SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY
By Mara Verheyden-Hilliard
Attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice
Statement on behalf of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
The rampant terrorism and violence against women and health care professionals who dare to provide women's health services took its latest victim when Dr. George Tiller was brutally gunned down in his church on Sunday in Wichita, Kansas.
The government and the corporate media coddle these anti-women terrorists.
In the last 30 years, right-wing bigots have carried out 5,800 reported acts of violence against women's health care providers, including targeted assassination, bombings, arsons, death threats, kidnappings and assaults, according to NARAL.
Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of women have been assaulted and harassed by the right wing as they tried to see a doctor.
The Fascist Strategy
By targeting and intimidating health care providers, the fascist movement hopes to effectively ban abortion services in the United States. If they were to succeed, not only would it deprive women of their fundamental right to control their own bodies, it would be a health care catastrophe. One out of three women in the U.S. have an abortion by the time they are 45, according to Planned Parenthood.
The only question is whether women will be maimed or left to die because they cannot access quality health providers. Dr. Tiller took over his medical practice from his father, a doctor who began performing abortions himself in the 1940s after a patient whom he refused to help died in a back-alley abortion.
Dr. Tiller, like many other health care heroes, kept providing abortion services to women despite the threats. He had been shot previously in both arms; had his office bombed, shot at and frequently vandalized; and he and his patients were routinely threatened, intimidated and attacked.
Dr. Tiller kept providing health care services because, as his family said in a statement, he was “a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere.” He was past retirement age, with four children and 10 grandchildren, and he lived under a virtual military siege because of the terrorist threats. But he didn't stop.
It Wasn't Just the Gunman
This assassination is the culmination of a coordinated assault by the right wing. This included the Kansas Attorney General's efforts to prosecute Tiller, the demonization of Dr. Tiller by Bill O'Reilly, who ran dozens of hit pieces targeting him as a "murderer," and by "Operation Rescue," which prominently called him "America's Doctor of Death."
In the aftermath of the murder, amid reports that the killer had worked with them, Operation Rescue scrambled to take down their prominent "Tiller Watch" webpage, apparently sanitizing it, while their founder continued to call Dr. Tiller a "mass murderer” and held a press conference to do so.
The New York Times coverage of the murder was pathetic. On its front page it stated, "Officials offered little insight into the motive, saying that they believed it was 'the act of an isolated individual' but that they were also looking into 'his history, his family, his associates.'"
The decision to question or suggest uncertainty as to the killer’s "motive" reflects an effort to depoliticize and isolate this most violent of political acts and to disconnect the killing from right-wing groups who seek as their goal to deprive women of their rights using assassination as they see fit. Some right-wing groups and leaders have been quick to announce that the killing was not a homicide, but a justifiable act of "salvation."
The mass media has leapt to the defense of many anti-woman, right-wing groups who directly targeted Dr. Tiller by giving their spokespeople more time in the wake of Dr. Tiller's death to express their primary grievance with his murder -- that it might make them look bad.
Fake Terrorism and Real Terrorism
In recent months, Dr. Tiller reported to the FBI that the threats were increasing.
Obviously, stopping real terrorism is not a "priority" for the FBI, which has allocated limitless resources to infiltrate and sabotage lawful political organizing all over the country. The FBI and police have disrupted and spied on progressive organizations that built a powerful anti-war movement in the last years. They have paid agents provocateur to infiltrate and frame up organizations and individuals engaged in dissent.
Nor is any mosque or Muslim community center safe from FBI infiltration and disruption activities. From Southern California to upstate New York, undercover FBI agents are trying to entrap Muslim youth into "terrorist" plots that emanate from the FBI itself.
The U.S. government's use of the terrorist label is used to frame up and imprison Muslims in the United States. Just last week in Dallas, representatives of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) were sentenced to as much as 65 years in prison for the “terrorist” crime of raising money for desperately needed humanitarian relief. HLF had been the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. The charity's "crime" was that the humanitarian relief was going to those starving and dying in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine. The U.S. government has determined that it is an act of terrorism to get medicine to hospitals and food to children when U.S. foreign policy supports the strangulation of a civilian population for geostrategic reasons.
When Anthrax Threats Were No Big Deal
Yet, when it comes to the right-wing organizations that engage in violence and threats, the FBI and the corporate media are conspicuously mute.
For instance, shortly after the September 11 attacks, letters containing anthrax were sent to media and Senate offices. Hundreds of anthrax threats were also sent to reproductive health clinics, according to the website of NARAL, which states: "Between October 15 and 23, 2001, more than 250 abortion and family planning clinics in 17 states and the District of Columbia received letters purporting to contain anthrax. In each instance, a powdery substance was accompanied by a letter stating, 'You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you.' An additional 270 letters were sent to clinics during the first week of November."
Very few people know about this kind of extreme terrorist intimidation. Can you imagine the reaction of the FBI and the media if anti-war organizers or Arab Americans were linked to anthrax threat letters? There would be screaming headlines and nationwide police sweeps.
Coddling Right Wing Terrorists
But in 2007, in Washington, D.C., when a man showed up at an immigrant rights rally, covertly carrying a map of the demonstration area with sight lines drawn on it, with a cache of weapons including a converted fully automatic M1-Carbine and apparent plans to massacre participants, you probably never heard about it. Why? Because the man, Tyler Froatz, was a right-wing vigilante bent on attacking immigrants and their supporters.
Froatz, who organized with the Free Republic and acted as a spokesman for the Minuteman, stalked a May Day demonstration in 2007. He was arrested after he was confronted by a courageous young woman working as an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition. She was then assaulted by him when she objected to the racist signs he was posting depicting the graphic slaughter of immigrants, including pregnant women and children.
In addition to the weapons Froatz brought with him, in his apartment was found a large arsenal of rifles, handguns, ammunition, a Molotov cocktail, a hand grenade and a 100,000-volt taser gun.
So is Froatz in the special terrorist prisons in Terre Haute or Marion? No. He was released to the custody of his parents in Connecticut and thereafter allowed to plead to a minor weapons charge. The U.S. Attorney’s Office never charged him with any terrorism-related offense or hate-crimes offense. And today, members of Froatz’s group, the Free Republic, celebrated this latest cold-blooded terrorist murder of Dr. Tiller in their postings.
More than Bullet-Proof Vests and Federal Marshals: A New Strategy is Needed
The murder of Dr. Tiller is a misogynist attack against all women. It is also the foreseeable outcome of a climate of bigotry and vilification fostered by the right wing, normalized by the media and the U.S. government.
A political calculus has been made by the government as to what will be deemed terrorism: what political acts will be crushed and what political violence will be supported or tolerated. As it stands, there is no mobilized effective counter to this fascist violence and the threat that it poses. It’s time for a new strategy and a new challenge. There must be a multi-faceted mobilization of women themselves and of all those men who stand with us against anti-woman bigotry.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
"Anti-Identity" Politics and the Hypocrisy of the Radical Right
By Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey
It has been fashionable for Rush Limbaugh and other pundits of the political far Right to brand Supreme Court nominee Sonia Maria Sotomayor, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as a "racist" and purveyor of "Identity Politics" based on a public remark that she made some years ago. Judge Sotomayor's statement, in essence, compared her experiences as a Latina raised in a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx with the experiences of her white counterparts in the judiciary.
In essence, Judge Sotomayor noted that a "wise Latina" could make better judicial decisions than a person who lacked her depth of diverse racial, ethnic, and class experiences in the social melting pot of America. The remark was followed by a clarification and quasi-retraction from Judge Sotomayor and President Barack Obama, both of whom stated that the "choice of words" was unfortunate.
There is little doubt that any person nominated by President Obama to the Supreme Court would be anathema to the Rush Limbaugh crowd. The political dividing line between conservatives and liberals – or reactionaries and progressives – is a deep and contentious one. And, as most of us know, the Right is in no mood for conciliation or cordiality after their decisive defeat in the presidential election of 2008.
But to call Judge Sotomayor a functionary of "Identity Politics" – that is, the advocacy of race and ethnicity as central factors in the work of promoting justice – is both an outrage and an act of profound hypocrisy.
The real "identity politics" in the American judicial system is a racist and xenophobic trademark of the radical Right.
For the record, I'm sure that Judge Sotomayor will make a good, and possibly brilliant, addition to the Supreme Court. She is a totally qualified, experienced, and thoughtful jurist with first-class intellectual credentials.
The Puerto Rican people, Latinos, women, and all persons who love justice should be delighted with Judge Sotomayor's nomination.
That said; let us not forget that the American justice system is, sadly, still riddled with the contradictions of racism and Xenophobia. All too often, as we saw in the recent trials of the Holy Land Foundation defendants and Dr. Sami Al-Arian, juries are quite willing to ignore substantial exculpatory evidence, or to substitute real facts with testimonies from "secret" witnesses in their rush to convict defendants based more on political associations than on any evidence of criminal conduct.
The "identity politics" of racial and religious discrimination also holds true for Naji Hamdan, a Muslim-American citizen who has endured a nine-month imprisonment and been subjected to torturous interrogations in the United Arab Emirates because of U.S. complicity in his arrest.
Identity politics hold equally true for possibly hundreds of innocent Muslim men victimized by torture, abuse, and false imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, and in countless secret American prisons worldwide.
The identity of being Muslim, especially in this time of war being waged in Muslim lands, is sufficient (for both juries and zealous prosecutors) creates the presumption of guilt before the bar of justice, even when the empirical evidence of innocence is clear and overwhelming.
Identity politics is, indeed, alive and well in America, but don't blame Judge Sotomayor; it is not she who is racist. The racism, and politics of racial and religious identity, is manifested by the same people who gave us torture rendition, illegal government surveillance, and the support for the violence and injustice that frames both U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world, and all too often, Islamophobia in the American court system.
It has been fashionable for Rush Limbaugh and other pundits of the political far Right to brand Supreme Court nominee Sonia Maria Sotomayor, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as a "racist" and purveyor of "Identity Politics" based on a public remark that she made some years ago. Judge Sotomayor's statement, in essence, compared her experiences as a Latina raised in a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx with the experiences of her white counterparts in the judiciary.
In essence, Judge Sotomayor noted that a "wise Latina" could make better judicial decisions than a person who lacked her depth of diverse racial, ethnic, and class experiences in the social melting pot of America. The remark was followed by a clarification and quasi-retraction from Judge Sotomayor and President Barack Obama, both of whom stated that the "choice of words" was unfortunate.
There is little doubt that any person nominated by President Obama to the Supreme Court would be anathema to the Rush Limbaugh crowd. The political dividing line between conservatives and liberals – or reactionaries and progressives – is a deep and contentious one. And, as most of us know, the Right is in no mood for conciliation or cordiality after their decisive defeat in the presidential election of 2008.
But to call Judge Sotomayor a functionary of "Identity Politics" – that is, the advocacy of race and ethnicity as central factors in the work of promoting justice – is both an outrage and an act of profound hypocrisy.
The real "identity politics" in the American judicial system is a racist and xenophobic trademark of the radical Right.
For the record, I'm sure that Judge Sotomayor will make a good, and possibly brilliant, addition to the Supreme Court. She is a totally qualified, experienced, and thoughtful jurist with first-class intellectual credentials.
The Puerto Rican people, Latinos, women, and all persons who love justice should be delighted with Judge Sotomayor's nomination.
That said; let us not forget that the American justice system is, sadly, still riddled with the contradictions of racism and Xenophobia. All too often, as we saw in the recent trials of the Holy Land Foundation defendants and Dr. Sami Al-Arian, juries are quite willing to ignore substantial exculpatory evidence, or to substitute real facts with testimonies from "secret" witnesses in their rush to convict defendants based more on political associations than on any evidence of criminal conduct.
The "identity politics" of racial and religious discrimination also holds true for Naji Hamdan, a Muslim-American citizen who has endured a nine-month imprisonment and been subjected to torturous interrogations in the United Arab Emirates because of U.S. complicity in his arrest.
Identity politics hold equally true for possibly hundreds of innocent Muslim men victimized by torture, abuse, and false imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, and in countless secret American prisons worldwide.
The identity of being Muslim, especially in this time of war being waged in Muslim lands, is sufficient (for both juries and zealous prosecutors) creates the presumption of guilt before the bar of justice, even when the empirical evidence of innocence is clear and overwhelming.
Identity politics is, indeed, alive and well in America, but don't blame Judge Sotomayor; it is not she who is racist. The racism, and politics of racial and religious identity, is manifested by the same people who gave us torture rendition, illegal government surveillance, and the support for the violence and injustice that frames both U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world, and all too often, Islamophobia in the American court system.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Community Group Pursues Lawsuit Against Steve Emerson for Slander Attack on Mahdi Bray
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
WASHINGTON, D.C. (MASNET) March 27, 2009 –A group of community leaders, both Muslim and non-Muslim have contacted a Washington, D.C.-based K-Street law firm to pursue a defamation lawsuit on behalf of Mahdi Bray. The action will pursue Steve Emerson, The Investigative Project, Robert Spencer, the notorious islamophobe, and others, in relation to a slanderous attack launched this week against Mr. Bray.
"I've known Mahdi Bray for a long time, and although he's had some difficulties in his life, as have many of us, he has been a remarkable champion for civil and human rights. It is high time the type of directed specifically at the Muslim community and its leadership by right-wing extremists and so-called terrorist experts stops. I think we can start the beginning of the end by initiating litigation that will force them into financial responsibility for their scurrilous and shameless acts against the Muslim community," stated Rev. Walter Fauntroy, former member of Congress and Chief Lieutenant to the late Dr. Martin Luther King.
Another member of the group stated, "No Muslim leader is exempt from Emerson and his vicious attack group; they are well-funded and have managed to slanderously attack every Muslim leader from any and all Muslim organizations, including MANA, ICNA, CAIR, AMA, AMP, MAS, MPAC and a host of other Muslim organizations. No one is exempt from these hate mongers. Not only are they attempting to poison American Muslim relationships, but they are also attempting to poison the growing normalization of relationships between American Muslims and the American Jewish community. They must not succeed."
Additional information to follow.
RELATED:
The Hatchets May Swing, But the Tree Still Stands: A Response to Investigative Project 'Expose' of Imam Mahdi Bray
Muslim Groups Targeted for Economic Hits
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom (MASF) is a civic and human rights advocacy entity and sister organization of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America - with 55 chapters in 35 states.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom
1325 G Street NW, Suite 500
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 552-7414
or (703) 642-6165
Toll Free: 1-(888)-627-8471
Fax: (703) 998-6526
WASHINGTON, D.C. (MASNET) March 27, 2009 –A group of community leaders, both Muslim and non-Muslim have contacted a Washington, D.C.-based K-Street law firm to pursue a defamation lawsuit on behalf of Mahdi Bray. The action will pursue Steve Emerson, The Investigative Project, Robert Spencer, the notorious islamophobe, and others, in relation to a slanderous attack launched this week against Mr. Bray.
"I've known Mahdi Bray for a long time, and although he's had some difficulties in his life, as have many of us, he has been a remarkable champion for civil and human rights. It is high time the type of directed specifically at the Muslim community and its leadership by right-wing extremists and so-called terrorist experts stops. I think we can start the beginning of the end by initiating litigation that will force them into financial responsibility for their scurrilous and shameless acts against the Muslim community," stated Rev. Walter Fauntroy, former member of Congress and Chief Lieutenant to the late Dr. Martin Luther King.
Another member of the group stated, "No Muslim leader is exempt from Emerson and his vicious attack group; they are well-funded and have managed to slanderously attack every Muslim leader from any and all Muslim organizations, including MANA, ICNA, CAIR, AMA, AMP, MAS, MPAC and a host of other Muslim organizations. No one is exempt from these hate mongers. Not only are they attempting to poison American Muslim relationships, but they are also attempting to poison the growing normalization of relationships between American Muslims and the American Jewish community. They must not succeed."
Additional information to follow.
RELATED:
The Hatchets May Swing, But the Tree Still Stands: A Response to Investigative Project 'Expose' of Imam Mahdi Bray
Muslim Groups Targeted for Economic Hits
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom (MASF) is a civic and human rights advocacy entity and sister organization of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America - with 55 chapters in 35 states.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom
1325 G Street NW, Suite 500
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 552-7414
or (703) 642-6165
Toll Free: 1-(888)-627-8471
Fax: (703) 998-6526
Muslim Groups Are Targeted for Economic Hits
I found this noteworthy as it happens to relate to my post of March 27 (below).
By O.M. Hassan-Ali
Back in the 1960's, the F.B.I. Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) practically wrote the book on tactics used by the U.S. government to target Black radical organizations and groups that opposed the war in Vietnam. One time-tested strategy was based on draining the resources of (usually) poor and financially-strapped groups by tying them up in litigation and lengthy court battles – while, at the same time, alienating them from their financial donors.
Is this one of the factors behind the Investigative Project/Jihad Watch crusade against Imam Mahdi Bray? Let's look at the facts and connect the dots:
1. Imam Bray will be the principle fundraising speaker for the March 29, 2009 fundraising event for The Muslim Link, a periodical vital to the Muslim community of Maryland, Washington, DC, and northern Virginia.
2. George Galloway, a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, will also be a featured speaker at the event. Galloway (like Mahdi Bray) is both a vocal critic of the U.S./United Kingdom wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an opponent of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
3. Galloway was recently denied entry into Canada due to pressure on the Canadian government exerted by pro-Zionist interests there.
4. One of the bogus anti-Bray emails received by the Muslim American Society called on Muslims, and specifically The Muslim Link, to end the newspaper’s association with him.
Am I seeing some imaginary conspiracy here? I don’t think so. I think that it would please our adversaries to no end if they could (1) do irreparable harm to the reputation of a national Muslim leader and prolific community fund-raiser, (2) raise a furor sufficient to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering the United States in the same way that they stopped him from getting to Canada, and (3) severely damage a critical fundraising event for a significant Muslim newspaper.
Remember, pulling the financial rug out from under the Islamic Society of Boston (among other organizations) by falsely connecting ISB to "radical" Muslim terrorist organizations was one of the major cards played by The David Project, Steve Emerson, and their collaborators, in the Israeli Consulate in Boston. Their effort was a failure then; and their current attack will fail as well.
Money is the life-line of any organization, whether in our own community, or elsewhere. We need to be conscious of both the obvious and the more subtle, attempts made by others to financially cripple Muslim organizations as a central part of their anti-Islamic crusade in America.
Our vigilance and generous material support for community organizations like The Muslim Link is crucial to the struggle and ultimate success of the work to protect the legitimate freedoms and rights of our nation's citizens.
O.M. Hassan-Ali is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and political commentator.
By O.M. Hassan-Ali
Back in the 1960's, the F.B.I. Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) practically wrote the book on tactics used by the U.S. government to target Black radical organizations and groups that opposed the war in Vietnam. One time-tested strategy was based on draining the resources of (usually) poor and financially-strapped groups by tying them up in litigation and lengthy court battles – while, at the same time, alienating them from their financial donors.
Is this one of the factors behind the Investigative Project/Jihad Watch crusade against Imam Mahdi Bray? Let's look at the facts and connect the dots:
1. Imam Bray will be the principle fundraising speaker for the March 29, 2009 fundraising event for The Muslim Link, a periodical vital to the Muslim community of Maryland, Washington, DC, and northern Virginia.
2. George Galloway, a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, will also be a featured speaker at the event. Galloway (like Mahdi Bray) is both a vocal critic of the U.S./United Kingdom wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an opponent of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
3. Galloway was recently denied entry into Canada due to pressure on the Canadian government exerted by pro-Zionist interests there.
4. One of the bogus anti-Bray emails received by the Muslim American Society called on Muslims, and specifically The Muslim Link, to end the newspaper’s association with him.
Am I seeing some imaginary conspiracy here? I don’t think so. I think that it would please our adversaries to no end if they could (1) do irreparable harm to the reputation of a national Muslim leader and prolific community fund-raiser, (2) raise a furor sufficient to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering the United States in the same way that they stopped him from getting to Canada, and (3) severely damage a critical fundraising event for a significant Muslim newspaper.
Remember, pulling the financial rug out from under the Islamic Society of Boston (among other organizations) by falsely connecting ISB to "radical" Muslim terrorist organizations was one of the major cards played by The David Project, Steve Emerson, and their collaborators, in the Israeli Consulate in Boston. Their effort was a failure then; and their current attack will fail as well.
Money is the life-line of any organization, whether in our own community, or elsewhere. We need to be conscious of both the obvious and the more subtle, attempts made by others to financially cripple Muslim organizations as a central part of their anti-Islamic crusade in America.
Our vigilance and generous material support for community organizations like The Muslim Link is crucial to the struggle and ultimate success of the work to protect the legitimate freedoms and rights of our nation's citizens.
O.M. Hassan-Ali is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and political commentator.
The Hatchets May Swing, But the Tree Still Stands
A Response to Investigative Project 'Expose' of Imam Mahdi Bray
By Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey
WASHINGTON, DC (MASNET) March 26, 2009 – It's no secret that many national Muslim leaders have been in the cross-hairs of organizations with a singular dedication to attacking Islam or characterizing high-profile American Muslim leaders as dangerous extremists. Imam Mahdi Bray, Founder and Executive Director of MAS Freedom (MASF), the civic and human rights advocacy entity of the Muslim American Society (MAS), is the latest target in this ongoing form of smear campaigning.
On March 26, 2009, Steve Emerson's Investigative Project released an expose on Imam Bray, outlining details from a past felony conviction, complete with photos from the arrest record; clearly with the intent to implicate that Imam Bray leads some sort of 'secret' life.
However, it goes without saying that, what happened in the past, and what Imam Bray has achieved subsequent to those earlier, troubled years, paint quite a different picture altogether from the one that the IP expose would lead readers to believe.
For starters, Imam Bray has never, either in private or in his extensive public life, denied serving time in prison or having a prior history of experience with drug use while working in the entertainment industry in his earlier years.
That said, it might also be pointed out that, while incarcerated Imam Bray was heralded by corrections officials as a model prisoner, and subsequent to his release, became extensively active in religious dawa (outreach), organizing the National Islamic Prison Foundation – a project with the mission of supporting incarcerated Muslims.
The success of the prison outreach program resulted in Imam Bray receiving a 1995 invitation to return to the Federal Correctional Institution in Morgantown, West Virginia as a motivational speaker for Muslim inmates.
What is important to Imam Bray's colleagues, community members, friends and family, is not the time that he spent in jail; it is the quality and integrity of the life he has led subsequent to having paid for past mistakes.
What is really troubling to Emerson, Spencer, Pipes, and their fellow travelers, is not Imam Bray's felony conviction or time spent in prison, but rather his effectiveness in building Muslim institutions and defending the rights of unjust targets of prosecution, as in the cases of the Six Traveling Imams and Dr. Sami Al-Arian, to name just two.
Much of Imam Bray's work is spent promoting Muslim community civic engagement, encouraging Muslim voter registration and participation in the electoral process, and advocating for justice on behalf of the many innocent victims of the post 9/11 anti-Muslim dragnet that has become so evident to all of us.
The body of Imam Bray's work – all within the context of nonviolence – is something that Muslim bashers and Islamophobes love to hate.
Islam is a transformational force in the lives of many Muslims, as is evident in the case of Imam Bray. It is with a note of personal pride, I might add, that this transformational force is also evident in the work and legacy of another African-American former inmate: El Hajj Malik Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X.
Clearly the intent of the Investigative Report's expose is to excoriate Imam Bray by portraying his past moral turpitude as an indicator of un-trustworthiness. The article should, in my opinion, be viewed in the context of the larger campaign against Muslim activists and the advances that Muslims have made in bringing Islamic values and the Muslim community presence to a more central place in the American inter-religious discourse.
The evidence of this advancement is reflected, in part, in Imam Bray's national stature, as well as the vehement attempts by some of his opponents to discredit him.
They can (and will) chop away at him; but I know this tree – and it won't succumb to the blows of their hatchets.
A Chinese political philosopher once said, "To be attacked by one's enemies is not a bad thing, but a good thing."
Perhaps this latest broadside will only help to illuminate that Islam, indeed, can change the lives of people for the better.
It certainly did in the case of my beloved friend, colleague, and brother in faith, Imam Mahdi Bray.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom (MASF) is a civic and human rights advocacy entity and sister organization of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America - with 55 chapters in 35 states.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom
1325 G Street NW, Suite 500
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 552-7414
or (703) 642-6165
Toll Free: 1-(888)-627-8471
Fax: (703) 998-6526
By Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey
WASHINGTON, DC (MASNET) March 26, 2009 – It's no secret that many national Muslim leaders have been in the cross-hairs of organizations with a singular dedication to attacking Islam or characterizing high-profile American Muslim leaders as dangerous extremists. Imam Mahdi Bray, Founder and Executive Director of MAS Freedom (MASF), the civic and human rights advocacy entity of the Muslim American Society (MAS), is the latest target in this ongoing form of smear campaigning.
On March 26, 2009, Steve Emerson's Investigative Project released an expose on Imam Bray, outlining details from a past felony conviction, complete with photos from the arrest record; clearly with the intent to implicate that Imam Bray leads some sort of 'secret' life.
However, it goes without saying that, what happened in the past, and what Imam Bray has achieved subsequent to those earlier, troubled years, paint quite a different picture altogether from the one that the IP expose would lead readers to believe.
For starters, Imam Bray has never, either in private or in his extensive public life, denied serving time in prison or having a prior history of experience with drug use while working in the entertainment industry in his earlier years.
That said, it might also be pointed out that, while incarcerated Imam Bray was heralded by corrections officials as a model prisoner, and subsequent to his release, became extensively active in religious dawa (outreach), organizing the National Islamic Prison Foundation – a project with the mission of supporting incarcerated Muslims.
The success of the prison outreach program resulted in Imam Bray receiving a 1995 invitation to return to the Federal Correctional Institution in Morgantown, West Virginia as a motivational speaker for Muslim inmates.
What is important to Imam Bray's colleagues, community members, friends and family, is not the time that he spent in jail; it is the quality and integrity of the life he has led subsequent to having paid for past mistakes.
What is really troubling to Emerson, Spencer, Pipes, and their fellow travelers, is not Imam Bray's felony conviction or time spent in prison, but rather his effectiveness in building Muslim institutions and defending the rights of unjust targets of prosecution, as in the cases of the Six Traveling Imams and Dr. Sami Al-Arian, to name just two.
Much of Imam Bray's work is spent promoting Muslim community civic engagement, encouraging Muslim voter registration and participation in the electoral process, and advocating for justice on behalf of the many innocent victims of the post 9/11 anti-Muslim dragnet that has become so evident to all of us.
The body of Imam Bray's work – all within the context of nonviolence – is something that Muslim bashers and Islamophobes love to hate.
Islam is a transformational force in the lives of many Muslims, as is evident in the case of Imam Bray. It is with a note of personal pride, I might add, that this transformational force is also evident in the work and legacy of another African-American former inmate: El Hajj Malik Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X.
Clearly the intent of the Investigative Report's expose is to excoriate Imam Bray by portraying his past moral turpitude as an indicator of un-trustworthiness. The article should, in my opinion, be viewed in the context of the larger campaign against Muslim activists and the advances that Muslims have made in bringing Islamic values and the Muslim community presence to a more central place in the American inter-religious discourse.
The evidence of this advancement is reflected, in part, in Imam Bray's national stature, as well as the vehement attempts by some of his opponents to discredit him.
They can (and will) chop away at him; but I know this tree – and it won't succumb to the blows of their hatchets.
A Chinese political philosopher once said, "To be attacked by one's enemies is not a bad thing, but a good thing."
Perhaps this latest broadside will only help to illuminate that Islam, indeed, can change the lives of people for the better.
It certainly did in the case of my beloved friend, colleague, and brother in faith, Imam Mahdi Bray.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom (MASF) is a civic and human rights advocacy entity and sister organization of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America - with 55 chapters in 35 states.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAS Freedom
1325 G Street NW, Suite 500
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 552-7414
or (703) 642-6165
Toll Free: 1-(888)-627-8471
Fax: (703) 998-6526
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
