crucial

Subject:PLEEEEZ! Circulate in the name of PEACE!

Date:Thu, 20 Sep 2001 12:19:08 -0400

From:"Koshek 137" arasophia@hotmail.com

To all people of Islam in the city of New York, you are all my brothers
and
sisters,

I would like to see my Moslem brothers and sisters take a stance against
Islamic terrorism. Perhaps even start a group called N.Y.Moslems Against
Islamic Terrorism that can march in the streets to protest violence
being
perpetrated in the name of Islam.

There is already a group here in NY against American violence in the
Middle
East as there are many who are upset that terrible acts are committed in
the
name of the U.S.A. This group is made up of Americans willing to protest
against the actions of there own country. They are aghast about what we
do
in the name of American freedom all around the world and they will
fight,
protest, and mobilize efforts to keep those ideals pure in the face of
corrupt politicians.

Yet, in a country that has freedom of speech, in a city as liberal and
open
as NY, there is no such organization of Moslems protesting violence in
the
name of Islam. Brothers and sisters, now is the time to act! Start this
organization NOW! and show your committment to UNIVERAL
BROTHERHOOD!!!!Let
the world know there are MOSLEMS AGAINST ISLAMIC TERRORISM!

============================================================

Since I wrote this, I came up with the following:

1. THIS GROUP IS AGAINST ANY ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF ISLAM

2. JIHAD IS A HOLY WAR AND THEREFORE CANNOT BE A WAR THAT USES VIOLENCE
   OR
   TERROR

3. ANY ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF ISLAM WILL BE MET BY PROTEST AND
   DEMONSTRATIONS BY NON-VIOLENT MOSLEMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

4. PEACEFUL
   SOLUTIONS WILL BE FOUND and publicized to the media for problems facing
   the
   Islamic people.

5. THIS GROUP IS AGAINST ALL ACTS OF REVENGE THAT ARE PERPETRATED BY ANY
   MOSLEM GROUP IN THE NAME OF ISLAM IN THE EVENT THAT AMERICA ATTACKS, AND
   FURTHERMORE WILL MOBILIZE AN EFFORT TO EXPOSE ALL TERRORIST ACTIVITY
   WHEN
   KNOWN ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

As of now, no-one has stood up to form any DISTINCT GROUP of this kind.
I
will wait in expectation. Remember: A DISTINCT GROUP GIVES A DISTINCT
MESSAGE!

Let's all work for World Peace. Brothers and sisters of Islam, start
this
holy work. I pray that you will. So Mote it Be!

arasophia@hotmail.com

author,† Shabana Mir. It first appeared on Anthro-L.

-----------
September 11 was described as the Pearl Harbor of the
21st Century.

Yesterday I could not stop feeling like this whole day
was a horrible coming home.

When the headlines in Pakistani newspapers announced
(many times), "Indian troops gather at border,"I was on
the other side of the border, and my parents had seen
the 1965 war with India. The 1971 war had taken place
in our absence, when my father was studying for a PhD
in London, and I was already two years old. When the
Iranian hostage crisis happened, I was on this side of
the Iranian border. When the newspapers screamed
"Soviets attack Afghanistan," I was there too.

I was there when Pakistan was targeted repeatedly for
terrorist attacks while Pakistan was the conduit for
US aid to the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet forces.
Bomb blasts at crowded bus stops, unprecedented serial
killings of unprecedented violence and brutality, and
increasing rates of drug addiction due to drug
trafficking from Afghanistan were some of the costs
Pakistan bore for helping America fight its war on a
distant land. And Afghanistan, in the end, was what
brought the dreaded superpower to its knees. Hard to
remember, now that bin Laden has made Afghanistan his
headquarters.

Now Charles Krauthammer declares in The Washington
Post that Afghanistan is the enemy of the US and war
must be declared on it. Different Muslim nations, who
were once allies, are being mentioned indiscriminately
by media commentators as targets of possible revenge.

Jihad at that time was cool. General Zia with his
Islamization policies was supported by the US. The
Afghans were armed by the US, but they fought the USSR
out of their land with the same spirit of
jihad--a struggle against the forces of evil. To this
day, Afghans are plagued with the impact of the war--in an
appalling rate of disabilities, landmines, poverty,
lawlessness and disorder. Did we pay attention to the
Afghans when the Soviets were retreating and the
Afghans found themselves free but traumatized? Or is
it only when the Taliban started implementing their
insane policies that we turned our gaze toward Kabul?

So difficult for Americans to imagine how it must be
to live from day to day in the shadow of terror. We
can't imagine the lives of Iraqi mothers who, because
of US sanctions, watch their infants die before their
eyes. We can imagine the lives of American mothers
fearful for their children's safety in New York. We
cannot know how it is to grow up in a Palestinian
refugee camp, to have family members who have been
shot dead in childhood, to know the place that used to
be home. We know what it is to look toward the World
Trade Center and to no longer find it there. We don't
know how it is to herded together by Serbs, starved
and killed in concentration camps. We don't know how
it is to experience aerial bombings, together with
collateral damage.

The terror is unprecedented, but Americans have no
idea what it is to be, "attacked."

Yet suddenly, yesterday, I felt like I did in a Third
World country, full of economic and political
instability, surrounded by turmoil. Life was suddenly
unpredictable again. Suddenly, my husband's safety
when he goes to work in DC is at risk. Suddenly, my
cousin at the university of Maryland is not safe. She
wears a headscarf.

Yesterday, a young woman (photographed in The
Washington Post) was stopped and frisked by police
because she wears a headscarf. The voice of a tearful
Palestinian-American twenty-two year old narrated on a
radio show how colleagues accused "her people" of
committing this heinous crime. Two Muslim men-one of
them is a friend-were beaten up in Chicago. Bulletin
boards were spotted with messages of hate, racism and
bigotry, targeting Muslims, Arabs, Pakistanis.

At the Islamic Community Center in San Francisco, a
threatening phone call announced that a message had
been left at the doorstep for bin Laden. The bag was
full of blood, and the bag was labeled--"pig's blood."

At my home campus, Indiana University, yesterday alone
six Muslim women were harassed. Two of them were
physically threatened. All over North America, Muslim
women who veil are being told to keep a low profile.
Just like women in Afghanistan.

Muslims in America are doubly attacked. To the fear of
terrorism is added the fear of undeserved revenge.

In all of the racist rhetoric against Muslims, Arabs
and Islam, I felt like my name was being associated
with Osama bin Laden and my soul revolted against that
association. I am not bin Laden, I am not a terrorist,
I am a Pakistani Muslim Sufi woman, I have spent years
doing multifaith and intercultural work.

As we listened to television commentators and surfed
the internet for news, the hearts of thousands of
American Muslims sank yesterday.

Pearl Harbor was followed by the terrible internment
of thousands of Japanese Americans. Will the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon be
followed by similar acts of discrimination and
persecution against American Muslims?

Have Americans learned that their greatest strength is
in standing together? Have they learned to
differentiate between friends within and enemies
without? Have they learned the lesson that the United
States has taught us--that we come from all corners of
the world, that we are of all different colors and
creeds, yet we are all united in our lives and loves
in this homeland?

When you breathe a prayer of safety for your child in
school, so does the veiled Syrian American mother in
Virginia. When you attend university and learn about
allegiance, democracy, terrorism and national
security, so does the young Pakistani American man at
Columbia University. Your sister or brother who works
in New York might take a cab driven by a Somali
American refugee working hard to send his children to
school.

The terrorists--whoever they were, for it is hard to
remember that we have no evidence to prove their
identity yet--do not differentiate among Americans,
Muslims and non-Muslims. A Pakistani civil engineer
works on the 42nd floor of the WTC, and spent about
two years rebuilding it. He survived the first
bombing, and now he has survived this attack. Arshad,
a New York Muslim who was planning a trip to
Manhattan, barely missed the attack. I could have been
at the Pentagon bus stop.

There are difficult times ahead. Our family has to
prove its strength under times of crisis. We have made
huge mistakes in the past, but we must show that we
learned from them.

Hate is what characterizes terrorists. It succeeds
when it enters your hearts.

Islam means peace. Islam does not mean world
domination, whatever bin Laden and his brothers may
think. It does not mean fighting anyone who is not a
Muslim. Anti-abortionists who blow up a clinic full of
women do not represent all Christians. Israeli
soldiers who shot Muhammad Durra, the young
Palestinian boy as his father tried to shield him, do
not represent all Jews. Osama bin Laden does not
represent me.

I shouldn't have to say that. You should know. That's
what your justice system is based on. I am innocent
until I am proven guilty, and it shouldn't matter if a
Pakistani is caught dealing drugs or a Muslim is
convicted of terrorism.

I am not Osama bin Laden. I speak Arabic, but not with
him. I pray five times a day, but not with him. I fast
during Ramadan, but I do not break bread with him. I
believe in democracy, peace, conflict resolution, the
power of communication, justice, and compassion. When
you fail to distinguish between him and me, you
belittle American beliefs and you sabotage American
unity.

I am a graduate student, researching minority
educational policy, looking forward to having a child
in a few years, not a wealthy international terrorist
blowing up planes full of men, women and children.

We miss our loved ones, laugh with our friends, take
the metro to work, love a sunny day, bleed when you
prick us. When schoolchildren speak in stereotypes
they have learned at home or on TV, our children are
hurt. We are upset when you send us a hurtful email,
we are afraid when you make threatening phone calls,
we are poor when you will not employ us, we are glad
when you say we will stand together and that you
understand the difference between peace-loving
Americans and terrorists.

We are your local doctors, your children's
schoolteachers, your cab drivers from work, your
neighborhood Seven-Eleven owners, your college
professors, your colleagues, your fellow students at
school and university. We are not Osama bin Laden.

Don't, ever, lump us together.