want it both ways. They want
the government to validate their actions behind the scenes and then use
that validation to give them a pass on doing the same publicly against
America’s Islamist enemies.
Wholly dismissed as irrelevant by
the mainstream media and the administration is what political Islam
reciprocally gains from this public relationship. Is this relationship
with Islamism wise—strategically? Is it ultimately in the best interests
of America and American Muslims for that matter? Helping the counter
ideology to Americanism thrive in our communities will in the end be a
detriment to national security. While Islamism has its moderates, the
measure of moderation is still within a political construct which is
Islamist and rather anti-American in its ideology.
It is the
duty of every American Muslim and non-Muslim to be critical of how
“representative” these organizations are of the vast majority of
American Muslims who are not on their membership rolls and who do not
subscribe to the goals of political Islam. When current “major”
organizations appear with the MSM and with governmental leadership and
become the face of American Islam, every Muslim is entitled and
obligated to weigh in on the validity of their representation. Without
criticism, the greater unaffiliated American Muslim community is
associated with their religious and the political mission.
Organizations
like ISNA, MPAC, CAIR, or ADC will never bring forward national
campaigns against the un-American ideologies of Al Qaeda, the Muslim
Brotherhood, or Wahhabism and Islamism on their own. And this becomes
especially true if our government officials enable them by providing
constant public testimony to their unblemished partnership. More
importantly, this partnership will suffocate any chance for newer,
anti-Islamist organizations ever coming out of the devout American
Muslim community.
To the extent that non-Muslim America is
interested in Muslim organizations and Islam, it is for the most part
derived from a post-9-11 interest in security. Thus, we could invoke a
similar proportionality test upon American Muslim organizations. What
proportion of their programs and funding are spent on counterterrorism,
anti-Islamism, and internal reform versus civil rights protections,
“Islamic education” and domestic and foreign policy? The proportion
should illustrate their agendas and the appropriateness of partnership
if any.
Avoiding Islamist advocacy is pro-Islam
In a speech to a gathering of U.S. Attorneys on January 11, 2007 in South Carolina, Attorney General Gonzalez admonished:
“You
also have a duty to show your colleagues and your districts that we are
not engaged in a struggle against a faith or religion… On the contrary,
we very much need the partnership of the Muslim community. Discouraging
radicalism is vital, and that cannot be done effectively without Muslim
community leadership. So seek it out in your districts. We believe in
religious freedom for everyone. The Department of Justice is committed
to protect these rights, and in doing so, I think we promote trust and
provide an alternative way to that of radicalization.”
The
Attorney General is certainly on-point in his understanding that this
conflict is not with Islam, and that Muslims are ultimately our greatest
assets in defeating radical Islamism. But at the same time he is
dangerously vague about what ideology will serve as an “alternative way
to that radicalization”. Before we “partner”, our branches of government
need years of preparation, schooling, and deeper understanding of the
ideology of Wahhabism, Islamism, and the ideology of the Muslim
Brotherhood with all the tentacles of its ideological precursor to
current radical Islamist organizations around the world. Public
relationships with organizations and individuals that constitute the
lowest hanging fruit in the American Muslim community may not be in our
national interests.
The fact that “no other national Muslim
organizations exist” is not a good enough excuse. This conflict of
ideologies is going to be generational. Rather than partner with anyone
at this time, we should be actively investigating American Muslim ways
yet to begin to win the war of ideas-- the war against political Islam.
This is an intellectual war which none of the current major
organizations care to acknowledge. The vast majority of Muslims are
certainly patriotic and will always privately assist on the front lines
in the community.
Current “major” Muslim organizations
certainly deserve what is afforded to every political lobby in America.
But as a political lobby, they subsequently lose the respect afforded to
apolitical faith leaders in the United States. In a country which is
founded upon the separation of religion and politics, they cannot be
both. It needs to be made clear whether these organizations are
representing a faith community or a political lobby. And make no
mistake, the Islamist political lobby is a part of the global
ideological threat to the U.S.
Once we see these organizations
as political lobbies, then a critical quid pro quo about Islamism will
be natural during meetings with our government. Other voices of
anti-Islamism within the devout Muslim community will then be empowered
rather than marginalized. Then, the greater Muslim community can
actually begin to lead the charge against political Islam, and its
radical off-shoots.
Slow down and wait for the silent Muslim majority
This partnership is taking form across the nation in the public eye with various branches of
Homeland Security, the FBI, and the office of Karen Hughes,
Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
at the State Department to name a few. While each has a different
mission, they all seem to be working from the same playbook of engaging
the lowest hanging fruit of organized Islam in America. There has even
been a move to meet at mosques across the country with little assessment
of the nature of the ideological background of political sermons from
those mosques with whom our government meets.
There are
somewhere between 4 and 6 million Muslim taxpayers in the United States.
When our governmental agencies report to be ‘partnering’ with the
Muslim community, there is a deep implication that this represents all
of the Muslim taxpayers. That could not be further from the truth. There
is no evidence to suggest such a representation. In fact there is some
convincing
evidence
to the contrary. Since the silent majority are more about faith than
politics, we cannot assume that non-Islamist Muslims will organize
themselves into packages for the Beltway.
Critics will contend
that I am maligning the only and the most effective representatives of
Muslims in America today. What they dismiss is the realities of the
internal Muslim ideological conflict in which we are engaged globally.
They also conveniently dismiss the majority of Muslims in America who
remain unrepresented but also are taxpayers and deserve acknowledgement
by our government as Muslims who reject political Islam.
So
the ultimate question is – how do we engage the silent majority who
reject political Islam but yet need to engage in political discourse to
be heard?
Rather than empty photo-opportunities with current
Islamists, we need to convene a national discussion about how to engage
and ideologically defeat political Islam in the media, in diplomacy, and
at home. Obviously, devout Muslims who see Islamism as the problem are
our greatest asset. We risk alienating them even more than they are
already from their own activist Muslim community if our leadership
continues to give American Islamism a pass.
We need to set
aside the conventional wisdom that government employees avoid
ideological engagement with communities. Our homeland security is
defending our nation from acts of terror perpetrated by radicals driven
by a societal ideology at odds with America. Part of our defense
strategy must be the articulation of what America is and what it is not.
It is pluralism and it is not theocracy.
Getting educated on the conflict between Islamism and Islam
Whether
or not the theocrats are moderate or radical shouldn't matter. On the
scale of American religious pluralism even the most moderate Islamist
theocrat has a mindset which is anti-American in its ideology. We need
to figure out how to both engage the Muslim community as our greatest
asset but also hold them accountable to their responsibility to lead the
public effort to counter political Islam and its radical offshoots.
John Welter, Chief of the anaheim Police Department recently said this to
Washington Post reporter, Karen De Young:
"Most
people are very ignorant of what the Muslim faith is about, including
me," Welter said. "I've got a book on Muslims for dummies; I can't be an
expert on all the religions and cults and cultures in the world. But
what I can do is be an expert in behavior that terrorists engage in
prior to an attack."
This type of naiveté
illustrates the basic problem in our current approach to engagement of
the Muslim community. Our current national security problem with
terrorism is not about finding behavior. That is only the most basic
part of law enforcement. At the core of our national counterterrorism
strategy should be a solid understanding of the ideologies and state of
mind which precedes the radicalization and the motivation of terrorist
behaviors.
Our security agencies understood the ideology of
communism as we protected our nation during the Cold War. We should do
so with even more sophistication and clarity now when it comes to the
relationship of political Islam (Islamism) to militant Islamism and how
they both differ from the spiritual path of Islam. The longer we avoid
the centrality of political Islam in this equation, the longer it is
going to take to win the war of ideas and preserve our security.
It
is time for a national education and discussion on the conflict between
Islamism and Islam. It is time to learn where national Muslim
organizations and more importantly where the greater American Muslim
population finds itself in that conflict.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor M. Zuhdi Jasser is the founder and Chairman of the
American Islamic Forum for Democracy
based in Phoenix Arizona. He is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant
Commander, a physician in private practice, and a community activist.
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved.
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