Thursday, August 20, 2009

CAIR-WA Meets with DHS, CBP on Border Profiling / U.S. Muslims Find Voice Through Advocacy, Engagement

August 20, 2009 Forward to a Friend Support CAIR Contact Us Update Your Profile
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HADITH OF THE DAY: GOD LOVES YOU - TOP

A man once came to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) with a piece of cloth and something in his hand. The man said: "I saw a group of trees and heard the sound of young birds. I took them and put them in my garment. Their mother then came and began to hover around my head. I showed (the chicks) to her, and she fell on them. I wrapped them (all) with my garment. They are now with me."

The Prophet said to his companions: "Are you surprised at the affection of the mother for her young?...God is more affectionate to His servants than a mother to her young ones. Take (the chicks) back and put them where you found them."

Sunan of Abu Dawood, Hadith 1359

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CAIR-WA MEETS WITH DHS, CBP ON BORDER PROFILING - TOP
Local Muslims testify to mistreatment when returning to U.S.

(SEATTLE, WA, 8/20/09) - A representative of the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA) met yesterday with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to discuss allegations of racial and religious profiling at border checkpoints.

To file a report of alleged border profiling, go here.

During Wednesday’s meeting, CAIR’s representative outlined the Muslim community’s concerns and five local Muslims told of being handcuffed, pinned to the ground, having guns pointed at them, hearing alarms sound when approaching a checkpoint, and reported anti-Muslim slurs from CBP agents.

"Numerous local Muslims who are U.S. citizens, professionals and active volunteers in their communities have reported disturbing treatment at the border when returning home,” said CAIR-WA Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari.

Bukhari says reported treatment included being detained for up to eight hours, being handcuffed and kept in holding cells, having the contents of their wallets and purses photocopied, and having data from their electronic devices downloaded and retained by border officers.

“It is unconscionable that government officials treat upstanding citizens as if they are criminals,” said Bukhari.

The officials taking part in the Wednesday meeting offered to continue the dialogue about community concerns relating to claims of racial and religious profiling by border security personnel.

Those taking part in the meeting also included representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), several congressional offices, the San Juan County Council, the Friday Harbor City Council, Colville Tribes, Community to Community, and Jefferson County Democrats.

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

CONTACT: CAIR-WA Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari, 206-931-3655, E-Mail: abukhari@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787 or 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787 or 202-341-4171, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com

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MUSLIM AMERICANS FIND THEIR VOICE THROUGH ADVOCACY, ENGAGEMENT - TOP
Howard Cincotta, America.gov

…Razi Hashmi, born to a Pakistani father and American mother, struggled with his identity when he was a child. He found one answer in Islam. "Faith transcends race and culture," he said in an online profile.

But he also became politically active and organized a branch of the Muslim Students Association at his college. Hashmi is now head of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations…

The Muslim Public Affairs Council is part of a growing constellation of national organizations that are making Muslim voices and views heard. They include the large and influential Islamic Society of North America, the advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the New York-based American Society for Muslim Advancement, which stresses its work in interfaith activities and cultural exchanges. (More)

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CAIR-AZ HOSTS OFFICIALS AT PRE-RAMADAN EVENT - TOP

(PHOENIX, AZ, 8/1709) - The Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-AZ) held a dinner on Saturday in Phoenix to mark the upcoming Islamic holy season of Ramadan.

At the event, elected representatives, public and law enforcement officials and key business people all received a gift of a copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text.

SEE: CAIR’s Share the Quran Campaign

Dinner guests heard from the leaders of several Muslim and community organizations, including the Arizona Cultural Academy, the Cultural Food Bank, the Arab American Association, the Albanian Masjid (mosque), the Islamic Center of North Phoenix, and the Almahdi Center.

Ramadan is the month on the Islamic lunar calendar during which Muslims abstain from food, drink and other activities from daybreak to sunset. The fast is performed to learn discipline, self-restraint and generosity, while obeying God’s commandments. During Ramadan, Muslims end their fasts with a meal after sunset prayers. They also invite friends and family to their homes and mosques to share meals together at this special time of the year.

Ramadan is expected to begin later this week.

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

CONTACT: adaniels@cair.com

SEE ALSO:

SHARING RAMADAN - TOP
Plain Dealer, 8/19/09

A day of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins Saturday, is leavened by an evening meal celebrated with family and friends.

Non-Muslims are invited to experience a traditional iftar, or fast-breaking meal, at the sixth annual Sharing Ramadan Community Dinner sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The dinner program begins at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Joseph Cole Center at Cleveland State University. For reservations, call 216-830-2247.

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CAIR POSITION STATEMENT - ISLAM AND APOSTASY - TOP

Islamic scholars say the original rulings on apostasy were similar to those for treasonous acts in legal systems worldwide and do not apply to an individual's choice of religion. Islam advocates both freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, a position supported by verses in the Quran, Islam's revealed text, such as:

  • "If it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you then compel mankind against their will to believe?" (10:99)
  • "(O Prophet Muhammad) proclaim: 'This is the Truth from your Lord. Now let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it.'" (18:29)
  • "If they turn away from thee (O Muhammad) they should know that We have not sent you to be their keeper. Your only duty is to convey My message." (42:48)
  • "Let there be no compulsion in religion." (2:256)

Religious decisions should be matters of personal choice, not a cause for state intervention. Faith imposed by force is not true belief, but coercion. Islam has no need to compel belief in its divine truth. As the Quran states: "Truth stands out clear from error. Therefore, whoever rejects evil and believes in God has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks." (2:256)

Before issuing this position statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) consulted with members of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars that interprets Muslim religious law.

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

Council on American-Islamic Relations
453 New Jersey Ave, S.E., Washington, D.C., 20003
Council on American-Islamic Relations Copyright © 2008 All rights reserved.

t’s not what Jaswant Singh said ---- : Aakar Patel _ Mumbai Mirro

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=MIRRORNEW&BaseHref=MMIR/2009/08/20&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00100&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T

It's not what Jaswant Singh said about Jinnah or Patel but his temerity to question the party leadership that got BJP's goat


AAKAR PATEL 



    Jaswant Singh has not been expelled for his book. He could not have been, because it does not say anything untrue. Very quickly, this is what his book says:

In 1940, Jinnah's Muslim League proposed that Muslims should have self-government 

Between 1940 and 1946, Jinnah gained electoral support and was open for negotiations. However, he was snubbed by Congress leaders whose actions were either illogical (Gandhi) or tactless (Nehru). They wanted to rule India alone; Jinnah wanted a federation 

3On March 8, 1947, as killings began in Punjab, on both sides,Vallabhbhai Patel and Nehru accepted Partition in a resolution they passed in Gandhi's and Azad's absence 

Congress could have done more to prevent Partition Jinnah was modern and secular and would have been appalled by how Pakistan turned out 
    

None of this is wrong, or new. It is taught in history books. Does Jaswant say Partition was a good thing? No. Does he blame Patel for it? No. If there is one man Jaswant holds most responsible for Partition, it is in fact Jinnah and his "continued rigidity, his fixed stand on an ever increasing charter of demands for the Muslims, an ever larger share of power for them in Independent India (page 504)."
 
    Patel is mentioned in the book in six places (pages 13, 289, 418, 459, 461 and 488). Not in one place has Jaswant said an unkind word about him. So when Rajnath is angry with Jaswant's views on Patel, he must be hallucinating. But he is not. And that is because Jaswant's punishment is not for his book at all. It is about the elections that the BJP lost under Rajnath's presidency, Advani's candidacy and Jaitley's management.
 
    After the defeat, Jaswant Singh told the BJP Core Group at a meeting on June 10 that leaders should be held accountable if the party was to progress. Advani initially made a show of quit
ting, but none of the three men left. Rajnath remains president, Advani is leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Jaitley leader in the Rajya Sabha. And so it is Jaswant Singh who must go instead.
 
    A minor royal from Rajasthan, Jaswant won the election from Darjeeling. Why Darjeeling? Because the Gurkhas would vote for someone who spent nine years with the Central India Horse. For a soldier, raised on black and white certitude, Jaswant Singh has written a remarkable book.
 
    It is free of prejudice and the BJP should have been proud that one of their own wrote it. Instead they have punished him. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. But if it is so obvious that Jaswant is right and Rajnath is wrong, then how will Rajnath get away with it? He 
will because he is confident that nobody will actually read Jaswant's book. This includes the media which carried headlines like 'Jaswant blames Patel, Nehru for Partition'. In India we like the idea of controversy, the details bore us.

Excerpt from the Book: Jinnah - India - Partition - Independence : Mumbai Mirror

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=MIRRORNEW&BaseHref=MMIR/2009/08/20&PageLabel=12&EntityId=Ar01200&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T


Excerpt  from the book:

Jinnah hated the Congress, not Hindus or Hinduism
 
... why Partition and how are 'Muslims a separate nation'? Unarguably, all this had started just over a hundred years ago, (Simla delegation, 1906), with separate electorates but it is on this narrow foundation had finally got built the assertion of separate 'nationhood' on which Mohammed Ali Jinnah had achieved that near impossible, of willing into being what he enunciated: 'Muslims are a separate nation'. That 'nation' came into existence on 14 August 1947. That controversial call through a persistent repetition of which Jinnah succeeded in carving out a separate land, how do we now, expost facto assess it? Did the birth of Pakistan conclusively prove Jinnah's thesis? Or was there actually a rejection of this thesis in the emergence of Bangladesh? This, and other similar ones are rather worrying questions. Did Jinnah's death empty the core of this idea? Also, this concept, propounded by Jinnah and the path on which he had set his creation - Pakistan - does the reality of it tally with those early fundamentals? With the coming into being of Pakistan did Jinnah's journey end? Or is the past of this idea actually a forerunner of our future?
 
    Towards the end (1940-47) Jinnah was both a self-avowed and the actual political leader of almost the entire Muslim community of undivided India. He had started his political life as an early champion of Hindu-Muslim unity, along with the total commitment to the cause of freedom from the British. During that period he stood unambiguously for a united India; yet when he sought a Muslim 'nation', that was through partition, a division, and only in terms of a separation from India, whether internal or external, but as a separate entity. M.R.A. Baig, for some years Jinnah's secretary, has written in Jinnah: 'Islam, as such, came very little into his thinking, and if asked how a mere belief in a common faith', by people of essentially the same ethnic stock could make a nation, he always gave the example of 'Americans [having proven] that nationalism was purely subjective. If the Muslims thought themselves a nation, [well then] they were a nation, and that was all there was to it'. This was not just a lawyer's argument, it was Jinnah's assertion of his belief in the 'power of faith, which he held to be the foundation of nationhood'. Even though this kind of reasoning remains riddled with infirmities, 
for Jinnah this was the needed and the only philosophical (at least so it sounded) platform, a kind of a much needed ideological 'cap', wearing which an idea [such as this] could be pushed. His opposition was not against the Hindus or Hinduism, it was Congress that he considered as the true political rival of the Muslim League, and the League he considered as being just an 'extension of himself'. He, of course, made much of the Hindu-Muslim riots (1946; Bengal, Bihar, etc.) to 'prove the incapacity of Congress Governments to protect Muslims; and also expressed fear of the "Hindu Raj" to frighten Muslims into joining the League, but during innumerable conversations with him I can rarely recall him attacking Hindus or Hinduism as such. His opposition, which later developed into almost hatred, remained focussed upon the Congress leadership'.
 
    The Muslim community for Jinnah became an electoral body; his call for a Muslim nation in his political platform; the battles he fought were entirely political - between the Muslim League and the Congress; Pakistan was his political demand over which he and the Muslim League could rule. Religion in all this was entirely incidental; Pakistan alone gave him all that his personality and character demanded. If Mr. Jinnah was necessary for achieving Pakistan, Pakistan too was necessary for the fulfilment of Mr. Jinnah.
 
    Philips Talbot, as an eyewitness, (and he is perhaps the only one still alive) has assessed: 'Jinnah organised and hastened the development of Muslim solidarity with master strategy. By shrewd, brainy bargaining, cold-blooded astuteness, an absolute refusal to be panicked, and perceptive recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of both himself and his opponent, he has turned every opportunity to the advantage of the League. In ne
gotiations he has considerably proved a match for the Congress high command with all its talent. "I am constitutionally and by long habit a very cold-blooded logician," he told an adulatory Muslim gathering last November'. No one could have analysed him better.
 
The Muslim League's revival was a mistake
 
On 15 December 1947 the residual Muslim League in India adopted a resolution about reviving itself. Gandhi advised them not to, instead to lend their support to the Congress party. This was wise counsel, welcomed even by Suhrawardy. Sadly, though, Azad failed to rise to the occasion, a de
moralised and confused Muslim community in India was his to lead, he did address them, in that much acclaimed oration of 23 October 1947 at the Jama Masjid, but that speech was far too layered over with the language of taunt and reproach, 'I hailed you; you cut off my tongue'.
 
    Leaders of the Muslim League in the Constituent Assembly had then, rather mindlessly, demanded not only a reservation of seats but separate electorates as well. This provoked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel into delivering remarks that would have, on any other occasion been better left unsaid, but then with the country's partition wounds still raw, any such claim of reservations being raised again rubbed those wounds afresh and made them bleed all over again. The Sardar, in pain and in anger, admonished: 'I do not know whether there has been any change in their (the Muslims) attitude to bring forward such an amendment, even now, after all this long reflection and experience of what has happened in this country. But I know this that they have got a mandate from the Muslim League to move this 
amendment. I feel sorry for them. This is not a place today for acting on mandates. This is a place today to act on your conscience and to act for the good of the country. For a community to think that its interests are different from that of the country in which it lives is a great mistake. Assuming that we agreed today to the reservation of seats, I would consider myself to be the greatest enemy of the Muslim community because of the consequences of the step in a secular and democratic State....[Those] who do not trust the majority cannot obviously come into the Government.... Accordingly, you will have no share in the Government. You will exclude yourselves and remain perpetually in a minority. Then, what advantage will you gain?'
 
    Is that why there is in this a sense of disappointment and tragedy? Perhaps yes, but also perhaps because we continue to repeat the great errors of those epochal decades. Take 'minoritism', again. M.J. Akbar, in an erudite and magisterial essay analyses the challenges of it convincingly, in a yet to be published work The Major Minority: 'At what point in the story of the last thousand years did Indian Muslims become a minority? The question is, clearly, rhetorical. Muslims have never been in a numerical majority on the Indian subcontinent'.
 
In becoming an Islamic state, Pakistan inevitably had to become a jehadi one …
 
With Montford Reforms, which had introduced elections, though with ownership of property as the qualifying requirement for voting rights in local bodies like municipalities, (1909-19) an opportunity had presented itself to the Muslims, there was at last an opening offered. It was instantly seized. 'Reservation' became the starting point and with a granting of that status the Muslims were recognised and set apart as a distinctively different political category again. Thereafter, from reservation to special percentages, one-fourth to one-third to minority rights; to where in majority its preservation (Punjab/Bengal); to parity, and finally to partition - this was one continuous, ever increasing demand charter, almost an evolutionary flow sheet. Partition had to be claimed, yes, but for what? Was it for security, communal order, peace - which of these was the impulse that most energised this call of partition? As none of these were sufficiently sustainable points for a 
division of India, there then arrived the thesis: 'Muslims are a separate nation'. On first hearing, this sounded so absolutely, totally, illogically wrong, so unacceptable; and yet, it acquired a beguiling resonance, through constant repetition as if some high principle was being enunciated, any refutation of which would be both unjust and a complex task when and if attempted; besides this slogan, through ersatz, was sufficiently high sounding. Ultimately, both the Congress, the League and the departing British tried so much, so assiduously, so continuously, so hard and for so long to break India, that India had finally to divide. And in the end the physical act of partitioning became just a shabby, graceless and an indefensibly cruel 'give and take' of numbers: 'You have this, I'll take this'. And thus was fractured the great unity of this ancient land: a divide that could simply not bring any peace in its wake; it first compartmentalised and then tightly sealed Hindu-Muslim animosities, cementing festering grudges into near permanent hostilities; what was domestic - Hindu-Muslim, became international - India-Pakistan; we made global our domestic disagreements. For Pakistan, it became the policy plank - 'perpetual and induced hostility towards India that became its premiere state polity', it could scarcely be otherwise.
 
    Mohammed Ali Jinnah was, to my mind, fundamentally in error proposing 'Muslims as a separate nation', which is why he was so profoundly wrong when he simultaneously spoke of 'lasting peace, amity and accord with India after the emergence of Pakistan'; that simply could not be. Perhaps, late General Zia-ul-Haq was nearer reality, when asked as to why 'Pakistan cultivated and maintained this policy of so much induced hostility towards India?', he replied (some say apocryphally, but tellingly) that, 'Turkey or Egypt, if they stop being aggressively Muslim, they will remain exactly what they are - Turkey or Egypt. But if Pakistan does not become and remain aggressively Islamic it will become India again. Amity with India will mean getting swamped by this all enveloping embrace of India.' This worry has haunted the psyche of all the leaders of Pakistan since 1947.
 
    I share here some thoughts about how Pakistan has fared post 1947. Since birth it has been accompanied by high drama, often troubled by dark and imaginary shadows of history, also myths; some grandiose dreams and plans, therefore often intense emotionalism, and a sad absence of cold, 
phlegmatic logic. Inevitable therefore, the 'idea of Pakistan' has often got usurped, which is why Pakistan's friends have so often become its masters, and which is also why the 'state' of Pakistan continues to remain fragile, so unsure, so tense. However, there were other factors, too. Pakistan, founded on the notion of separateness, a 'nation' distinctly apart from India, could do no more than to continuously affirm its Islamic identity. It therefore adopted the identity of being an Islamic Republic. This seemingly direct and logical evolution from 'Muslims as a separate nation' to Pakistan as an 'Islamic State' was neither direct, nor evolutionary as might at first sight appear. In reality this has impeded Pakistan's coming into its own, evolving into a modern, functioning state. Sadly, a reasoning and credible national identity eludes it still. From becoming an Islamic state, Pakistan ultimately, again perhaps inevitably, had to become a 'jihadi state', and when set on this path - it also then became, again perhaps inevitably, the epicentre of global terrorism; the chosen house of all the names associated with this global scourge: Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and Taliban and so on.
 
An unfair start; India should have been generous
 
However, this partition had made Pakistan start 'life' with great administrative disadvantages too. Upon attaining Independence, India, freed of British rule, had a continuing identity, a functioning administrative structure, and in that immense spread of its land sufficient mass, enough resilience and cushion to absorb multiple shocks, repeatedly, as it had done so often though history. Not so in Pakistan; 
the challenges that it faced upon independence were formidable. After all, Pakistan had been no more than a 'negotiating idea', a tactical ploy to obtain greater political role for the Muslims of India so that they could become arbiters of their own political and social destiny, instead of leaving it in the 'unreliable political hands of a Hindu Congress'.
 
    Besides, no one, not even Jinnah knew, or had ever defined, Pakistan; the cry was always in the name of Islam. That is why when this dream of Pakistan finally became a reality, no one was prepared for it. There existed no prior assessment of problems or priorities, for no one had known what the final shape of Pakistan was going to be. Yes, 14 August could not wait, and Jinnah dared not ask for a deferment.
 
    In less than two months provinces had to be divided, civil and armed services bifurcated and 
assets apportioned. 'This telescoped time table created gigantic problems for Pakistan, which unlike India had not inherited a capital, a government, the financial resources to establish and equip its administrative, economic and military institutions. The migration of millions of refugees imposed its own burdens on this struggling state with an awesome burden of rehabilitation'. This comment, from a former Pakistani diplomat would be one amongst many of the multiple challenges that then faced Pakistan. For a fledgling Pakistan a quick release from these problems lay in a psychological diversion, a 'confront India' approach; that was so obvious an escape, but sadly it led nowhere then, and cannot, pragmatically assessed, lead anywhere even now.
 
    This is when, with the benefit of hindsight, I believe, India needed to give more; it needed to accept with greater generosity (of spirit, 
too) what had separated from its own body. This was, and is, an extremely difficult call; the trauma of a searingly cruel partition having cauterised the sensibilities of an entire subcontinent, generosity could not, does not come easily. The manner of carving out the land, the shattering of the psyche of an entire generation (more than one, perhaps) and that unprecedented uprooting of so many millions made any accommodation of the other's needs almost a superhuman demand, so at least it was in the beginning. Pakistan was starting on its journey of statehood neither with any abundance of options nor with the goodwill of an amicable settlement, a willing partition of assets amongst disputant brothers. Great bitterness got added to what was already a very bitter partition. Under these circumstances could India have been more understanding? This now becomes largely an academic query.