As I drove down a lonely stretch of highway on my way back to Atlanta from Charleston, S.C., among signs for gas, country cooking and the occasional truck stop, a colorful sign caught my eye. On it appeared an extremely angry ninja brandishing a sword.
As I drove closer to the sign I saw crescent-shaped eyes on the face of the ninja with the ominous words, “Islam Rising” above it. The billboard turned out to be an advertisement for Geert Wilder’s anti-Muslim propaganda film, “Fitna.”
I giggled, wondering why I don’t have my own Ninja outfit. I dismissed the sign with a smile, deciding I must have missed Ninja-outfit day at the mosque, and further decided to definitely not stop for gas in that neck of the woods.
The sign got me thinking about how many Americans truly think it representative of the majority of Muslims. Clearly, enough non-Muslim Americans are still confused and confounded by Islam that such signs freely exist without outrage from the communities in which they sit.
Like the “War on Drugs,” this “War on Terror” will not end. Wars on issues like poverty, crime and terror are unlikely to come to definite ends such as wars against nation states. This fact has forced many American Muslims to internalize this war and realize on many levels it is a “War on Muslims.”
We realize many Americans think that all Muslims are terrorists and that we need to be eradicated as a group. I read a post on Facebook in which a very well-educated man wrote that Iran must go into a black hole and never return, forgetting that the vast majority of Iranians are freedom loving people who are being oppressed by a dictatorial Islamic regime and not a nation filled with terrorists.
If one looks at Geert Wilders, a powerful politician in the Netherlands who has been tried for several crimes including hate speech for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, and more specifically his film “Fitna” advertised in the sign I drove by in South Carolina, it is clear that Muslim bashing has gone mainstream. It has taken its roots in the right wing of the political spectrum that is currently enjoying an upsurge in America.
Islam, like all religions, has members that range from non-practicing, to moderate, to reform, to conservative, to radical. Yet, the only branch of our religion making its voice known is the radical branch, the “terrorist” branch. We are not all terrorists, nor do Muslims of any other ilk condone terrorism. In fact, we condemn it in all of its forms. You simply do not purposely attack civilians. Ever.
American Muslims are Americans. There is no difference between being Muslim and American for the vast majority of us. We came to the United States to find better jobs, provide for our families, and live in stability.
Here, we are able to speak our minds, we are able to practice our religion — or not practice it — it freely. We are able to live our lives in a way that we could not in our homelands. Many of us have become U.S. citizens; many more of us are second- and third-generation Americans.
Can we be patriots and still be Muslims? Can we still be Muslims while we condemn the actions of the Taliban and al-Qaida, and dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan? Of course! In fact, the vast majority of us do condemn the likes of the Taliban and al-Qaida, Ahmadinejad and Bashir.
I sometimes feel non-Muslims think all Muslims are a silent majority of terrorism supporters, waiting for our chance to help those outside of our country attack it.
We as a group must change this perception. We must change it ourselves. While it feels unfair, it is our responsibility to demonstrate that a person may identify as both a Muslim and an American — with no contradiction.
Many Muslims here and abroad have joined the U.S. Armed Forces and clandestine forces to help the United States during its time of need. We are not the enemy. Al-Qaida and the Taliban are our enemy. Lack of democracy, combined with poverty, corruption and ignorance, are our enemy. U.S. Muslim moderates need to stand up and respond to people who propagate ideology that creates films like Fitna to help other Americans understand that we are with them, not against them. We are “them.” We are American, too. And many of us are American patriots — like me.
Amna Shirazi, an American Muslim born in Pakistan, is an immigration litigator in metro Atlanta.
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