My testimony to Peter King's hearing on American Muslim radicalization
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Version 0 of 1. O ye who believe!<br />Stand out firmly<br />For justice, as witnesses<br />To God, even if it may be against Yourselves, or your parents<br />Or your kin. <em>– "Al-Nisa" (The Women), Qur'an, 4:135</em> In early March 2011, in the pre-dawn darkness of a cold, rainy morning, I stirred awake my son, Shibli, now nine, to make sure we got seats for the first hearing of the US House of Representatives committee on homeland security on a critically important topic: "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community's Response." As the sun rose, we stood sheltered from the rain in the marble and limestone threshold to Cannon House Office Building at the corner of Independence Avenue SE and New Jersey Avenue SE, the first in line, waiting for the building's doors to open. I felt that my son, as a boy born into a Muslim family, should be witness to history. Born in 2002, he is part of the first generation born after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States by 19 hijackers acting in the name of Islam. The issue of radicalization inside the Muslim community is an issue that his generation will inherit. I wanted him to be witness to the important, albeit difficult conversation that was to be had in the hearing room. For this Wednesday's hearing, "The American Muslim Response to Hearings on Radicalization within their Community", I chose to accept an invitation from the committee's chairman, Peter King (Republican, New York), to testify myself. To me, the hearings do not represent a witchhunt and Congressman King is no Joe McCarthy (the US senator who led hearings on communist infiltration of government and the army). The hearings represent an important wake-up call that we, as Americans, are not going to continue to dance around the reality of an extremist ideology of Islam, which is wreaking havoc in the world. The British have had a similar debate, tackling tough topics, such as how far to go with multiculturalism and accepting the threat of "non-violent extremist" rhetoric in our Muslim communities. I will bring my son again, this time to sit in the front row behind me, with my parents. He is stoked that he doesn't have to get up at the crack of dawn for a seat this time. I have to bribe him with a trip to Game Workshop, so he won't ham for the House TV cameras. "Mom, people need to laugh," he says. I know I'll probably need a good laugh. Already, instead of dealing with the substance of the issue, Muslim organizations such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council has adopted a strategy of deflecting attention, by launching personal attacks against me and the other witnesses, Dr Zuhdi Jasser and Dr Qanta Ahmed, as illegitimate voices because we "are not representative of any mainstream sentiment in the American Muslim community". A Muslim blogger called us "astroturf Muslims", engaging in the politics of "takfir", or Muslims declaring other Muslims "bad Muslims". In my testimony, I will argue that, inside much of our Muslim communities, we have departed from our very clear sense of holding ourselves accountable, symbolically – for example, saying "salam" at the end of prayer to figurative angels sitting on our shoulders, recording our deeds, good and bad. I will argue that many in our Muslim society have adopted a culture as "wound collectors", a term coined by former FBI agent Joe Navarro to describe terrorists of all identities, holding onto grievances and responding to scrutiny with a strategy characterized by four distinct elements: denial, deflection, demonization, and defensiveness. The Muslim community's response to the hearings on radicalization within our community – much like the response of many communities to internal problems – hasn't been one of taking ownership of our problems, but rather engaging in a strategy of deflection. This strategy has expressed itself in our wider response to radicalization, terrorism, and the presence of an intolerant interpretation of Islam in our world today. We are very much a culture of denial, fixated on our perceived wounds. Indeed, all of us carry wounds from generation to generation and throughout our personal lives. Slavery in the US, the Holocaust in Europe, apartheid in South Africa, the Rwandan genocide, the religious wars in Ireland, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the smoldering tensions in Kashmir … these are just a few historical examples of deep wounds passed from generation to generation, both on the personal and societal level. On a personal level, our wounds can be emotional or those of physical abuse, abandonment, death, poverty, and so much more. On a societal level, they can manifest in war, genocide, authoritarianism, civil injustice, and so on. How we respond to wounds comes to define us, as individuals and communities. It very much guides the ways in which we respond to future challenges and conflicts in the world. Last year, when my son was in second grade, before the first committee hearing, he came home with an assignment he had completed in school, titled "Rights and Responsibilities". In it, he answered the question, "What does it mean to own up?" He responded by confessing that he didn't always brush his teeth when he told me he had. (I had no idea.) Seeing the early lesson my son was receiving in "owning up", I realized that this was the simple mandate that we have to realize in our Muslim communities. I believe we have the capacity to practice an Islam of grace that includes compassion, forgiveness, truth-telling, and owning up. |