An American Muslim Journal

Still going... the Park51 debate rages on

The Park51 (formerly Cordoba Initiative) debate continues to rage in press conferences and in the media.  Well, if people are going to talk about this proposed community center which includes a mosque within it, then the public should use this as an opportunity to think about the broader issue of anti-Muslim sentiment that is holding up mosque construction in places throughout the United States.

The notion that Park51 is on “hallowed ground” is a red herring meant to sway the sentiments of the American public.  It’s been well established, ad nauseam in fact, that the site for Park51 is a few blocks away from Ground Zero, that there are other places of worship within the same area as the future home of Park51 and that there is a strip club even closer to Ground Zero than the proposed Park51.  “Hallowed ground” to those raving lunatics who are rabidly anti-Muslim is just a catchy label that has little to do with the truth.

But the bigger issue is the demonization of Muslims and the active efforts to cast Muslims as outsiders.  Why do “they” want to build here these people ask.  The “they” is conveyed with such contempt.

I was heartened to read some very positive comments from non-Muslims recently on this topic.  A New York Times reader posted this comment yesterday:

 

This person's sentiment is not surprising.  The people I interact with every day overwhelmingly share this mindset.  

I don’t need my friends to apologize for the bigotry of their co-religionists.  I know how unreasonable that expectation is and I will not impose it on my friends.  That said, it is nice to hear this sentiment articulated!

The forces for good are strong.  They just need to be activated and mobilized!

Who didn't cover today's interfaith press conference in Washington, DC? Fox, MSNBC, others...

The Christian Science Monitor ran a very interesting story today about interfaith press conference organized by the Islamic Society of North America.  It was partly about the the press conference but mainly about the limited media coverage given to it.  Very interesting...

CSM staff writer David Cook wrote:

Despite the passions stirred by the Islamic center near ground zero and a plan to burn Korans on Sept. 11, cable news outlets showed limited interest Tuesday afternoon in a press conference where church leaders from a variety of faiths called for a united religious front against perceived examples of Islamophobia.

It's hardly surprising that the media ignored the positive side of a story - in this case Americans of different faiths standing together against religious bigotry - but what is noteworthy and commendable is the story about the lack of coverage.  The story about the paucity of media coverage of positive news is old news of course, but seeing it being written about is refreshing.

Mr. Cook went to describe who did and did not cover the ISNA organized interfaith press conference:

C-SPAN and CNN carried the interfaith press conference live. Fox News Channel had no coverage, but instead had commentator Lou Dobbs holding forth on President Obama and the “sad isolated state this president has put himself in.” Meanwhile, MSNBC offered talking heads discussing Mr. Obama’s latest plans to spur the economy.

I've never taken a journalism course but I've heard it said that journalists must be balanced.  With all the negative attention given to Muslims and Islam over the past few months, and with the frenzied hate speech spewing from Taliban pastors, it would seem balanced to provide coverage to the voices of reason and peace which is precisely what the ISNA press conference represented.

The roster of interfaith leaders at today's press conference is impressive.  Their joint statement is strong and clear.  In the coming days between now and the 9/11 anniversary and the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Fitr it would be responsible journalism for all forms of media to share today's interfaith statement with the American public.

I can't say that I'm hopeful that this joint/interfaith statement will quell the Islamophobia that's raging in different spots across America, but it is worth a try.

American Muslims' integration efforts over last 9 years

The so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy brought a lot of Islamophobic feelings of some Americans to the surface.  Polls confirm that anti-Muslim or anti-Islam sentiments and mis-information about the religion and it's adherents remains very high.  American Muslims have reason to be scared.

At the same time, American Muslims ought to look at themselves and ask some hard questions.  The leaders of American Muslim mosques, the mosque-going community and the many un-affiliated American Muslims all have some questions they need to think about and answer honestly.  Among those questions are these: (1) Are mosques in America working to serve the communities in which they exist and thereby adding value above and beyond the basic worship services provided? (2) Are mosque leaders investing donor resources into personnel who can serve to train and turn out mosque members for interfaith and bridge-building endeavors?  and (3) Are mosque leaders creating a welcoming environment within mosques to bring more American Muslims in the the "organized" religious fold?  With some notable exceptions I think the answer to all three of these questions is "no" and therein lies a big reason why Islamophobia continues to grow.

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times writes in a recent story about the growing malaise among American Muslims:

For nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, many American Muslims made concerted efforts to build relationships with non-Muslims, to make it clear they abhor terrorism, to educate people about Islam and to participate in interfaith service projects. They took satisfaction in the observations by many scholars that Muslims in America were more successful and assimilated than Muslims in Europe.

How many is the "many" about which Ms. Goodstein writes?  There are reportedly 6 million Muslims living in the United States.  When Ms. Goodstein says "many" is she speaking of 90% of the American Muslim community?  75%?  50%?

Reflecting on the past 9 years and looking back as far as 16 or 17 years (this is the period of time that I have personally been very active in the American Muslim community and a period of time in my life where I overtly raised my religious beliefs to the forefront of my personal identity) I question the notion that "many" American Muslims have been involved in building relationships with non-Muslims.  I actually think that only a very small number of American Muslims have really been actively engaged in building interfaith relationships and actively involved in educating the broader American community about what Muslims truly believe.

This New York Times article quotes Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core (an interfaith program based in Chicago, Illinois), to reinforce the supposed prevailing sense of American Muslims as being scared about the direction America is going vis-a-vis its views on Muslims and on Islam. Ms. Goodstein quotes a family in Ohio who are disturbed by the heightened levels of Islamophobia in America.

I'm sure Mr. Patel genuinely feels scared about the anti-Muslim sentiments in America.  And I empathize with the family featured in Ms. Goodstein's article.  Mr. Patel's organization is definitely engaged at the grassroots level working to build greater interfaith cooperation.  But his organization is small and it can only do so much.  What else is being done to foster tolerance and to nurture understanding between America's various faith traditions?

In this NYT article Ms. Goodstein writes that:

To address what it calls a “growing tide of fear and intolerance,” the Islamic Society of North America plans to convene a summit of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in Washington on Tuesday.

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is an valuable resource for all Americans, and their efforts among the religious and political elites is an important component of a what should be a multi-pronged approach to setting the public record straight on who Muslims really are and what Islam really teaches.  And while I wish ISNA spoke for the majority of Muslims in America, I don't believe that it does. ISNA does not even speak for most American mosques and only a small fraction of America's Muslim community is mosque affiliated.

Interfaith dialogue and the bridge building cannot come solely via op-eds in newspapers, public service announcements via the internet, and interfaith dinners attended by the same folks from the various faith communities year after year.  People at the grassroots level need to be involved in interfaith dialogue and bridge-building as an integral part of their lives.  That's the only way to make an appreciable impact.

This is where I take issue with Ms. Goodstein's NYT article: my observations as an active member of the Muslim community suggests that few American Muslims have actually been actively involved in bridge-building and interfaith relations.  Here is a list of reasons why I doubt the accuracy of the word "many" in Ms. Goodstein's article:

1. Most of the organized interfaith and bridge-building efforts that the media reports on happens at the organized Muslim community level (mosques, organizations like Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslim Public Affairs Council, Islamic Society of North America, etc);
2. Most Muslims in America are not regular members of any mosque or other Muslim institution;
3. Many mosques in America are unaware of the need for interfaith dialogue and bridge-building and often misunderstand such efforts and some may, as a result, even shun such activities;
4. Muslim leaders heading mosques and other Muslim institutions are ill-equipped to grapple with the strategic challenges facing American Muslims and often act reflexively from one crisis to another rather than engaging in long-term and pro-active engagement;
5. Organizations like the Council of American-Islamic Relations have been too successful in defending Islam and Muslims against hatemongers and Islamophobes and in the process have unintentionally engendered a victim-mentality among Muslims; and
6. It is very hard to get everyday American Muslims to participate in organized interfaith and bridge-building events in the worst of times (common excuses include being busy with work, with family and having previously set social events).

All of these reasons contribute to keeping the American Muslim masses disengaged from interfaith and bridge-building efforts.

The interfaith activities in the Chicago metropolitan region (the city of Chicago and the 40 to 70 mile radius surrounding it) are attended largely by a well-intentioned fellowship of religious leaders and active laypersons.  It's the same Muslims who attend the interfaith events over and over again.  Annually the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago holds a Muslim-Catholic interfaith Iftar and almost every year Cardinal Francis George and other key figures from the Northern Illinois Catholic Church attend.  Dr. Shakir Moiduddin (a local physician) and Azam Nizamuddin (a lawyer and adjunct professor of Islam) are the CIOGC co-chairs of this effort.  

The messages shared at the annual Muslim-Catholic interfaith Iftar that Dr. Moiduddin and Mr. Nizamuddin work very hard to articulate rarely filter down to the local mosques.  Besides the dialogue with the Catholic Church, the CIOGC maintains regular dialogue at varying levels regularity and formality with Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians and other faith communities.  The problem with those dialogues is the same: the same Muslims are involved year after year and the messages rarely filter down to the mosques.

I currently serve on my mosque's board of directors.  For about 1 year I served as the full time executive director of CIOGC where I worked with mosque leaders to get them more involved in the interfaith and bridge-building work (as described above).  Getting mosques to commit themselves and their members to participate in interfaith and bridge-building activities was pure torture (there were notable exceptions and those mosques stand out on their own as excellent examples of interfaith communicators - check out the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview for an example).  Most mosque leaders simply wouldn't return phone calls and if I happened to catch someone on the phone or at the mosque I often received a heavily qualified commitment that ultimately wouldn't pan out because one of the many contingencies would inevitably occur and take precedence.

As a mosque "leader" I've had the opportunity to see the deliberations over interfaith and bridge-building in the mosque boardroom.  At least in my mosque there is a minority of extremely aggressive and vocal members who espouse strident views towards interacting with non-Muslims.  To them any dialogue that is not intended to convert the non-Muslims is not worth the time.  Speaking to these folks about nurturing understanding between faith communities and fostering respect are lost on these folks.

Then there are the majority of our board who are in favor of being engaged in interfaith and bridge-building efforts.  These folks, however, give the nuts and bolts administration of the mosque priority over other activities and by the time this basic work is done, they retreat back into their private lives to pursue their personal obligations.  The result is well-intentioned lip service to interfaith dialogue and bridge-building but very little real action.

There is no (or very limited) understanding of "community organizing" within my mosque so any efforts to support a group like CIOGC translates into a few announcements, an email blast and maybe a phone blast as well to the members.  The communications at our mosque are actually fairly comprehensive when compared to the efforts at other mosques.  Nonetheless, the act of "announcing" an event is a far cry from really getting people motivated and getting them to turn out.

My colleagues on the mosque board, and our counterparts at other mosques, know how to convince people to get involved.  The best example of this is the number of mosques and Islamic schools that exist in the community.  Since Muslims do not engage in interest-based transactions (at least on the communal level), the vast majority of Muslim institutions were built with cash.  That cash came from the pockets of American Muslims.  And they had to be convinced to part with that cash!

This brings me to the issue of strategic thinking.  Our mosque leaders today, by and large, come from a generation that sought to build physical structures for the Muslim community.  Even today these mosques cajole thousands of American Muslims to donate large sums of money to expand the parking lots adjacent to their mosques and to expand the prayer space within the mosques to accommodate large once a week gatherings for prayer (Friday afternoon congregational prayer).  

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on bricks and mortar even today to the mutual exclusion of money being spent on hiring community organizers and program directors and other professionals needed to help develop meaningful community outreach programming.  As long as mosques continue to neglect their human resource needs, and instead throw the burden onto the shoulders of volunteer leaders, the problem of getting more American Muslims engaged in interfaith and bridge-building will continue.

Then there is the pervasive victim complex among American Muslims that dissuades many from trying to do something proactive or positive.  

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an excellent organization and effectively produces a message that the Islamophobia that is running rampant in America is unacceptable.  The message is well crafted and delivered by very bright, very eloquent American Muslims and the message does get on the air quite often (albeit juxtaposed to some vile and rabid Islamophobes).

The problem is that this messaging is also shared broadly with the American Muslim community and it can be damaging to some people's psyche.  The idea for broadly disseminating its work is reasonable - it is to educate the community on what efforts are being undertaken on their behalf.  Unfortunately, this news can be overwhelming and I've seen it cause otherwise positive thinking and capable people to adopt defeatist mindsets.  What can we do in the face of such organized hate, some ask.  Others use CAIR as a crutch - CAIR needs to step up and do something, they say.

And CAIR, for its part, is often loathe to be critical of the American Muslim community.  In order to stay on message and to avoid criticism from their strongest constituents (American Muslims), CAIR will rarely point out the community's own shortcomings (i.e., the general complacency of the broader American Muslim community) in a public way that reaches the masses.

Lastly, there is the problem of the masses.  Despite the portrayal of an organized and nefarious "fifth column" in American society set on subverting America's free society, the truth is that most American Muslims are just as caught up in consumerism-focused lifestyles as any other Americans.  As a result, most American Muslims can't be bothered to break away from their regular routines in order to do something positive in the area of interfaith and bridge-building.  I know this from years of trying unsuccessfully to bring new people into interfaith and bridge-building efforts that this is the case.

While Ms. Goodstein's NYT article is appreciated for helping to shine more light on the problem of the rabid Islamophobia that is raging in pockets of America today, it overstates the efforts made by American Muslims to find common ground with non-Muslims over the last 9 years.  If by "many" efforts at interfaith dialogue and bridge-building Ms. Goodstein means for the word to be understood in relative terms (vis-a-vis the efforts made pre-9/11) then it may be accurate.  However, in absolute terms American Muslims have a long ways to go before they can collectively say that they've done a lot in the way of nurturing interfaith dialogue and bridge-building.

Muslim Serve 2010 as Public Relations? Bad. As a catalyst for real service? Good!

 

Public service as public relations is a shallow exercise that betrays the revered place of serving humanity in Islam.  If the upcoming Muslim Serve 2010 efforts don’t include a plan of action (and a sincere commitment) for sustained service beyond 9/11/10, then those organizing this effort should stop right now.  If 9/11/10 is just a photo opportunity, then skip it.

Muslim Serve 2010 is a grassroots effort to encourage American Muslims to dedicate 9/11/10 to public service.  It’s premised on a Quranic exhortation to combat evil with good.  It’s a public relations effort timed on a national day of mourning that, by chance this year, coincides with the post-Ramadan holiday of Eid ul-Fitr.  

The motivation to do something positive on this day is completely understandable.  This year, perhaps more than any other since 2001, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam bigotry is raging in pockets around the country.  The hubbub around the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” shows few signs of abating in the coming days.  Random acts of violence against American Muslims like the vicious stabbing of a New York City cabbie are happening all over the country.  On 9/11 a Taliban-esque Christian preacher plans to burn copies of the Holy Quran in Florida.  The Islamophobic inspired criminal behavior is frightening.

A day of service on 9/11, juxtaposed to the Florida Quran burning, will garner some positive media attention.  It may result in some local newspaper articles and a few 15 second video clips on the evening news.  The positive spin, however, will be short-lived and in-effective. 

Americans on the fence about their views of Muslims may re-evaluate the hateful messages in the media as a result of some good works by Muslims as part of Muslim Serve 2010.  But how long will that last? One day of service, even if it’s a coordinated, nationwide effort, is still just one day. 

Muslims’ service for humanity is an antidote for the rabid hatred that infests communities across America, but it has to be sustained service in order to cure this disease.  The service has to be borne of a sincere desire to help others and not simply a feel good activity or, worse, a PR stunt. 

There are numerous Muslim individuals and Islamic organizations across the country that are serving humanity everyday.  Masjid Dawah, UMMA Center and IMAN come to mind.  They are all worth checking out.  They are models of what Muslim public service should be. 

Masjid Dawah is an storefront mosque on Chicago’s west side.  Compared to many other mosques in and around Chicago, it’s not much to look at, but the heart and soul of Masjid Dawah isn’t in its bricks and mortar, but in its daily efforts to serve the people around it.  Masjid Dawah provides  free meals every week to the hungry in the community.  The only criteria is need.  One need not be a Muslim to receive Masjid Dawah’s help. 

UMMA Center is a community resource center in Waukegan, Illinois.  UMMA stands for United Muslim Minority Alliance.  UMMA Center runs a food pantry and provides GED classes and job training for those in need within the Waukegan community.  They work with people in need without regard to religion. Many of the people benefiting most from UMMA Center’s services are non-Muslims. 

IMAN stands for Innercity Muslim Action Network.  IMAN is based in and serves a portion of Chicago’s south side.  It is one of the most well known and well regarded Muslim public service organizations in the country.  One of its most impressive services is a free medical clinic for the residents living around IMAN. Among other things, IMAN provides free access to quality healthcare to the poor and uninsured families. And again, many of the people IMAN serves are non-Muslims. 

Masjid Dawah, UMMA Center and IMAN will be serving the community on 9/11/10.  But that’s a given, since they serve humanity on the remaining 364 days of the year as well.  And that’s how it should be. A long-term and sustained commitment to service is the way to make a lasting and positive impact on those touched by their good works. 

In addition to these three institutions, there are thousands of American Muslims who quietly perform their public service regularly as well.  They don't issue press releases when they volunteer at the local homeless shelter.  There are no cameras when they drop off the weekly collection of nonperishable and healthy foods to the local food pantry either.  It just gets done, and the people who see it know that these are Muslims and the sincere and sustained acts of kindness open their non-Muslim neighbors hearts and minds to a different and more accurate perception of Muslims and Islam.  But thousands in a community of 6 million is not enough and until Muslim leaders and mosques make sustained public service a cornerstone of their religious obligation, the numbers will not grow.

Doing some form of public service on 9/11 is a good start.  But it has to be done for the right reasons. And it has to continue on the next day or the following week or on some other reasonable timetable all year round. 

Muslim community leaders should build on the Muslim Serve 2010 campaign by using it as a starting point for a discussion on how American mosques can better utilize their space to provide services to their surrounding communities throughout the year.

Muslim Serve 2010 as a PR effort is a bad idea.  But used as a catalyst for individual and institutional public service by Muslims for humanity, it is a great first step in the right direction.

Keith Olbermann's insightful commentary on the "Ground Zero Mosque" that wasn't

Keith Olbermann did an outstanding job articulating a range of thoughtful points recently.  And he exhibited an incredible aura of sincerity in his delivery.  I hope all Americans have a chance to watch and listen to Mr. Olbermann's insightful commentary.

Check it out here: