Friday, December 1, 2006By Bernd Debusmann
Washington — When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.
The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be “off his rocker”. The second congratulated him and added: “Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country…they are here to kill us.”
Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver’s licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. “What good is identifying them?” he asked. “You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans.”
At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of “the threat in our midst” would alleviate the public’s fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.
“I can’t believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said,” he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL (http://www.wmal.com/), which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland
"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people’s bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver’s license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting.
It’s beyond disgusting.
“Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen …We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous.”
The show aired on Nov 26, the Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday, and Klein said in an interview afterwards he had been surprised by the response.
**“The switchboard went from empty to totally jammed within minutes,” **said Klein. “There were plenty of callers angry with me, but there were plenty who agreed.”
Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 per cent were in favour of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
Roughly a quarter of those polled said **they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with Al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
A poll carried out by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group, found that for one in three Americans, the word Islam triggers negative connotations such as “war,” “hatred” and “terrorist.” The war in Iraq has contributed to such perceptions.
Klein’s show followed a week of heated discussions on talk radio, including his own, and online forums over an incident on Nov 22 involving six Muslim clerics. They were handcuffed and taken off a US Airways flight after passengers reported “suspicious behaviour” that included praying in the departure gate area.
The clerics, on their way to a meeting of the North American Imams Federation, were detained in a holding cell, questioned by police and FBI agents, and released. Muslim community leaders saw the incident as yet more evidence of anti-Muslim prejudice.**Several American Muslims interviewed on the subject of prejudice over the past few weeks said ignorance was at the core of the problem.
“The level of knowledge is very, very low,” said Mohamed Esa, a US Muslim of Arab descent who teaches a course on Islam at McDaniel College in Maryland. “There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and some people think they are all terrorists.”
Hossam Ahmed, a retired Air Force Reserve colonel who occasionally leads prayer meetings for the small Muslim congregation at the Pentagon, agreed. “Ignorance is the number one problem. Education is of the essence.”
There are no hard figures on how many Muslims have been subject to harassment or prejudice and community leaders say that ugly incidents can prompt spontaneous expressions of support. Such as the e-mail a Minneapolis woman sent to CAIR after the imams were taken off their flight.
“I would like to help,” the e-mail said. “While I cannot offer plane tickets, I would be happy to drive at least 2 or 3 of them. My car is small, but at least some of our hearts in this land of the free are large.”
And optimists saw signs of change in the Nov 4 election of the first Muslim to the US House of Representatives, which has 435 members.
Democrat Keith Ellison, a 43-year-old African-American lawyer, did not stress his religion during his campaign for a Minnesota seat, but said his victory would “signal to people who are not Muslims that Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country.”
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-us.asp?parentid=58909
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
Responding to constituent e-mails about Rep.-elect Keith Ellison’s decision to use the Quran at his ceremonial swearing-in, **a Virginia congressman warned that “many more Muslims” will be elected demanding to use the Quran unless immigration is tightened. **
Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., made the comments in a letter sent to hundreds of constituents about Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress. The letter triggered angry responses from a New Jersey congressman and an Islamic civil rights group.
In the letter, Goode wrote, **“The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.” **
Goode said the U.S. needs to stop illegal immigration “totally” and reduce legal immigration.
**Goode added: “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.” **
**Ellison was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college. He did not return telephone messages left Wednesday. **
Meanwhile, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., wrote to Goode saying he was “greatly disappointed and in fact startled” by Goode’s letter.
“I take your remarks as personally offensive to the large community of Muslim-Americans I represent in the Eighth District of New Jersey,” Pascrell wrote. “… Muslim-Americans do not threaten our American values and traditions, in fact they only add to them.”
And the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Goode to apologize.
**“Representative Goode’s Islamophobic remarks send a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office,” said CAIR’s national legislative director, Corey Saylor. “There can be no reasonable defense for such bigotry.” **
**Goode spokesman Linwood Duncan said no apology was forthcoming. **
**“The only statement the congressman has is that he stands by the letter,” Duncan said. **
The letter was made public by John Cruickshank, the chairman of the Piedmont group of the Sierra Club in central Virginia, who had received it after writing to Goode about environmental issues. Duncan said Goode’s office had sent the letter to Cruickshank by mistake.
Cruickshank said he was “deeply offended” by the letter.
“I felt like other people needed to know about it,” he said. Ellison’s decision to use the Quran at his ceremonial swearing in next month has generated heated controversy. Conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager has criticized Ellison for it, prompting CAIR to call on Prager’s removal from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum board.
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
When a population is told again and again that the U.S. is at war with Islam (by aQ, radical Islamists) many will believe that this must mean Islam is at war with the U.S. hence the fear and in turn the ignorant attitudes against Muslims. This of course does not justifiy such attitudes but helps explain where such views come from.
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
Until 9/11 nobody feared Muslims.
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
^^True. When I walk down the streets now, men, women, kids get out of my way, huddle together and just watch me plodding myself along obliviously.
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
^^ Let us not confuse the normal reaction to bad hygiene with a fear of Muslims. :)
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
!
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
lol…
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
deja vu,
dinn we already have a thread on this like last week? or so.
although I dont recall that being in so many pretty colours.
is this thead sponsored by dutch boy paints?
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
The other day i was listening to a US Radio program ,where they were interviewing a Muslim Cleric in US:
Interviewer : Why is there "Sword" on Saudi Flag??If i am not wrong ,Saudi flag is the only one having a Sword...
Cleric: It is a part of Saudi tradition & culture...
Interviwer: Isn't it because Islam spread with the "Power of Sword" & terror is a part of Islamic Culture?
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
^^The Saudi flag is derived from Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud's Army coat of arms, so the sword comes from this military relation. But to class the Saudi Army today as a military power isn't really valid. The trouble with these Maulana's they interview is that they tend to be ill educated, but then most of these clerics are.
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
well i don't understand that muslims should be recognized by their identities and their identities are full darhi and ladies hijaab.ad they should not feel shame in it.
**all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.
**instead of these identities
Re: Fear and distrust of Muslims run deep in US
exactly, stupid wahabis.