Washington Post – January 2, 2017
A smokescreen for bigotry: Disguising anti-Muslim bias with land-use objections
by Petula Dvorak
Sewage lines, traffic patterns and zoning ordinances. Meet the instruments of bigotry in America today.
It’s happened three times in Virginia already, cases where development regulations and mundane municipal laws have been used to smokescreen surging Islamophobia.
And it’s something new, something that folks who have lived in these communities for decades have never experienced.
“I would never believe in my life that something like this would happen,” said Samer Shalaby, whose pointer-and-blueprints community meeting presentation went viral after audience members unleashed a bigoted, anti-Muslim shouting spree at him.
“Nobody, nobody, nobody wants your evil cult in this county,” a man who said he was a former Marine yelled at Shalaby that night in November 2015.
Turns out the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg has been operating in Spotsylvania County for 28 years. And Shalaby’s family has been there for 31. Until last year, they were viewed as neighbors. They were engineers, car salesmen, moms picking up their kids from soccer games or band practice.
But then Donald Trump began running for president, pledging to ban Muslims from entering the country and establish a registry for Muslim Americans.
It was amid that heated and ugly rhetoric that the center announced its expansion plans — and promptly ran into a wall of opposition. And now, a year later, the Islamic center is still tied up in traffic-pattern objections and subdivision squabbles.
In Culpeper, about 40 miles away, local officials rubber stamped pump-and-haul permits to handle sewage for businesses or houses of worship. The county board approved 26 of them since 1992, including nine for churches.
But when the Islamic Center of Culpeper bought a parcel of land and proposed a small mosque, a local Republican activist whipped the community in a frenzy over the sewage permit, which became a sneaky way to block the entire project.
“I understand the Islamic Center of Culpeper wishes to rehabilitate the existing home and use it on a weekly basis as a place of prayer. . . . Hmmmmmmmmm,” he wrote. And right after that — just like Fredericksburg — there was a raucous community meeting with abnormally high attendance, there was grandstanding and a round of applause after the board broke its quarter-century streak of issuing permits and denied that one.
Its decision was so ham-handed that the Justice Department hit Culpeper County with a lawsuit last month based on the Religious Land Use act. Justice has plenty of ammo on this case, from the emails sent out before the meeting to the communications that other board members got from folks opposing the mosque — emails that mentioned terrorists, not sewage.
And now we’ve got Nokesville.
About 200 Muslims who hold their prayers in rented hotel space in Manassas want to build their own space. It would be the Nokesville branch of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), one of the country’s largest and most prominent mosques. ADAMS has 11 chapters around Northern Virginia and the District.
They’ve been working with county officials for two years now on the building’s height, lighting and parking on the parcel of land they bought. But that cooperation hasn’t been enough for some opponents.
“No more suburban sprawl!” they say. And they’re pushing their leaders to deny connection to the public sewage system the mosque would need.
Two churches recently got this very same approval. Churches.
Rizwan Jaka, chairman of the ADAMS board, told The Washington Post’s Tara Bahrampour that the concern over sewage is a red herring and something he’s seeing across the country.
“With over 30 mosques being prevented from being built based off of anti-Muslim bigotry or implicit bias wrapped in land-use arguments, that gives us some concern,” he said.
The case in Fredericksburg really shows the ridiculous hoop-jumping that Muslims are facing.
When officials with the Islamic Center there bought a parcel of land a little ways out of town, they thought they’d be doing everyone a favor by keeping traffic out of town. Nope. Residents not only complained about traffic, but complained that the area wasn’t appropriate for a religious facility.
“We’re still fighting the battle, and still trying to be good Samaritans and good neighbors to everybody,” said Shalaby, who is also a civil engineer……
U.S. border security now asking foreign travelers for social media accounts
By Caitlin Moscatello
On December 20, the U.S. government began asking some foreign travelers entering the country to voluntarily share their social media accounts, in an attempt to prevent terrorism. The request is specifically being given to those arriving on the visa waiver program, who are given the option to select social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+, and then enter their account names for each when going through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization process.
As Politico reports, the move has not been without controversy. Tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as consumer advocates, have criticized the new policy, citing privacy concerns, among other things. And while a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection said that the new measure is meant to "identify potential threats," there are also concerns about how much of an "option" it will be for foreigner travelers entering the country who don't want to share their social media information.
Opposition to the new policy began last June, when the government revealed its proposal to begin asking foreigners for their account information. In response, digital rights group Access Now submitted more than 2,000 comments from Internet users reacting to the policy to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“Our social media accounts are often highly personal. They’re full of inside jokes, political commentary, rants and raves, and cat videos. Or otter videos. Whatever gets you through the day. It’s really easy for people to take this information out of context or to misunderstand it,” said Amie Stepanovich, U.S. Policy Manager at Access Now.
“The choice to hand over this information is technically voluntary," said Nathan White, the group's Senior Legislative Manager. "But the process to enter the U.S. is confusing, and it’s likely that most visitors will fill out the card completely rather than risk additional questions from intimidating, uniformed officers — the same officers who will decide which of your jokes are funny and which ones make you a security risk."
In a similar response, the non-profit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)—which calls itself a "champion of global online civil liberties and human rights, driving policy outcomes that keep the Internet open, innovative, and free"—listed its concerns about the policy online. Among those concerns are "a significant expansion of intelligence activity," as well as increased risks for foreigners, and the expense of social media analysis. There is specific concern for the impact on Arabs and Muslims entering the U.S.
As the letter notes, "The risk of discrimination based on analysis of social media content and connections is great and will fall hardest on Arab and Muslim communities, whose usernames, posts, contacts, and social networks will be exposed to intense scrutiny. Cultural and linguistic barriers increase the risk that social media activity will be misconstrued. This disparate impact will affect not only travelers from visa-waiver program countries, but also the Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans whose colleagues, family members, business associates, and others in their social networks are exposed to immediate scrutiny or ongoing surveillance, or are improperly denied a visa waiver because of their online presence."
The letter is signed by numerous groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumer Federation of America, National Immigration Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, among others.
According to CBS News, the Office of Management and Budget approved adding the question regarding social media accounts this month, per the Department of Homeland Security. Customs and Border Protection agents will reportedly only be able to see what's publicly available on the accounts submitted by travelers.
What is a terrorist?
The criminalization of American dissent in the 21st century
By Matthew Vernon Whalan
On the trend of viewing dissenters, protesters and activists as terrorists -- surveilling them and talking about them as if they are terrorists.
General safety and openness, for much of the American public, feels permanent. For most Americans, there is an illusion that our safety, comfort, and freedoms rest on a foundation so large and protected as to be immune to collapse -- at least in our lifetimes. Despite the rise of a kind of fascism, the constant teetering on the brink of economic collapse, the threats to our future by climate change, possibly nuclear weapons, and certainly permanent war, there is a feeling, mainly for those of us with privilege, that the way we live our lives -- safely, comfortably, in many ways thoughtlessly -- is deeply engrained into reality and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.
The structures that sustain our lifestyles, behavior, and even freedoms, are large and complicated structures. In some ways, they have proven rather durable, albeit often in the ugliest ways and at the expense of many. Maybe those structures will outlast those of us alive today. Maybe they won't. The financialized economy, the largely privatized military industrial complex, the fossil fuel industry, the domestic security apparatus, the industrial agriculture industry, and more, could very well be our demise as a civilization. There is no reason to be coy about this.
There has been a great deal of speculation -- as there should be -- about how Trump will handle dissent. Most issues with Trump can only be explained by what the officials he places around himself have to say, since Trump himself has been pathetically unclear on every issue. Rather than the question of what Trump will do when the going gets tough for more and more of us, consider the question of how the culture of the American power- elite and its supporters is poised to handle dissent in a moment of rapid political and social tailspin. There have always been, since the nation's inception, totalitarian mechanisms in place to handle dissent within the free society. Where do these mechanisms stand now? It is safe to assume, for the sake of this discussion, that climate change, economic insecurity, the dangers created by the military such as terroristic blowback, and internal conflict within the American population, to name a few, will, to some degree, begin to dictate the terms on which ordinary Americans live their lives in the near-future. The population is likely -- in both constructive and regressive ways -- to lash out at the power elite and at each other.
As of this moment, how is the power-class likely to respond to such blowback to crises?
Much of the language used and action taken after 9/11 handled American dissent ambiguously (at best) and revealed much about how dissenters are viewed by the power-class. It seems likely that nothing about how dissenters were viewed really changed after 9/11 within the security apparatus and the corporate-governmental world, but rather, it was easier to present that view and act upon it given the rattled state of the American public and the visceral reaction to words like "terrorism," "security," and "threat" at that time.
It is useful to start the analysis of this subject around the time of 9/11 and move closer to the present.
On February, 12th, 2002, the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Section Chief of the Counterterrorism Division, James F. Jarboe, testified before the House Resources Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health, mostly about what are now dubbed "eco-terrorists." The definition of domestic terrorism was, "the unlawful use, or threatened use, of violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States (or its territories) without foreign direction, committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." Note that the destruction of property constitutes terrorism in this definition.
With a truly brazen stroke of irony, Jarboe went on to say, "Special interest extremists continue to conduct acts of politically motivated violence to force segments of society, including the general public, to change attitudes about issues considered important to their causes. These groups occupy the extreme fringes of animal rights, pro-life, environmental, anti-nuclear, and other movements" (my emphasis). Though many of the crimes cited in this testimony are indeed criminal acts, 1) the relationship between the activists committing them to their role in the "terrorist groups" cited, like Earth First! and the Animal Liberation Front, is at times unclear, and 2) the enormous leap from property destruction to "terrorism," given the word's loaded undertones, especially at the time of the testimony in 2002, is dubiously polemic to say the very least. It feels almost condescending to note to the reader that the "special interests" these groups and activists are opposing fall more cleanly under the definition of "terrorists" than the groups and activists themselves -- not that there was ever a time when we could expect such an observation to be noted in an FBI report. The term "eco-terrorist" has increasingly been used to justify the harassing and monitoring of environmental activists in general.
There have been growing concerns about the monitoring of environmentalist groups by counter-terrorist programs and tactics, particularly since 9/11, up to the present day. Furthermore, the surveillance capabilities of the security apparatus are greater now than when Jarboe testified. A Vice report in 2015 on the FBI's monitoring of environmentalists, mostly during the Keystone XL pipeline protests to the construction of the project's southern leg in Texas, sheds light on the overlap between corporate and government surveillance of what are deemed potential "terrorist" threats. For example, Will Potter, author of Green is the New Red, points out in that piece, "At first, the assessment investigations were justified based on the specter of causing a loss of human life, that eco-terrorists were somehow going to kill innocent people ["] That's never happened. Then the justification became more and more that the FBI was investigating potential property destruction, and increasingly that doesn't happen either." If environmentalists are not threats to human life -- even if they are threats to private property (which they are usually not) -- then surveilling them can only be interpreted as protecting "threats" against big business, not against the population. It is, therefore, safe to assume that environmentalists are not targeted for their violence, but for their dissent.
In December of 2005, Eric Lichtblau report in the New York Times that the FBI had conducted "numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show." The piece also notes that "One FBI document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a 'Vegan Community Project.' Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's 'semi-communistic ideology.'" These surveillance operations were conducted after John Ashcroft, then Attorney General, lifted certain restrictions on the FBI's surveillance capabilities and "President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism." The FBI had even included anti-war groups among those being spied on as leads to terrorist threats. Lichtblau's article points out that investigations into anti-poverty, anti-war, environmental groups, and others "are routinely handled by agents within the counterterrorism division."
As the Guardian reported in 2013, "Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies have increasingly spied on political activists, especially environmental groups, on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to the last decade of US defense planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis - or all three." The article cites the authorization of the military to respond on American soil during times of "emergency" or "civil disturbance." (That article is highly recommended for this topic.)
Like 9/11, the financial crash of 2008 can be seen as a marker in the increase of dissent being labelled terrorism and/or crime, as issues involving the environment, poverty, the military and militarized police, and others, grew worse in the aftermath. There was probably never a time in American history when the domestic population's attempt to create security through activism was not seen as a threat to the security of centralized power. But certain events, such as 9/11 and the 2008 crash, have given this attitude more legitimacy, both behind the closed doors of the security apparatus and in the public discourse.
In 2012, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund released a report that, "FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF's Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did 'not condone the use of violence' at occupy protests." (That contradiction also appears in the 2002 FBI testimony cited above). The report, which also notes the influence of corporate America on the intelligence communities, reveals that security forces all over the country treated Occupy as a terrorist threat, often working with counterterrorism organizations to surveil and police the movement.
Similarly, much of the response to Black Lives Matter -- from officials and civilians alike -- has suggested that Black Lives Matter should be labelled a terrorist group, such as the petition to the White House, which reads: "It is time for the Pentagon to be consistent in its actions - and just as they rightfully declared ISIS a terror group, they must declare Black Lives Matter a terror group - on the grounds of principle, integrity, morality, and safety." A great deal of evidence on the surveillance of Black Lives Matter shows that they are treated as a terrorist organization. In 2015, The Intercept filed a Freedom of Information Act to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and obtained hundreds of documents on the surveillance of Black Lives Matter, revealed in a first rate piece by George Joseph. Among many other observations, the article inquires: "The tracking of domestic protest groups and peaceful gatherings raises questions over whether DHS is chilling the exercise of First Amendment rights, and over whether the department, created in large part to combat terrorism, has allowed its mission to creep beyond the bounds of useful security activities as its annual budget has grown beyond $60 billion." The piece also notes, again as just one of many alarming observations, that the NYPD's counterterrorism intelligence organization was monitoring silent vigils taking place in support of Black Lives Matter, and that the silent vigils were being monitored all over the country. There has also been speculation about Black Lives Matter being targeted with drone surveillance.
It is also worth mentioning that the "law and order" rhetoric of the current Republican Party, spoken most crudely by Rudy Giuliani and Trump, has been and will be a method of introducing a language into the public discourse that allows for the further criminalization of groups opposed to mass incarceration and police brutality, Black Lives Matter being first and foremost among them.
Recent developments also show that the movement for boycott, divestment from, and sanctions on Israel has become a target for criminalizing dissent as much or more than any other group. As Max Blumenthal, one of the great writers on the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, has pointed out, a push to "destroy the mounting grassroots BDS campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel" has released warning signals to many activist groups and those concerned with the slow motion genocide of the Palestinians. Led in the congress by Congress, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and figures like Ted Cruz in the Senate, the movement to outlaw BDS has gained an increasing amount of traction. Ros-Lehtinen is quoted in Blumenthal's piece as having said, "Free speech is being used in our country to denigrate Israel and we need to actively fight against that," and the piece also cites Ted Cruz, who said to a crowd of tens of thousands of AIPAC supporters, "they [BDS] will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Blumenthal writes, "From Washington to Paris to London, Israel lobbyists are extracting ritual denunciations of BDS from its political hand puppets and authoring new laws to forbid its implementation. Repressive legislative efforts are accompanied by legal subterfuge, high-tech sabotage, McCarthy-style online blacklists and carefully orchestrated smear campaigns against anyone who resists." France and the UK have already introduced legislation outlawing BDS, and AIPAC is increasing pressure on American law-makers to introduce such legislation. It has long been known that the movement has endured enormous attempts at sabotage and surveillance.
One of the latest stories around the criminalization of dissent came from Washington State Senator Doug Ericksen, who wants protests that he defines as going "too far" labeled acts of "economic terrorism" in new proposed legislation. Mr. Ericksen claims the legislation, which would make certain protests a felony, was in the process of being drafted before the anti-Trump protests sparked by the presidential election in November, but the story around it and many of those targeted by the legislation -- including socialist Seattle elected official Kshama Sawant -- are clearly related to the "Not My President" activities. The bill is unlikely to pass but serves as a precursor of what is to come, and an example of just how far down the road of criminalizing dissent we have gone.
There are many ways to explain and analyze the last two decades' criminalization of American dissent, and the examples cited in this piece are admittedly only some examples. Of course, the future is forever uncertain and it is possible that the everyday lives of ordinary Americans will not be controlled or punished by this increasingly ominous trend. It is also possible that -- particularly in the very likely event of an enormous crisis of some kind -- more and more people will be targeted by more and more laws and punished in more and more heinous and brutal ways. I'll end by noting that in December of 2011, a law was passed in the National Defense Authorization Act authorizing the indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, "who substantially supports or is a member of al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces." Neither "substantial support" nor "associated forces" have clear definitions, which is worrisome enough, and becomes more worrisome the more groups like Black Lives Matter and environmentalists are equated with -- and treated as -- terrorists.
Again, it is important to remember that we have been headed in this direction for a long time, and to consider that there have been times in our history when the punishment for dissent was worse. Public crises of the kind that occurred in 2001 and 2008 do not create this attitude; they re-legitimize it. It is also important to consider that the ability of the security apparatus to monitor and punish those who dissent has been on the rise in our more recent history and will become more naked the more public crises we encounter in the near future. Trump will be cruder about this than Obama has been or Clinton would have been, but we should continue to expect it to get worse for the foreseeable future no matter who holds power. There is no way to know for sure how brutal this could get because there is no way to calculate how large and pervasive the next crises will be. But, especially with the Trump team in power and every branch of the government controlled by the far right, the worst case scenario seems more likely than the best case scenario, even if it is impossible to say exactly what those scenarios are.
Matthew Vernon Whalan is a journalist and writer from Great Barrington, MA. He has published journalism in the Red Crow News, The Berkshire Edge, Spin Education, The Brattleboro Reformer, and other newspapers. He is the author of The Little Book of Freedom, about a death row inmate in Alabama. He has also published fiction in Literary Orphans, Hitherto MUIC, Foliate Oak, and other newspapers and literary journals.
Anti-Muslim bills based on conspiracy theories
have been introduced in two states
Over 120 similar bills or amendments aimed at preventing Sharia law from being applied to US courts have been submitted in state legislatures since 2011.
By Talal Ansari
In the past 11 days, Republican lawmakers in Indiana and Oregon have proposed bills aimed at preventing Islamic law from being used in court cases, an unfounded conspiracy theory that lives on despite a lack of evidence supporting the claim that Muslims in America are trying to subvert the US Constitution.
On Jan. 9, Oregon State Senator Brian Boquist introduced SB 479 — a bill that “Prohibits courts from applying Sharia law.” A week prior, Indiana State Senator Travis Holdman submitted Senate Bill 16, aimed at prohibiting the application of foreign-law in the state. While that bill’s text only mentions “foreign law,” the bill’s author, told the Indianapolis Star that the bill’s primary purpose stems from his constituents fear of Sharia law — or Islamic jurisprudence — “being used as a legal standard in our courts.”
While the bills themselves may appear straightforward, many advocates see them as unnecessary and redundant — instituting at the state level what would already be in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Some advocates also see these bills as evidence of overt bigotry and an irrational fear of “creeping Sharia” — a term in anti-Muslim circles that stems from an anti-Islam sentiment — and the belief that the US and its citizens are in danger of Islamic law entering the US legal system and affecting daily life.
“These bill and laws are 100% a waste of time because the Constitution is already the law of the land and nothing can replace that,” said Corey Saylor, the director of the Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It’s a total red herring, and a total waste of taxpayer’s money.” Saylor added that there is no movement to institute any kind of religious law in the US by any Muslim organization.
In 2010 Oklahoma’s legislature voted to amend the state’s constitution to include anti-Sharia language. A federal judge in 2013 said the amendment violated the US Constitution. The defeat resulted in subsequent legislative initiatives to use the words “foreign law” instead of “Sharia law,” in order to increase the chances of bills passing muster.
“The one in Oregon would fail even a first-grader’s class on the Constitution,” Saylor added.
Sharia — a religious code of conduct, no different than those contained in other Abrahamic religions — has often been used as a fear-inducing term associated with anti-Western beliefs in recent years. Sharia is basically no different than the canon law of the Catholic Church or the requirement that those who follow Judaism to eat kosher foods.
Anti-Sharia or anti-foreign laws have passed in ten states, with dozens more proposed in the last decade — the vast majority of these failing to pass or reach the point of a vote. The Institute of Social Policy and Understanding, a research group that studies various aspects of Muslim American life, found that at least 128 anti-Sharia law or anti-foreign law bills have been introduced since 2011.
The main driving force behind these laws and related conspiracy theories, according to the Anti-Defamation League, has been the work of David Yerushalmi, an Arizona lawyer who the Southern Poverty Law Center called an “anti-Muslim activist.”
Yerushalmi, in addition to his own work and writings, is also associated with other anti-Muslim groups, such as the Center for Security Policy, a group run by noted conspiracy theorist and former Reagan-era Pentagon official Frank Gaffney. He also has represented the Quran-burning Florida pastor Terry Jones and is connected with other anti-Muslim crusaders such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer — both founders of the group anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America.
Yerushalmi, through his group, American Laws for American Courts (ALAC), has provided the defining template for many anti-foreign law or anti-Sharia bills around the country. Language used in Indiana’s bill by State Sen. Holdman appears to contain certain phrases that are similar to Yerushalmi’s current bill template.
Holdman did not immediately reply to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.The driving force behind the Oregon, appears to be more mundane.
In an email to BuzzFeed News, the bill’s author, State Sen. Boquist, explained that Oregon contains the “strangest constitutions in the nation” which requires that elected officials “provide redress to constituents so they can introduce legislation to be heard,” and “allows groups of citizens to put bills on the statewide ballot.” Boquist says the bill, which is a single line and states, “A court of this state may not consider Sharia law in making judicial decisions,” was submitted by a constituent, and was also submitted by the same constituent two years ago.
“Personally, and constitutionally, I represent every citizen’s access to the legislative process regardless of my own opinions on any topic,” Boquist wrote.
Talal Ansari is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansari/two-new-anti-sharia-bills?utm_term=.ef9L8lDyao#.wo8X94LBvz
Middle East Eye – January 17, 2017
US counter extremism initiative is discriminatory, rights advocates say
By Ali Harbi
The US Department of Homeland Security raised the ire of civil rights activists after awarding $10m in grants to various law enforcement agencies and NGOs as a part of its Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme.
CVE’s stated mission is to address the roots of radicalisation through building “relationships based on trust with communities”. However, civil rights groups have questioned the program and criticized it as discriminatory because it targets Muslim Americans.
In 2014, about 20 rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sent a letter to DHS voicing concerns about the program.
It said CVE asks communities to report suspicious speech or associations to law enforcement.
"The result of generalized monitoring—whether conducted by the government or by community 'partners' — is a climate of fear and self-censorship, where people must watch what they say and with whom they speak, lest they be reported for engaging in lawful behavior vaguely defined as suspicious," the letter read.
Abed Ayoub, the legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a Washington DC-based civil rights organisation, said CVE is problematic because it infringes on the separation of state and church by singling out the Muslim community.
ADC had warned Muslim and Arab groups against applying for CVE grants.
“It is forcing these organisations to essentially be informants on the community,” Ayoub told Middle East Eye. “That’s what these grants are doing… You think that money is coming for free? You think there are no strings attached to that money?”
He added that regardless of the intention of the awarded organisations, the incoming Trump administration may use this cooperation to further deteriorate Muslims’ civil rights.
Ayoub said steering away young people from extremism is an admirable goal, but it should come organically from within different communities without being linked to race or religion.
In a statement announcing the grants on Friday, DHS said CVE also works to prevent right-wing radicalization. But Ayoub dismissed the notion as lip service, saying that the initiative is mainly about Muslims.
The Chicago-based Arab American Action Network also slammed the grants in a statement, calling on organisations to “say no to CVE”.
CVE stems from a 2011 White House policy paper titled, "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States".
After the rise of the Islamic State group in 2015, the FBI launched the controversial "Don't be a Puppet" online program, aimed at students and teachers, to help individuals from falling into extremism. Last year, Congress approved CVE grants for DHS.
'State-sanctioned Islamophobia'
Asha Noor, an advocate at Take on Hate, an anti-bigotry initiative, said CVE feeds into “state-sanctioned Islamophobia” by making it seem that the US Muslim community has an extremism problem.
“CVE states that it is not discriminatory in nature, but it is,” Noor told MEE. “It targets predominantly Muslim communities. That in itself, it reinforces the notion that Muslims are inherently violent and susceptible to ‘violent extremism’.”
She added that capacity-building and mental health assistance are needed in all communities, but they should not be funded through the lens of national security.
Noor added that the emphasis on extremism alienates US Muslims.
“It is a very slippery slope - blurring the lines between mental health and ‘violent extremism’,” she told MEE. “It is literally opening the door for federal agents and for the government to interrogate, polarise and criminalise our youth.”……
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/cve-rights-advocates-say-us-counter-extremism-initiative-discriminatory-1017086761
Counter Current – January 10, 2017
What is to be a Muslim in America today?
by Mustapha Marrouchi
Can one define what a Muslim is in the wake of the decision that President-elect Trump wants to take to ban all Muslims from entering America? The late Edward Said—were he still alive—may attempt an answer to the question I pose here as he did in the late seventies but I gather it will not be sufficient in that we have moved on from the late 20th century stereotype of the Muslim: bloodthirsty, vindictive, and unpredictable. Today, the typecast can be summed up in one word: a monster without a myth. It finds credo in the portrait given to DAECH fighters: bloody, ruthless, and above all, fearless to kill at random.
Still, how can we go on debating Muslims in the wake of the 2016-US election without falling prey to misrepresenting everyone as if Muslims were donuts of sorts? After all, a Muslim from Morocco or Algeria is quite different from a Muslim from Pakistan or Yemen who is in turn different from a Muslim from Chicago or Paris. Needless to note the diversity between a Sunni and a Chi’ia Muslim, an Allaoui and a Druz, a Sufi and a Wahhabi, a fanatic and an agnostic. Many Muslims drink whisky, others prey every day, still others wear burkinis. Never mind all that because the matter is of no concern to President-elect Trump who is bent on expelling all Muslims who live inside America and barring all those who want to enter it in the future. That he is determined to put all Muslims in the same basket is a telling sign of the times we all live in.
Ever since Brexit and the election of Mr. Trump to high office, a good part of the West has become xenophobic, racist, and daring to be politically incorrect. Whether this shift is a backlash following the exit of a black president (the only one ever to hold office since the inception of the country) or a deep-seated hatred for Muslims, one cannot make out. What is certain is that those who call themselves “White” feel beleaguered and are determined to lash out at the world. It will be interesting to see whether Marine Le Pen makes it in the next French presidential election. If she does become the next President of France, which is quite possible given her ratings in public polls, the circle will be complete. I wonder then what will happen to millions of Muslims living in the West. In the meantime, let us not forget that in Austria a Neo-Nazi party led by Norbert Hofer nearly won the last election. Europe and the world took a deep breath when the Green Party championed by Heinz Fischer came to power.
The problem in America is that most of its people are pretty ignorant about where other people come from. They tend to put the rest of us in boxes: European, Indian, Chinese even though you may be Vietnamese, Arab even though you may be a Sikh. No wonder a Sikh was killed in New York two days after 9/11 simply because he was brown and looked like an Arab. Moreover, a Muslim, and more so an Arab living in America today, finds himself badgered unless he conforms to a certain credo; otherwise he really cannot be safe. An example will clarify what I have in mind. Let us say you happen to be reading a magazine written in Arabic in the subway in New York or Chicago, it is likely that you will be stared at more than once because your very presence poses a threat to whomever is sitting next to you. The writing in Arabic itself has become a sign, a leitmotiv for persecution.
I would like to think that there are many Americans who are open-minded and tolerant and kind but I have also a feeling that they are not in the majority. The reason why Trump appealed to so many Americans is because he says it as it is. He is not a hypocrite. On the contrary, bigoted though he may be, he is nevertheless forthright about race, gender, creed, religion, and that is what endears him to the whole country. In fact, he can be said to articulate what many think and feel but do not have the guts to say it out loud. In this sense, he is a surrogate of a kind—he is the subconscious of “White America”—at any rate, of a good portion of it. Otherwise, why would they elect him? I can only surmise that the road ahead for those of us who are Muslim and brown and yellow living in America and paying our taxes and dreaming of a better world will be quite steep during the next four years. We will have to work in harness with the other America (the one that is welcoming and generous and accommodating) so that we may be able at the end of the day to set our energies free. It is a consummation to be wished for.
An internationally renowned literary and cultural critic, Mustapha Marrouchi lives on borderline between the West and Rest. He is the author of half-a-dozen books, including The Fabric of Subcultures.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/10/what-is-to-be-a-muslim-in-america-today/
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