Muslim community doesn’t deserve attacks

Mahmood, a fourth-year international development studies and
business economics student, is a member of the Muslim Student
Association and writer for Al-Talib.

By Ghaith Mahmood

These are truly emotional times in our society. With each
passing day we experience a myriad of emotions. For many of us,
after witnessing the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, the shock,
sorrow and grief that we initially felt have transformed into
confusion, anger and hatred.

In times like these our emotions can very easily take hold of us
and restrict our ability for rational and calm thought. This is a
pattern that is not restricted to Americans after Sept. 11. It is a
universal pattern that has played itself out in different lands in
different times.

It is in this context that I hope to address Andrew
Jones’s column in which he angrily blasts the Muslim
community on this campus
(“Muslims should endorse U.S. retaliation,” Daily
Bruin, Viewpoint, Oct. 3).

As a Muslim student on this campus who has actively participated
in the Muslim Student Association and Al-Talib, the two groups that
Jones describes as “virulent” organizations who spread
“outright lies,” it is very clear to me that the anger
and sorrow that Jones has been dealing with since Sept. 11 needed a
forum to direct itself.

I do not condemn Jones for his angry comments ““ I would be
a hypocrite if I were to condemn the same anger and misplaced
emotion that I too have felt after seeing innocent lives killed
throughout the world.

I must start first by clarifying many falsehoods that Jones
spread about the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and Al-Talib. If
people were to form an opinion solely by reading Jones’s
viewpoint, they would come to the conclusion that these two
organizations do nothing more than hold “nasty
protests” in which they engage in “Judaism-bashing and
outright lies” in order to “focus solely on
Palestine.”

Yet, it does not require a very close inspection of both of
these organizations to see that this could not be further from the
truth. For starters, let us look at what kind of projects the
Muslim Student Association has created on this campus.

One project the MSA at UCLA has created is the establishment of
the UMMA Free Clinic in Los Angeles. The UMMA Free Clinic is
located in South Central Los Angeles and for many people is the
only source of healthcare they have. At present, this clinic
provides regular family doctors to over 5,000 adults and
children.

Another project undertaken by the MSA is MAPS (Mentors for
Academic and Peer Support), a program which provides free
after-school tutoring and mentoring for high school students in two
separate high schools, one in Watts and the other in Los
Angeles.

A third project that the MSA has created is IYTP (Incarcerated
Youth Tutorial Program), which makes weekly visits to a juvenile
detention center in order to help incarcerated youth obtain their
high school diplomas.

Al-Talib itself is a nationally-distributed newsmagazine that
deals with a large number of topics besides simply Palestine.

It is important to note that these projects were created to
serve anyone who needed the services ““ and not exclusively
for other Muslims.

Other activities, such as Islam Awareness Week and MSA’s
participation in the Affirmative Action Coalition, demonstrate the
wide diversity in the types of community service and educational
programs in which MSA and Al-Talib have been involved on this
campus, with organizing around Palestine simply being a small piece
of a much larger picture.

Having established some of the activities that MSA and Al-Talib
facilitate, I will restate Jones’s words in addressing the
MSA and Al-Talib: “These recent events have called you and
your organization into question, and our eyes are on
you.”

The question begs to be asked, exactly whose “eyes”
is Jones referring to?

Are these the eyes of other students on campus, who have
overwhelmingly stated their support for the Muslim community,
pledging to help ensure the safety of their fellow students? Are
these the eyes of school administration, which also has been
proactively reaching out to MSA in order to help ensure their
safety and comfort as students on campus?

I agree with Jones; there are some eyes that are on the MSA and
Al-Talib waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the Muslim
community.

However, in my opinion, these people seem to be limited to a few
hate-filled individuals who have thus far been responsible for the
disturbing hate crimes toward Muslims around the nation, including
those responsible for pulling Muslim women’s head scarves
off, setting mosques on fire and even shooting a Sikh.

Another disturbing point that Jones tries to push is calling
into suspicion anyone who has ever expressed their support of
Palestine and the Palestinian people or condemned Israel.

However, if one were to use this as a standard for questioning,
one would first have to start with questioning Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross for attempting
to bring light to the human rights violations put unto the
Palestinians.

Even George W. Bush has recently stated that he is in support of
a Palestinian state. My point here is not to make this a debate
over the crisis in Palestine, but is meant to show that where one
stands on the Palestinian-Israeli issue is clearly not a standard
for bringing a whole group into question, and is most definitely
not an excuse for individuals like Jones to make such a horribly
offensive statement in regard to the Muslim community as “you
secretly feel that Americans “˜deserved’ what
happened.”

I end this submission with a response to Jones’s statement
that I should join Jones in “howling for blood” in
order prove my “Americanness.”

I condemn these attacks on innocent lives as I condemn all
innocent lives being taken. I grieve for the daughters whose father
was working on the 101st floor of the fallen building; my heart
aches when I think how those passengers aboard those ill-fated
flights must have felt before the horrendous impact; and my eyes
lower in grief whenever I see a view of the New York skyline.

Yet this pain is not new for me or for many others around the
world who have seen the same horror of innocent life being stolen
away countless times around the world, whether it be in Sudan, East
Timor, Chiapas, Bosnia, Nicaragua, Chechnya, the Phillippines, or
in my homeland Iraq.

Excuse me, Jones, if I don’t “howl for blood”
along with you, for I have already seen more innocent bloodshed
than my eyes can bear to stand.