Muslim, or Criminal by Default?
By Kavin Paulraj
Staff Writer

Islam. Peace. Righteousness. Brotherhood. Muslim. Mecca. Pilgrimage. Love. Quran. Prayer. Allah. Face toward Mecca. Islam. Qadi. Id. Ramadan. Tasty food. Muslim. Devotional music. Peace. Brothers and Sisters from Mesopotamia. Ibn Batuta. Ibn Khaldun. Islam. Hijab. Prophet Muhammad. Medina. Unity. Pray 5 times a day. Peace. Love. Quran.

Hopefully, my blatant attempt at associating all these words in your mind has had some effect. Some of them may be stereotypes, but these words represent what I learned about Islam from my Muslim friends in South India. This is one impression of how Muslims live from Indonesia to Nigeria, from Trinidad & Tobago to Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is spreading its propaganda through the U.S. media, and, by extension, the world media. AOL-Time Warner, which owns CNN and Time magazine, or Disney, which owns ABC and USA Today, for example, are telling us something else.

Islam. Terrorist. Osama. Chemical warheads. Anthrax. Young male with brown skin. Muslim. Fundamentalism. Evil. Anti-women. Saddam Hussein. Turban. Beard. Hate. Terrorist. Foreigners. Plane crash. Hijack. Virgins in Heaven. Bomb. Islam. Osama. Saddam. Osama-Saddam.

Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Fleischer, and all the so-called expert analysts on the news channels these days are talking about terrorism, and every day intelligence reports (that no one will ever see) are showing new terrorist threats. We are supposed to duct tape the edges of our windows, stock up on foodstuffs, and report any suspicious conversations (i.e. a few words of Arabic) or shady characters (i.e. Arabians or South Asians) to the police. Fear is being drilled into our heads, so that we will support or at least defer criticism of all the government's new repressive measures against our Muslim sisters and brothers.

My Indian friend in Sydney, Australia is constantly pulled over by the Australian police for 'random' passport checks. Of course, these random checks only apply to the brown-skinned immigrants. New, stringent immigration policies in Britain are making things more difficult for Jamaicans and Trinidadians. Why? Because these countries have Muslim populations and could also be used as entrances to Britain for 'terrorists.' Intelligence agencies across 'white' countries - Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Australia, Canada and USA are combing their countries for traces of evidence of 'terrorism'; Britain just deported a prominent Muslim religious leader for his outspoken nature. Reports of secret police trying to weed out 'terrorists' in each of these countries has led to more arrests and more secret witchtrials.

But it is the United States leading the world today in repression, arrests, and, according to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), 'Big Brother' government. Consider two Indian immigrants traveling in a Texas train soon after September 11. Apparently, a tool called a 'box-cutter' that they used to cut the cords off the newspapers they sold each day was enough to warrant a year-long secret imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they were made to stand for hours in freezing temperatures, had their handcuffs stepped on by the police guards and were physically abused without any trial or reason. One of the two men, now back in India, is still suffering from shock and the other wants to sue the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, hundreds of men, mostly Afghanis, still languish in Guantanamo Bay in inhuman conditions, according to Amnesty International. None of them was directly involved in the September 11 attacks, because all of those criminals are already dead, their remains mixed in with the remains of the World Trade Center. And then the INS decided to shift its emphasis from the Mexican border and shooting down low-income Mexicans to scrutinizing, prosecuting, harassing, and deporting immigrants from a number of largely Muslim countries including Yemen, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (The latter two countries have asked why their citizens should receive such degrading treatment after they offered all their help to the recent U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively. The police, too, have found a new race to 'profile'-those police eyes trained so well to search out African-Americans now look for Arab-Americans and Muslims. One-fourth of the people forced to register with the INS in December 2002 were thrown into jail and marked for deportation hearings, for the smallest of reasons.

While before, a pending application for visa renewal was enough to stay in the country, those individuals are now being deported without warning through the loophole of lacking a valid visa. Pomona College's and other colleges' international students were recently ordered to replace their Smith Campus Center box address on their INS form with their dorm address and room numbers, so that the secret police can go straight to their rooms if necessary. Pakistani citizens without the right papers are attempting to cross the Canadian border under Canada's amnesty laws, but now the border officials are turning the refugees back into the waiting hands of the U.S. immigration officers for deportation. Life is hell for West Asian immigrants, but no one seems to be hearing about it.

Compounding this, the Patriot Act of John Ashcroft, which greatly enhances the spying capabilities of the CIA and FBI, now thrown into one large organization. The pending additions to the Patriot Act gives the government, among other atrocious rights, the right to strip any American citizen of his or her passport if he or she has been designated (by the same U.S. government) as involved in a terrorist organization. So now, even naturalized immigrants (with a green card or U.S. passport) are not safe from the clutches of the secret U.S. police. Every single American citizen, brown-skinned or not, is now liable to be stripped of their citizenship. So when they lock you up for eternity or torture you for information, no government will come to your aid, because you will be an outcast, a citizen of no country. A university professor in Florida was arrested by the government for his support of the Palestinian cause this week. Since when was that a crime? Apparently, since they decided that he was sending money back to Palestine. "Its all politics," the professor told reporters as he was being hauled away. The much-hyped trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who decided to defend himself, will now probably be held in secret, because the government has asked for the right to do so.

Most foreign nationals in the United States are too afraid to organize publicly against the government, but those that do are often ignored by the rest of the U.S. population. Ask any foreign national, and he or she will tell you that the rules are getting harder and that hundreds of thousands of innocent people are affected by Bush's witch-hunt. The secret police will soon make it hell for anyone who does speak up.

If you have a skin color other than brown; if you were born in the USA; if you are not Muslim or Arab-American, it is time to show solidarity with these communities that are facing tremendous difficulties worldwide as a result of George Bush's policies. Reject all the negative images of Islam that are forced upon you, and remember, Islam stands for Peace. No effort by George Bush and his propaganda ministers, by AOL-Time Warner or Disney, or by Osama bin Laden and the rest will ever change that, if you refuse to believe the hype and stand up in support of your Muslim sisters and brothers.