Dayton mosque attack incident revisited

New details have emerged about the Dayton mosque incident. I explore them in detail at City of Brass v2.0.

(sorry no RSS feed for the new site is available yet. I am leaning on my editors to get me one soon. Please stay tuned :)

Hard times in Al-Andalus

The New York Times has an interesting article about the dearth of mosques in Spain, forcing the burgeoning muslim population to pray in smaller makeshift prayer halls in garages, rented halls, and other similar venues. The muslim community faces stiff opposition from the locals, who mask their underlying (and historic) Islamophobia with the new rhetoric of security:

Although Spain is peppered with the remnants of ancient mosques, most Muslims gather in dingy apartments, warehouses and garages like the one on North Street, pressed into service as prayer halls to accommodate a ballooning population.

The mosque shortage stems partly from the lack of resources common to any relatively poor, rapidly growing immigrant group. But in several places, Muslims trying to build mosques have also met resistance from communities wary of an alien culture or fearful they will foster violent radicals.

Distrust sharpened after a group of Islamists bombed commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, killing 191 people, and in several cities, local governments, cowed by angry opposition from non-Muslims, have blocked Muslim groups from acquiring land for mosques.
[...]
The North Street prayer hall faced opposition from the outset. Marta Roigé, head of the local neighborhood association, said residents tried to block it five years ago by renting the garage themselves, but backed down after the landlord started a bidding war. They have since sued the local council to close it down on the basis that it is a health and safety hazard.

“The tension has grown as the numbers have grown,” Ms. Roigé said. “They’ve set up shops, butchers, long-distance call centers and restaurants.” These businesses, catering to Muslim immigrants, line the surrounding streets.

She added: “They are radicals, fundamentalists. They don’t want to integrate.”

Muslim leaders, however, say the lack of proper mosques is one barrier to integration. And Spanish authorities and Muslim leaders say the potential for extremism would be easier to monitor at fewer, larger mosques than at the 600 or so prayer halls scattered throughout the country.

The muslim communities are organizing and trying to acquire leases to land to build, though they still face opposition. Given that the majority of muslims in Spain, like the rest of Europe, are laborer class, funding is also a severe obstacle. There is a bill proposed in Spain's legislature to set aside land for all faiths to build places of worship, however the Christian leaders argue that all faiths are not equal and freedom of religion is only for some, not for all:

Cardinal Luis Martínez Sistach, archbishop of Barcelona, opposes the bill, which would entitle all religious groups to land on an equal basis. He argues that Catholicism requires different rules.

“A church, a synagogue or a mosque are not the same thing,” he said, according to the conservative Spanish newspaper ABC. The bill, he said, “impinges on our ability to exercise a fundamental right, that of religious liberty.”

While no law on religious land use exists, the wealthy Catholic Church faces no difficulty acquiring land, experts in law and religion say.

Ah, Western values! This is tremendously short-sighted, because this attitude will further prevent integration by the muslim community, facilitate extremism, and also leave a gaping void for resources which other undesirable forces may fill. Does Spain want the wahhabis to fund a mega-million dollar mosque and appear the saviors of Spanish Islam in the face of committed Christian opposition?

Did the muslim smear hurt Obama in Ohio?

Obama carried the major cities in Ohio yesterday but lost statewide.I can't help but wonder how much the "cryptomuslim" whispering smear campaign hurt him. There are some clues in the exit polls. Using the data from CNN, we see the following:

The vote among Democrats was racially divided, with white Dems going for Clinton and black Dems going for Obama. Democratic party members followed the same breakdown, but white Independent voters were somewhat closer, preferring Clinton by 8 points.

Vote by Race

White (76%) - Clinton 64%, Obama 34%
African-American (18%) - Clinton 13%, Obama 87%

Vote by Party and Race

White Democrats (49%) - Clinton 70%, Obama 27%
White Independents (18%) - Clinton 53%, Obama 45%
Black Democrats (15%) - Clinton 12%, Obama 88%

Protestants and Catholics alike preferred Clinton by a very large margin. This held true regardless of race.

Vote by Religion

Protestant (32%) - Clinton 61%, Obama 36%
Catholic (23%) - Clinton 63%, Obama 36%
Other Christian (23%) - Clinton 46%, Obama 54%

Vote by Religion and Race

White Protestant (40%) - Clinton 67%, Obama 30%
White Catholic (20%) - Clinton 65%, Obama 34%

Interestingly, when you look at the age breakdown overall, there's a transition with Obama taking progressively less and Clinton taking progressively more as you go up in age bracket. The breakeven point was the 40-49 age group who went for Clinton by only 4 points. However when you factor race and age together, the numbers decline for Obama quite drastically, with Obama winning the youngest age bracket (17-29) by only one point, and then losing more and more to Clinton as you go up.

Vote by Age

17-24 (7%) - Clinton 29%, Obama 70%
25-29 (8%) - Clinton 41%, Obama 54%
30-39 (17%) - Clinton 49%, Obama 51%
40-49 (21%) - Clinton 52%, Obama 48%
50-64 (32%) - Clinton 60%, Obama 37%
65 and Older (14%) - Clinton 72%, Obama 26%

Vote by Age and Race

White 17-29 (10%) - Clinton 47%, Obama 48%
White 30-44 (19%) - Clinton 60%, Obama 40%
White 45-59 (26%) - Clinton 66%, Obama 32%
White 60 and Older (20%) - Clinton 72%, Obama 24%

So overall, the vote broke heavily across racial lines, regardless of party affiliation. The Christian vote broke heavily for Clinton, regardless of race. And the youth vote broke for Obama, except for the white youth.

It is of course very difficult to tease out anything concrete from this. What seems relevant though is that race, while a strong factor, had no effect on the religion breakdown, whereas it did tip the age breakdown. This suggests to me that religion was a strong barrier to Obama and operated independently of race. If religion was more flexible, then it would also have followed the racial pattern seen in the age grouping. Can we infer then that the muslim smear had some effect? It certainly wasn't negligible, but it probably was just one of a number of factors that combined to tip the state towards Hillary.

Hillary certainly had the opportunity to distance herself, and utterly repudiate, the muslim smear in a very public fashion before the people of Ohio and chose not to do so. So while her campaign probably wasn't actively fanning the muslim smear, it certainly was content to let it operate unhindered.

Earlier I argued that we as muslims should wait until after the primary ends to hold Obama accountable for distancing himself from muslim Americans. It's true that he has called the smear an insult to muslims, but he still has not said that whether he is muslim or not is irrelevant. I thought prior to Ohio that some distance between Obama and muslim Americans would help him, but now it seems to me that there's not much point. So why not press the issue now?

I think that prior to Pennsylvania Obama should confront the muslim smear and attempt to take it off the table by challenging the underlying islamophobia. I don't think his delegate lead is in any danger but I very much doubt he will win PA, a state with demographics highly similar to Ohio. Even the most committed Obama partisans must concede that losing OH and PA is going to be a significant liability in the general election - electability is a real concern, and the Democrat can't beat McCain without those two states. Therefore Obama has to look strategically at the electability issue and attempt to neutralize whatever forces he can that are undermining him in these blue-collar, predominantly white and Christian communities. The two things hurting him the most are the NAFTA problem and the muslim smear.

The real target is John McCain, and John McCain is no Alan Keyes. If Obama wants to counter Hillary's argument that only she can beat McCain by competing in battleground states (whose importance in the general election even a 50-state strategy can't diminish), he is going to have to make a serious play for PA. And that means it's time for him to channel his inner Jerry Seinfeld.

"I'm not muslim and never have been. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Senator Obama, you can't hide from the cryptomuslim smear forever. The time to confront it is now. If Hope, Change, and Unity aren't enough to defeat the Islamophobia within, then how much power do these key concepts of your campaign really hold?

what if Barack Obama were a muslim?

I am not naive. It's obvious why the "madrasah" smear against Barack Obama is harmful and unfair. The idea that Obama might be a "crypto-muslim" with secret allegiance to the Enemy is a pernicious one that has spread almost entirely via email, with one purpose, to play into the xenophobic and racist impulses that still lurk at the heart of our society, despite the lip service we pay to MLK's lofty visions to the contrary. And those impulses cross the political divide (though, despite pundit claims to the contrary, it certainly originated from the Right, and has been legitimized by right-leaning news outlets). Still, this is primary season, not the general election, so what matters is how the smear plays out in Left-leaning audiences, not Right-leaning ones. Given that in the South Carolina Democratic primary yesterday, white voters went preferentially for Edwards, there's clearly a reservoir of antipathy for the Other to contend with.

So by all means, Obama must (and has) vigorously defend himself from the charge. Obama's website has a fact-check article that flatly states "Obama is not and never has been a muslim", and which also debunks the assertion that Obama attended a madrasah as a child in Indonesia. However, what the fact-check does not do is to tackle the deeper assumptions behind the smear, and that is a genuinely wasted opportunity.

What if Obama were a muslim? The better response would have been, "So what" and confront the underlying prejudice head-on. That is a risky strategy of course, given the hardball Obama is facing from the Clinton camp (with Bill linking him to Jesse Jackson, as if Obama's politics could remotely be akin). Obama is playing it supremely safe and distancing himself from race and religion to come off as "safe" as possible. He will still lose some votes by virtue of his skin, as SC showed, but not enough to matter (as SC showed). Why risk it by embracing muslims?

As I said, I am not naive, and given that Hillary's record on muslim issues is substantially worse, I would rather Obama not be dragged down by the likes of, well, me. For the greater good. Still, should Obama take the nomination, it will be instructive to see whether he maintains the same cautious stance towards Islam, and continues to keep American muslims at arms' length. Listening to his rhetoric, one would assume so, but the singular question about Obama has always been, can he deliver actions to match his words? hen he's facing off against the Right, the time for caution will be over.

islamotrolling

Yelling fire in a crowded theater:

Jafi Geert Wilders: pleased with himself

The Dutch Muslim Council has attacked far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders' politics as "racist and fascist".

The council, which includes 200 organisations, appealed for calm ahead of the planned release by the MP of a controversial film.

Mr Wilders says his film will show the Koran as an inspiration for murder.

The Dutch Muslim Council said its members' message to the Muslim and non-Muslim world was that conflict would do no-one any good.

I make zero excuses for any islamafool who gets up in arms about the film and takes to the street over it. However, Wilders' film is essentially islamotrolling - a classic case of poking a hornet's nest, solely to elicit a response with which he can then use to "prove" the original assertion that Islam is intrinsically violent, etc. The fact that the vast majority of Dutch muslims will not riot in the streets is irrelevant to the desired, and manufactured, final product: a marketing ploy, with Wilders playing the role of Western martyr.

I used to have more ire for the inevitable idiots than for the instigators like Wilders, but I've come to realize that the islamofools are simply not capable of comprehending what tools they are. Premeditated mischief, cowardly wrapped in the mantle of free speech as if it were some noble enterprise, by someone who is clearly very intelligent, doesn't have any excuse.

hate crimes in the US

John Burgess links to the 2006 hate crimes report by the FBI and argues that muslims are not the most-persecuted group in the US.

Contrary to what many of the world’s Muslims believe—and contrary to the picture that groups like CAIR seek to portray—Muslims are not the target of most hate crimes in America.

The FBI has issued its statistics for 2006 on hate crime in America. Crimes directed against Muslims, simply because they are Muslims, amounted to 156 incidents; those against Jews, 967; against homosexuals and bisexuals, 1,195.

Well, great!

Note, however, that he does ascribe to CAIR the belief that muslims are the most victimized by hate crimes. I take serious issue with him on that claim. I don't think I have ever seen a single CAIR publication assert that muslims are the "principal" target of hate crimes in the US. Can anyone point to a source from CAIR that says otherwise?

That said, muslims ARE a persecuted group, as the FBI statistics clearly demonstrate, and the only reason that the FBI even has any record of that persecution is because of work by groups such as CAIR to document it. Assuming that there is no under-reporting of cases against muslims, and using the US census data from 2001, we see that Jewish Americans outnumber Muslim Americans by 6 to 1. Thats about the same ballpark as the hate incident ratio as reported by the FBI.

I think any reasonable discussion of hate crimes in the US needs to take these issues into account. Rather than use the hate crimes statistics to bash CAIR, whose regional chapters are independent organizations that do good work, it would be nice to see someone use those statistics to rebut those who argue that there is no such thing as Islamophobia in the West.

masjid vandalized

As my regular readers know, I am a member of the Dawoodi Bohra muslim community (specifically, an Ismaili sect with Shi'a Islam). Our masjid in Katy, Texas has stood there for over ten years.

Last night, drunken vandals smashed almost a dozen windows and a glass door on the madrasah building of our complex. I uploaded the photos to Flickr this morning.



These windows are all to classrooms where the children are taught each saturday morning. As these are custom engraved windows with geometric designs, they probably won't be replaced in time for next week's classes, so the kids are going to have to see this.

This is exhibit A of why we should be supporting our local CAIR chapters. No one else gives a frak. Also see discussion at eteraz...