Web Posted: 08/05/2005 12:00
AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
I received 400-plus e-mails
responding to my column last week, "Arabs shouldn't have to
apologize."
I do, however, need to
apologize to all the readers who took the time to send feedback for
my inability to respond to each of them individually.
Sadly, it hasn't been fun
reading many of the messages. The content betrays unimaginable
racism, hatred and ignorance. I never thought I would have such an
experience in a society claiming to be civilized.
In addition to the e-mails, I
was contacted by a number of radio stations within and outside the
United States. I was also invited to appear on a popular show on one
of the networks. I declined because I am willing to fight the devil
anywhere except in hell.
Some individuals wanted to
convert me, while others wanted me to pack up and leave. Some
threatened physical harm to me and all Muslims and Arabs. A reader
took the opportunity to remind me "the dam is cracking" and the time
of retribution is at hand.
Some of the readers were
parroting a Washington Post column by Charles Krauthammer. His piece
piqued my interest. Kraut-hammer, a psychiatrist-turned-columnist,
advocates racial profiling and searches. His proposal for a secure
transit system in New York and other parts of America is to search
only Muslims and Arabs. He doesn't say how he will distinguish an
Arab from a non-Arab or a Muslim from a non-Muslim, but he does say
we all look the same.
I find his solution applicable
only if Arabs and Muslims are made to wear identifiers. Some in the
United States would love to see the revival of such oppressive
tactics and, perhaps, require all Arabs and Muslims to wear an
insignia of some sort.
How fast we forget the lessons
of history, where calamities are calamities only if they touch us.
Politics does, indeed, make for strange bedfellows. Many Arabs,
including me, would rather die than submit to such dishonorable
nonsense.
In all my years, I have rarely
seen Islamic publications condemning or belittling Jesus Christ, his
mother or his apostles. Nor have I seen any belittling Judaism,
Moses or David. Indeed, to go further, I have never seen a
mainstream publication in Arab or Muslim states condemning
Christianity or Judaism. Even the majority of fundamentalist
publications do not touch either negatively. However, a few do, but
these remain on the fringes and many can only publish their diatribe
outside the Arab world.
In spite of what some say,
America was never intended to be solely a Christian country. It was
a land occupied by individuals running away from religious
oppression. The Constitution separates church and state, and the
first presidents can be described more as deists than adherents to
any particular religion.
Why, then, is religion being
injected into the legal, political and educational systems? And,
more important, why are we doing that at a time when we are urging
Muslims to separate religion from politics and law?
This leads me to only one
conclusion. In much of the Arab and Muslim worlds, religious
societies are trying to change secular governments, while in the
United States a religious government is trying to change a secular
society
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