[Vision2020] Untruths Encourage Hate

Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Fri Aug 20 06:59:54 PDT 2010


Courtesy of today's (August 20, 2010) Spokesman-Review.

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Untruths encourage hate
Amy Goodman, The Spokesman-Review

Salman Hamdani died on Sept. 11, 2001. The 23-year-old research assistant
at Rockefeller University had a degree in biochemistry. He was also a
trained emergency medical technician and a cadet with the New York Police
Department. But he never made it to work that day. Hamdani, a
Muslim-American, was among that day’s first responders. He raced to ground
zero to save others. His selfless act cost him his life.

Hamdani was later praised by President George W. Bush as a hero and
mentioned by name in the USA Patriot Act. But that was not how he was
portrayed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. In October, his parents went
to Mecca to pray for their son. While they were away, the New York Post
and other media outlets portrayed Hamdani as a possible terrorist on the
run.

“MISSING – OR HIDING? MYSTERY OF THE NYPD CADET FROM PAKISTAN” screamed
the Post headline.

The sensational article noted that someone fitting Hamdani’s description
had been seen near the Midtown Tunnel a full month after 9/11. His family
was interrogated. Hamdani’s Internet use and politics were investigated.

His parents, Talat and Saleem Hamdani, had been frantically searching the
hospitals, the lists of the dead and the injured. “There were patients who
had lost their memory,” his mother, Talat, said. “We hoped he would be one
of them, we would be able to identify him.”

The ominous reports on Hamdani were typical of the increasing, overt
bigotry against Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and people of South Asian
heritage. Talat, who worked as a teacher, told me how children in her
extended family had to Anglicize their names to avoid discrimination:

“They were in second grade 
 Armeen became Amy, and one became Mickey and
the other one became Mikey and the fourth one became Adam. And we asked
them, Why did you change your names? And they said because we don’t want
to be called terrorists in the school.”

On March 20, 2002, the Hamdanis received word that Salman’s DNA had been
found at ground zero, and thus he was officially a victim of the attacks.
At his funeral, held at the Islamic Community Center at East 96th St. in
Manhattan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Rep.
Gary Ackerman all spoke.

Which brings us to the controversy around the proposed Islamic community
center, slated to be built at 51 Park Place in lower Manhattan. The
facility is not, for the record, a mosque. And it is not at ground zero
(it’s two blocks away). The Cordoba Initiative, the nonprofit group
spearheading the project, describes it as a “community center, much like
the YMCA or the Jewish Community Center 
 where people from any faith are
allowed to use the facilities. Beyond having a gym, the Cordoba House will
house a pool, restaurant, 500-person auditorium, 9/11 memorial, multifaith
chapel, office and conference space, and prayer space.”

Opposition to the center started among fringe, right-wing blogs, and has
since been swept into the mainstream. While the hole at ground zero has
yet to be filled, as billionaire developers bicker over the plans, the
news hole that August brings has been readily filled with the “Ground Zero
Mosque” controversy.

There is another hole that needs to be filled, namely, the absence of
people in the U.S. in leadership positions in every walk of life, of every
political stripe, speaking out for freedom of religion and against racism.
As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “In the end, we will
remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Does anyone seriously say that there shouldn’t be a Christian church near
the site of the Oklahoma City bombing, just because Timothy McVeigh was a
Christian?

People who are against hate are not a fringe minority, not even a silent
majority, but are a silenced majority. They are silenced by the chattering
classes, who are driving this debate throughout the media.

Hate breeds violence. Marginalizing an entire population, an entire
religion, is not good for our country. It endangers Muslims within
America, and provokes animosity toward America around the world.

When I asked Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for
Muslim Advancement, which is a partner in the proposed community center,
if she feared for herself, for her children or for Muslims in New York,
she replied, “I’m afraid for my country.”

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho


"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown




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