Artículo publicado en Amauta con permiso del autor

Traducción: Sinfo Fernández, Rebelión

(Foto: Mark Lennihan / AP)

por Ramzy Baroud

La controversia alrededor del derecho de los musulmanes estadounidenses a construir un centro comunitario y una mezquita a escasa distancia del lugar de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001, es a la vez extraña y rotundamente inapropiada. Nunca debería ser necesario que estadounidenses que acatan la ley tengan que justificar su derecho a practicar libremente su propia religión. Este derecho está reconocido en la Primera Enmienda, que forma parte de la Carta de Derechos que ha venido constituyendo la base de la libertad estadounidense durante más de 200 años. Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch

Source: TomDispatch

Protesters in New York rallying against the "Mosque at Ground Zero" on June 19, 2010. (Photo: Robert Huffstutter)

by Stephan Salisbury

There is a distinct creepiness to the controversy now raging around a proposed Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan.  The angry “debate” over whether the building should exist has a kind of glitch-in-the-Matrix feel to it, leaving in its wake an aura of something-very-bad-about-to-happen.

It’s not just that opposition to the building has coalesced around a phony “Mosque at Ground Zero” shorthand (with its echoes of dust, death, and evildoers). Many have pointed out — futilely — that the complex will be more than two blocks from the former World Trade Center, around a corner on Park Place, and will feature an auditorium, spa, basketball court, swimming pool, classrooms, exhibition space, community meeting space, 9/11 memorial, and, yes, a prayer space for Muslims. The shorthand still sticks.

Nor is it just that this is only the most visible of a growing number of nasty controversies over proposed mosques in Tennessee, California, Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Illinois as well as Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and Midland Beach, Staten Island, in New York City.  Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

Palestine, for many Muslims existed as part of a collective imagination, solidified with unifying symbols.

by Ramzy Baroud

Thousands of faithful assiduously listened as I outlined the challenges facing Palestine and its people. Cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ – God is Great – occasionally resounded from a corner of the giant South African mosque. Many whimpered as I described the tragedy that had befallen Gaza as a result of the Israeli siege. They cheered, smiled and nodded as I emphasized how the will of the Palestinian people would not be defeated. A few older people at the front simply wept throughout my talk, which preceded a Friday sermon in Durban a few months ago.

If passion and kindness were powerful in and of themselves, then the compassion that poured from those Muslim faithful could surely better the world in a myriad ways. The sheer love and concern displayed by men and women of different races, age groups, class affiliation and languages was most uplifting and validating. Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

Why are Muslims playing right into this scenario? Actually, they are not, although it would seem otherwise. (Via NYT)

by Ramzy Baroud

“Any depictions of the prophet are considered blasphemous by Muslims,” wrote Agencies, as reported readily by Aljazeera.net English. The above statement is meant to fully summarize the reason behind the outrage that arises in Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world whenever some provocative ‘artist’ decides to express his freedom of expression and ‘expose’ Muslims as anti-democratic.

Such a simplistic interpretation of such an intricate issue.

There is no denial – and no shame – in the fact that most Muslims hold their Prophet in the highest regard. Despite the continued decrease in the number of faithful in increasingly secularized Western societies, Muslims are clinching even tighter to their faith. However, while the outrage over the latest transgression by some Facebook user and his “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” may appear as a straightforward news story – that of Western values vs Muslim narrow-mindedness – the true underpinnings of the outrage is suspiciously missing. Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

(Image: t r u t h o u t)

by Bill Quigley

Today in New York City, the U.S. is torturing a Muslim detainee with no prior criminal record who has not even gone to trial.

For the last almost three years, Syed Fahad Hashmi has been kept in total pre-trial isolation inside in a small cell under 24 hour video and audio surveillance. He is forced to use the bathroom and shower in full view of the video. He has not seen the sun in years. He takes his meals alone in his cell. He cannot see any other detainees and he is not allowed to communicate in any way with any prisoners. He cannot write letters to friends and he cannot make calls to anyone but his lawyer. He is prohibited from participating in group prayer. He gets newspapers that are 30 days old with sections cut out by the government. One hour a day he is taken into another confined room where he is also kept in total isolation. Read the full story

Source: Salon

(Art: antiwarart.co.uk)

by Glenn Greenwald
February 19, 2010

Yesterday, Joseph Stack deliberately flew an airplane into a building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas, in order to advance the political grievances he outlined in a perfectly cogent suicide-manifesto. Stack’s worldview contained elements of the tea party’s anti-government anger along with substantial populist complaints generally associated with “the Left” (rage over bailouts, the suffering of America’s poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt economic elite and their government-servants).  All of that was accompanied by an argument as to why violence was justified (indeed necessary) to protest those injustices: Read the full story

Source: ZNet

by Randall Amster
January 13, 2010

It might be a bad dream but it feels real enough. The mantle of warfare slips seamlessly from one president to another, from one party to another, from one decade to another, from one generation to another. The impetus of national aggression transcends race, creed, socio-economic status, age, and geography. Our collective sin is the bald lie that we all live and perpetuate from moment to moment, year upon year, from our past to the days ahead: the misbegotten belief that we are a peaceful people.

Yes, we are good and peaceful, and they (whatever “they” we’re focused on today) are ruthless and evil. Institutionally, these values are operationalized every day. Drone attacks, propped-up murderers and dictators, weapons manufacturing and distribution, clandestine death squads, full-on warfare, neglect of starvation and disease, collateral damage, structural adjustments, black holes of torture, targeting civilians — this is the essence of our foreign policy, and to borrow the frank words of Madeleine Albright when asked about the deaths of a half million Iraqis due to imposed sanctions, “we think the price was worth it.” Since we operate in the name of democracy and freedom, all is forgiven. Read the full story

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Yemeni workers sit outside a shop at a market in Sanaa, Yemen, on Tuesday. (Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)

From smoky halls to the rugged mountains of Yemen, locals are worried that their country – threatened more by poverty and water shortages than terrorism, they say – could turn into another Afghanistan.

by Michael Horton
January 5, 2010

Sanaa, Yemen – Amid an intensifying US effort to curb Al Qaeda activity in Yemen, locals in this impoverished country are worried that a focus on military aid alone could backfire – spawning a more robust militant movement and potentially drawing the US into an Afghanistan-like war.
In a smoke-filled hall in the capital of Sanaa, where men gather to chew the mildly intoxicating leaves of the qat tree and smoke water pipes, most of the talk is about Al-Qaeda and American intentions in Yemen. Read the full story

The image of Uncle Sam is seen behind shattered glass at the military recruitment center in New York’s Times Square. (AP / Mary Altaffer)

Source: Truthdig

by Chris Hedges
December 28, 2009

Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to al-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak.

This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Read the full story

See The Hypocrisy of Al-Demoqratia, for a similar article in English on Muslim discrimination in Europe below

Peligroso embate del gobierno contra musulmanes e inmigrantes

Los árabes, inmigrantes o franceses, se sintieron directamente aludidos por Sarkozy. (AFP)

Fuente: Página/12

Con un Ministerio de la Identidad Nacional y un debate en el que participó hasta el presidente Sarkozy, la tensión va subiendo en el país. Curiosamente, la derecha extremista parece ser la más beneficiada.

por Eduardo Febbro
12 de diciembre, 2009

La identidad nacional es la expresión de moda y el hilo conductor de lo que cada vez más se perfila como un áspero enfrentamiento entre el presidente y los musulmanes de Francia. Casi nada escapa a ese ambiguo y peligroso enunciado de identidad nacional impulsado por el gobierno de Nicolas Sarkozy con la creación, primero, de un Ministerio de la Inmigración y la Identidad Nacional y, luego, con el lanzamiento de un debate promovido por el titular de esa cartera, Eric Besson, y continuado con la intervención pública del mismo jefe de Estado, cuyas afirmaciones ofendieron a los musulmanes de Francia. Read the full story