It’s gotta be said. I am so sick of the Islamophobia in America right now, particularly fueled currently by the “Ground Zero” mosque and championed by key leaders in the Republican party. And by that I mean Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Fox News. It’s a dirty, divisive campaign tactic to garner votes in November and anyone with brain cells can see how transparent this is. My twitter feed can’t go ten minutes without getting a retweet from some dimwit on the issue or anti-Muslim sentiment.
But Congressional Candidate Ami Berra? Come ON.
Dr. Ami Bera, the Democrat challenger to Congressional incumbent Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), was blasted by the California Republican Party for accepting a $250 donation from the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. [cbs13]
First of all, it’s only a $250 donation. Second of all, it’s CAIR, one of the tamest, not-so-progressive, largest national Muslim advocacy group around. I’m not the biggest fan of CAIR’s work (mainly because it’s not left or inclusive enough) but the Republican candidate’s anti-Muslim targeting of Ami Berra’s campaign contribution is absurd. Third (and most importantly) CAIR is a 501c3 organization so they can’t make donations to candidates. The money came from Basim Elkarra, the current Executive Director of Sacramento-CAIR and who also happens to be elected to the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party. Which basically means it’s the individual citizen that made the donation, not an organization that said citizen works for.
Does the Doctor stand by his Muslim donor?
Dr. Bera gave the donation back. His spokesperson issued a statement, saying, “We returned the contribution after questions about the organization’s affiliations arose. This is a diversionary tactic designed by Rep. Lungren and his proxies to deflect from jobs, the economy and health care — the issues that this campaign is about.” [cbs13]
If it’s a diversionary tactic, why’d you give the money back? For the record Dr. Berra, Muslim-Americans donate AND Muslim Americans vote. You have them in your district. Some of them were probably even planning on voting for you. The fact that you folded to the anti-Muslim rhetoric on the right so easily will not bode well for you on November 2nd. How easily will you fold to them if you are in Congress? Pretty easily, I would guess.
If you won’t vote for Bera, and you won’t vote for Lungren, exactly what will you do (I’m assuming you live in the district)? Nothing?
The RSS resolution “Let Muslims understand that their real safety lies in the goodwill of the majority” is as true in America as in India, and is true for all minorities. There won’t be trident-wielding rioters in America, but there won’t be full acceptance either. Constitutional rights are imaginary in the face of a determined majority.
Yeah, I sometimes do believe that certain principles are worth losing elections for; and if you succumb before elections, there is a good chance that you will succumb after being elected also.
Dis homie juss lost my vote. Aint no room for ignant pos in here, smh
Sigh. I’m so sick of bigots in this country I could vomit. I’m an atheist but sometimes all the Islamophobia I see (especially here in Tennessee, home of “I’m not even sure Islam is a religion”) makes me want to become one, just to see certain peoples’ heads spin around a few times.
the cultural zeitgeist is shifting. i’m pretty anti-muslim personally (i’m with jerry coyne in thinking that islam is the most regressive of the major organized superstitions), and suspicious of religious enthusiasms more generally (hey, look at how awesome asia is, where everyone is so proud and into their religious identity!). but the divisions and arguments are frankly veering in a ‘tardish direction, with cut-out caricatures on both sides. i stand with those defending the civil liberties of muslims, but i also think we need to have a serious discussion about the disjunction in attitudes on geopolitical issues between the average muslim and average american (and not in the “they’re wrong/right, we’re wrong/right” way). some disagreements are not soluble because they have to do with values. and the “average muslim” is way different from most muslims. but spitting into the wind at this point, the morons have captured the debate….
“look at how awesome asia”, mean south asia.
She’s doing it now, by posting this. Voting for its own sake- and when you cannot abide any candidate- is BS.
Where I live, that’s actually worse than being a muslim.
Razib wrote: I stand with those defending the civil liberties of muslims, but i also think we need to have a serious discussion about the disjunction in attitudes on geopolitical issues between the average muslim and average american
Two points:
1) Muslims are American. Lots of ’em. Including your (and my) family. The Muslim Vs. American dichotomy (in your comment) ignores Muslim-Americans. Like the Park51 developer.
2) How does “defending civil liberties” have anything to do with geopolitical attitudes? Do you think civil rights are conditional on certain attitudes? Many American do — but I am surprised you do.
I’ll say it again, if the majority is unwilling to defend (or is actively opposed) the rights of the minority, the minority has no rights. How are you standing with Muslims in defense of their civil rights?
I’ll clarify point 2 of my comment, or Razib will call me a ‘tard (he’s called me worse).
Many Americans hold heterodox geopolitical opinions. Rep. Peter King always supported the terrorist Sinn Fein. Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg is a Nakba-denialist. From Black Helicopter-believing militiamen to Truthers, lots of Americans are nuts.
But only Muslim Americans are required to disavow heterodox geopolitical opinions in order to participate in the public sphere. A muslim-American’s opinion on Aceh, or Mindanao, is critical to his ability to donate in a California election. That’s weird, and its a wierdness you appear to endorse, Razib. Why do you think Muslim-Americans’ heterodox geopolitical opinions deseve more scrutiny than Peter King’s?
Second, by linking the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans with their political opinions, you are not standing with those who defend Muslim-American civil liberties. You are Muslim-baiting, no different than David Frum or The New republic. Really, it’s the opposite of standing with them.
there is absolutely no need to clarify this point. you are spot on.
ikram, don’t stuff words into my mouth. old habit of yours 🙂 i’m glad you don’t think america is a primitive nation like india, where you understand that absolute defense of individual rights isn’t feasible (citation: suman palit’s old archives).
1) muslims have a right to be moronic.
2) the geopolitical stupidity of irish and jewish nationalists is a structural feature of american society (i understand that they have ethnopolitical values which differ from mine, but mine indicate that obsession with these topics by americans is stupid). i think we can handle only so many disparate stupidities. the convenience of non-muslim south asian immigrants is that our relationship with india is simpler and less fraught.
in the long term the multiculturalist project faulters with an infinite scaling of stupidities and disparate values. i’m a semi-isolationist, but there’s just no way we’re going to dislodge the israel or cuba lobby from their perch. to be fair luckily for us muslim americans seem to implicitly value arab life more, and don’t complain too much about kashmir, or make a big show about gujarat. if they ONLY focus on the israel problem perhaps it’s manageable, but that means somehow diminishing the lock of AIPAC on american political life (good luck with that!).
more crassly the problem is that the average human is very stupid. societies are manageable when their stupidities are biased in the same direction. unfortunately for muslims their stupidities are out of line with the stupidities of the american majority (e.g., 9/11 trutherism is rather frequency from what i have experienced within the community, though generally more sophisticated by phd holders)
now, if you have a magic pill to make humans not to so dull, come out with it. until then, the israel lobby is a necessary condition of public life in the united states, and they’ll continue to call shots on various topics where muslims are naturally going to have different opinions because they have different opinions.
also, can you actually work a little not to impute views to me i don’t hold, and kind of implicitly repudiated? i know it might be hard for you, but please. i’m starting to get used to the idea that commenting on this blog might not be an invitation to personal attack.
The FBI no longer is working with CAIR. Several CAIR employees have been indicted and convicted for terrorism. One of them is in prison for being involved with the LET, trained in a LeT camp in Pakistan, yes the same Let of the 2008 Mumbai Massacre. He was involved in LeT in VIRGINIA along with 10 others: Indictment of 11 Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/documents/papers/let_us.htm
Where I live, that’s actually worse than being a muslim.
the polls are kind of robust that being an atheist is worse that anything else. but, speaking as a “muslim looking” (well, i’m more often hindu looking, but when people encounter my name i switch to muslim looking) atheist i think the anti-atheist prejudice is pretty shallow. people dislike the idea of atheists, but muslims scare them more in a concrete way. additionally, there’s been a push to make muslims an acceptable identity in american society from on high, so plenty of people probably shade their answers to pollsters. in regards to atheists there hasn’t been a similar campaign from culture-leaders (i don’t count the ‘new atheists’).
p.s. i was an “out” atheist brown dude in a school that was all white and mostly republican in the early 90s. the gay guy was the one who got beat up though. so i think that suggests that hostility to atheism is more an “on paper” kind of thing.
sameer, i think ikram et al. could point you to connections between irish nationalists and israeli groups of similar scope and other public figures. there’s a double-standard. just how it is. though part of it is that irish terrorists and jewish terrorists tend to attack non-americans (i’m sure the british are really happy with americans on this count!).
Go ahead and convert – you would fit right in.
A list of CAIR terrorists, “CAIR’s Legal Tribunals” Not so tame. Not by a long shot.
This situation is currently being discussed by FB friends who know Elkarra and know his record of service to the Greater Sacramento area. Elkarra is on a number of intercultural committees, comes from San Francisco and lives locally. The timing of this story is very suspect, coming as it does, during Ramadan. Would Bera has rejected a similar donation from a Sikh donor? Or from a Muslim South Asian donor? The point and problem here is that Bera and his handlers have made a grave mistake.I N a region where Sikhs and Muslims have a 100+ year history, he has managed to portray all Muslims as highly suspect all the time. The donation comes not from CAIR but from Elkarra, an individual. If Elkarra’s politics, as conflated with CAIR, were so odious, why accept the money in the first place? And why is Bera listening to the GOP? And what/who is next? And here’s a thought, if a supposedly liberal candidate gives the impression that a part of what might be considered his natural constituency is suspect in its motives, harbors secret plans to scuttle the system in which they live, are morally suspect merely because of its religion, national origin, ethnic identity (starting to sound familiar?), then what enfranchisement does this group have? None. Neither side wants them simply because of who and what they are – Muslims (and not even really considered Americans in the rhetoric). And people should feel included by this? What kind of democracy says to a part of its voting population, please don’t donate money, campaign, run for office or, god forbid, vote cause you are way too scary? But do pay taxes, salute the flag, follow the laws cause WE are watching YOU. Civil RIghts are for everyone, not just model minorities, Christians and a few people who suck up to the GOP.
“particularly fueled currently by the “Ground Zero†mosque and championed by key leaders in the Republican party.”
Another Republican no doubt: “A House of Worship or a Symbol of Destruction?”
Just saw this today
You’re sick of Islamaphobia? Give me a break… try visiting Saudi Arabia with a whiskey in your luggage – they’ll deport you. Try stepping outside without your mandatory head scarf – yes it’s mandatory – the religious police (yes, they have religious police!) will flog you. This isn’t simply phobia – this is the law! Yes, some Americans are racist, but compared to the Middle East, America is centuries ahead in terms of respecting basic human rights.
Not entirely sure what that means…
Why do you write that “(yes, they have religious police!)” as if people reading here aren’t already aware of that? You’re not exactly shocking or surprising anyone. Maybe you just discovered those facts, but I’m pretty sure they’re not new to anyone else.
Yes, some Americans are racist, but compared to the Middle East, America is centuries ahead in terms of respecting basic human rights.
this is like saying you have a higher IQ than someone with down syndrome. not relevant. the appropriate reference to gauge a distribution of policies and attitudes are civilized countries.
How is opposing the building of a Mosque close to the grave site of 3000 people considered bigotry? The 9/11 attackers were attacking on behalf of Islam right? As far as I am concerned its the writers on Sepia Mutiny who are the wingnuts on the other side.
I think Razib is being a little unfair here. As a fellow atheist (and yes one who declared it in middle school in upstate NY to the astonishment of the teacher, who thought I used to worship rats or something) I nonetheless make a distinction between a religion and the religious. There is a vast variation in Islamic practices, even though I consider Islam itself as hopelessly confused and befitting simple minds (like almost every other religion). I don’t think, therefore, that practices can be shown to a direct function of text at all. If given a chance some of our evangelical fellow citizens would try to make our society conform to their interpretation of the bible. I would rather look for political reasons for why certain interpretations and practices are the way they are (maybe the situation in the U.S. has to do with the embourgeoisement of American society). Similarly, and to take an example from India, you cannot expect the average retarded Hindu fanatic to understand the subtleties of the Vedas (the Charvaka reaction to the Mimamsa school for instance); interestingly in the case of India, I think it is the practice–of Hinduism– that is far more uncivilized than the texts would suggest (the average Mosque destroyer does not really consider the Vedanta reinterpretation of Vedic metaphysics and the attendant speculations about the nature of being and the universe). So yes I am glad that I live in a country where the political situation is such that the practice of Christianity is–by and large, and in comparison to relatively uncivilized India, and even more uncivilized other third world regions–far more civilized than Christian texts themselves would suggest.
As a fellow atheist (and yes one who declared it in middle school in upstate NY to the astonishment of the teacher, who thought I used to worship rats or something) I nonetheless make a distinction between a religion and the religious. There is a vast variation in Islamic practices, even though I consider Islam itself as hopelessly confused and befitting simple minds (like almost every other religion). I don’t think, therefore, that practices can be shown to a direct function of text at all.
eugen,
1) i’ve been blogging for 8 years and my opinions on religion and islam, and my evolution as to those opinions, are in the public record so you can check my opinions if you care, but
2) i don’t think there’s any distinction between religion and religious. the religion is what the religious are, and what the religious say it is. that’s my opinion. if you do believe in god, and religion as something real in a platonic sense, there’s a true real religion which is a reflection of god’s will. since i don’t believe in god religion is just what the religious say it is. i’m not going to argue about it with them in any deeply sincerely way, just as i wouldn’t argue with a star trek nerd as to whether TOS or TNG were the ‘real star trek.’
3) i have explicitly said that i don’t think religion is a function of texts (in case you were assuming i believe this).
if the core muslim world didn’t have oil, and israel didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be many issues with muslims and their politics, just as there aren’t issues with african immigrants and their politics. we don’t live in that world.
if you people want to check my assertions as to the rank order of regressiveness of various religions, just go here:
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org
in 1997 and 1999 they asked 2773 pakistanis if they believed in god. 0 out of 2773 were atheists.
Apologies if I misunderstood/misrepresented you, but:
1) You said you agreed with Jerry Coyne who wrote “It was Islam, after all, that propelled those planes into the World Trade Center nine years ago.” This I flatly disagree with…for the reasons I suggested (i.e. controlling for other factors, I don’t think Islam matters much, if at all)
2) When I say “religion,” I literally mean the texts (with all their contradictions, etc.); and yes in that case I agree with you that Bin Laden is as much of a “true” muslim as any sufi saint.
eugen, i probably shouldn’t have linked to coyne since he has many unsubtle views which i don’t share in relation to religion. i was agreeing with the part about how islam was probably the most regressive major religion (from a western perspective) out there.
2) When I say “religion,” I literally mean the texts (with all their contradictions, etc.);
nod i can understand that, but i really disagree that texts matter much in religion. i think they matter for religion nerds, clerics, and atheists, for whom texts are the summum bonum of religion, but as an empirical matter they don’t seem to impact variation in the phenomenon as a cause. see in gods we trust for support of my assertions. of course believers think texts matters, but this isn’t the sort of thing you can take their word for.
Saying that Saudi Arabia is representative of Islam is like saying that Uganda’s proposed law to kill gays represents Christianity– crazy extremists don’t represent a religion.
Saying that Saudi Arabia is representative of Islam is like saying that Uganda’s proposed law to kill gays represents Christianity– crazy extremists don’t represent a religion.
i think this is a good point. some muslims complain that what happened is that kind of like ‘the beverly hillbillies’, the most retrograde muslim society hit it rich. but saudi arabia also has mecca & medina. uganda isn’t home to geneva or the vatican. from what i can tell, and what i have known, most muslims have a love/hate relationship with arabian arabs. but they serve to guide ‘the ummah’ far more than african christianity influences world christianity.
I’ll have to check out the Atran book; sounds interesting. At the same time, I don’t quite understand what matters if the texts don’t (and as I said, my intuition is that you cannot draw a one to one relationship between texts and practices). I mean the only other religion-related alternative then is opinion leaders etc., but in that that case the leaders themselves have to refer to texts, or their interpretations have to have some relation to the texts. The other alternatives are material and/or political factors (to the extent that these are separable from “purely” religious/ideational ones, since such factors can also be shown to affect textual interpretation).
I mean the only other religion-related alternative then is opinion leaders etc., but in that that case the leaders themselves have to refer to texts, or their interpretations have to have some relation to the texts. The other alternatives are material and/or political factors (to the extent that these are separable from “purely” religious/ideational ones, since such factors can also be shown to affect textual interpretation).
i think the interpretations have minimal relationship to texts. i don’t think there’s one way to define how a religion shakes out. i think it’s a mix of various factors. the fixation on texts though is problematic because it turns religion into a game of analysis and logic.
I disagree. I think the idea of “representation” itself is suspect here ( unless it can only be given some statistical meaning). Crazy extremists represent religions to the same extent that pinko leftists do.
fwiw, here are Palin’s words on the mosque, as reported by Fox –
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/manhattan/sarah-palin-opposes-ground-zero-mosque-20100719-akd
Her challenge to Obama –
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/14/sarah-palin-questions-obamas-support-for-ground-zero-mosque/
unless it can only be given some statistical meaning
amen! religion is just a distribution of phenomena within a parameter space.
Yes, this was a stupid move by Berra. Not only is it indefensible, it was stupid politically. He just lost the election. Or at least I hope so.
Ha ha ha…That picture of Ami Bera makes him look like the Ratchet character from the original 1984 Transformers animated episode entitled “Roll for It”. Unfortunately, Ratchet was killed in the 1986 film “Tranformers the Movie” when Starscream used Megatron in his tranformed gun form to shoot both Ratchet and Ironhide…in any event, I would be surprised if Ami Bera has the same charisma as Ratchet did…
I haven’t read the comments on Sepia threads or commented on them in a copla years now but man the level of commentary has really gone down on this site. I see Razib is still holding down the fort in ishtyle (last memory I have of you Razib was us arguing about the correlation between temperature and intelligence; your stance being that cooler climates have a significant correlation with intelligence…if I remember correctly…weatherist!) Does Dr. Amnonymous still post?
Anyway…I think that this incident is very indicative of the present political climate where alliances are smeared based on race and religion. Politicians either ought to have no compromise of ethical principles or they shouldn’t be considered, a write-in is as good and better suited to our own integrity. Kudos to Taz, well articulated.
No religion in politics, NO RELIGION in Economics.
“”If the American Atheists Society or Saddam Hussein himself ever sent an unrestricted gift to any of my ministries, be assured I will operate on Billy Sunday’s philosophy: The Devil’s had it long enough, and quickly cash the check.” – Jerry Freakin Falwell … when he learned that Suy Myung Moon had been the primary donor in the Liberty College bailout of the 90s.
How nice. I was the out gay brown atheist in Utah. I win.
I love this article about the Mosque issue.
Islam in Two Americas http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16douthat.html
Razib pointed me to this story
Hindu victim of Pak air crash labelled ‘kafir’ http://www.zeenews.com/news645999.html
Now if this had happened in the US/UK (Muslim body labelled in a derogatory way) the outcry would have been deafening. My point being I try to be neutral to all beliefs and ideologies and people (try is the operative word) so long as its consistent with libertarianism (hate imposition/commitment of any sort 🙂
Anyway my point is this that its a two-way street; I deal with alot of Muslims even though I am a non Muslim because of my ethnic background (Pakistani & Iranian). I find that Muslims in the West want the liberties and freedom of the West but are very apathetic about that back home.
Yes this is a generalisation (I qualify every post with this) but its a two way street; first of all I am tired of victimisation and second of all I want outright condemnations of violence and bigotry from Muslims about Muslim actions. Its so conditional.
Repeat after me no matter what the cause or the justification violence is always wrong. I am not a pacifist, far from it, but in any global issue there should be no resorting to violence. Focus on economic and cultural prosperity and the rest will follow; that’s what the Chinese and, to a more limited extent, the Indians have done. Islam can do the same and this is coming from someone with a deep (romanticised quixotic) vision of the Islamic world.
These comments could be the reason why Hindus & Muslims can’t be friends… 🙁 (because a few commenters represent the whole hindu religion and the whole country of India in their islamiphobia)
Also though I have Republican sympathies (and am a Brit not an American though my NY Pakistani family are deep Republicans and my Chicago Iranian family are mild democrats) I am supporting Ami Berra.
I like the fact he’s married to an African-American 🙂 so remarkable for a desi.
I love this idea; shows some hope for Pakistan.
http://sify.com/news/pakistani-hindu-youth-s-coffin-labelled-as-infidel-news-international-kierEicgbba.html
Dhimmis need to own back their pride; sort of African Americans in the 60s.
“Badeel Khan Janjua, who designed the T-shirt with the message ‘I am Premchand, Label me kaafir’, suggested that a “kaafir day” be celebrated in Pakistan. “
Ted Olson, staunch Bush ally and the guy whose wife died in the 9/11 plane, is for the mosque. Bush himself is probably not against the mosque whereas Obama questions the “wisdom” of it. So it’s not a rift that can easily be defined by political affiliation.
On the flip side this is what is happening in India:
Sikhs, Hindus Help Rebuild Mosques Destroyed during Partition
http://www.radianceweekly.com/212/5744/TARGETING-MUSLIMS-A-Bane-of-Plural-Bharat/2010-07-11/Cover-Story/Story-Detail/212/5747/TARGETING-MUSLIMS-A-Bane-of-Plural-Bharat/2010-07-11/Communal-Harmony/Story-Detail/Sikhs-Hindus-Help-Rebuild-Mosques-Destroyed-during-Partition.html
One fine morning, a group of boys decided to clear the muck. Within days, the entire village – now made up of Hindus and Sikhs – joined them. Says 20-year-old Laddi: “We were never short of money or material. Anyone who passed this way would contribute in cash or kind. Someone brought five bags of cement, another donated bricks and so on….†This, when there were no permanent Muslim families left in the village. But, once repaired, the mosque began to be used. A few Muslim migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, labourers and petty trades-people began praying here. A maulvi from a neighbouring village now comes to lead Friday prayers. To the delight of 80-year-old Nachattar Kaur, who was born and brought up here, the sound of the azaan (call to prayer) is being heard again, after decades. “We have always believed in this shrine,†she says. “It is a house of God. God bless these boys for restoring the oldest relic of our village.â€
As a Muslim American, this country, and definitely this state of California IS my home. I think we do need to keep in mind what is going on in the global perspective, but the saying is “think global, act local.” We need to be able to organize and voice for the communities we live in and are a part of right now, in the present, in our neighborhoods. It’s silly to discredit Muslims for not wanting freedoms for the entire Muslim community of the world. I deal with a lot of non-Muslims even though I am Muslim because of where I live, and I find that non-Muslims in the West think that the Muslim community is a lumped identity of other instead of individuals. With different leanings. Different neighborhoods. Different communities. And are American, too.
Point is, I’m an American Muslim. And on a South Asian AMERICAN blog, we focus on issues of the diaspora here in America. Think globally, act locally. Invest in your local community, first. Take care of where you are, first. And there is no “back home” – this is my home.
zachary, if civil rights are conditional on not being assholes, there are a large number of REAL AMERICANS whose rights are in jeopardy.
Religion is a belief-system, an ideology. It’s not some immutable characteristic like ethnicity or race. Why can’t Americans dislike a belief-system? Why do we need to like it? What happened here is good old fashioned American politics. There is no First Amendment violation here. Most Americans distrust CAIR. There are good reasons for that (some linked to in comments above). There is no “right to not have one’s donors scrutinized,” nor should there be. I love what happened here, sorry.
Rajesh I would never imply that. As per the article “2 Americas” rights and acceptance are two different things.
If Muslims want to be accepted as cultural Americans instead of constitutional Americans they will have to assimilate and actually believe in civil liberties for all.
Taz – that’s not the point; as I wrote on Razib’s blog the Diaspora has to act as a moral conscience otherwise what’s the point. And also Muslim Americans are not “local” in their outlook; mention the word “Palestine” and Western Muslims are out on the streets.
What about advocating the rights of minorities in the Muslim world, but as Razib mentioned before the life of an Arab far outweighs that of any body else. I have been a philo-Muslim for the past decade and work very heavily on Muslim issues but as a humanitarian I hate the hypocrisy.
I see Hindu/Sikhs rebuilding mosques while at the same time literally Pakistanis labeling coffins as Kaffirs. Something’s got to give and its not a “Pakistani” syndrome; it is about tolerance in the Muslim world and Muslims in the West speaking for that instead of sometimes acting as an angry disgruntled minority all the time.
Positive thinking not victimisation has to define our next steps (my grandmother is a Sayyida; my granddad’s dad was a well-known maulvi in East Punjab)..
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ZLatif — Civil Liberties for all? What American groups are Muslims opposed to? What American religious or ethnic group are they blocking?
Or is your test that all Muslim-Americans have to support civil liberty for all people, everywhere in the world, before being accepted as Americans? Razib is right that in today’s America, the reality is that there is a double standard for Muslim-Americans. But there’s no reason to be complacent about it — let’s label the idiots with idiotic ideas, like you.
And no, diaspora’s don’t normally act as a moral conscience. They are usually the supporters of the worst extremists in the home country (e.g., Sinn Fein, LTTE, Babbar Khalsa). In most cases, the best thing a Diaspora can do for the old country is to forget about the old country.
Lastly, Douthat’s 2 americas is incoherent. See below. In the Douthat-Salam tag-team, Douthat was just the white face in front of the desi brain. The wrong guy got the NYTimes gig.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/scocca/archive/2010/08/18/ross-douthat-still-trying-to-explain-why-bigotry-is-good-for-america.aspx