WASHINGTON - A Muslim social justice activist ‘emphatically’ refuses to condemn ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ in order to prove her allegiance to the United States, saying that she shares no link with “psychopaths who misrepresent and distort Islam for their deranged purposes.”
“As an American Muslim, I am consistently and aggressively asked - by media figures, religious leaders, politicians and Internet trolls - to condemn terrorism to prove my patriotism. I emphatically refuse,” Rana Elmir, who is deputy director of the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union Michigan (ACLU), a human rights organization, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
Elmir said ‘Islamic terrorists’ are just as foreign to her as the “terror advanced by mostly white men at the alarming rate of one mass killing every two weeks in this country.”
“Asking us to apologise for violence that has orphaned generations of Muslims has the perverse effect of re-victimizing us by erasing our humanity and experiences. There is no other acceptable scenario in which the media, politicians and even our president would urge and expect victims to apologise publicly and rout out the ideology that contributed to their own persecution.
“Muslims across the globe are not threats. They are threatened,” Elmir continued. “Muslim vulnerability is not just contained abroad. The pernicious disease that is Islamophobia is spreading at home, thanks to a steady diet of repugnant rhetoric and equally misguided policies. While the number of hate crimes reported to the FBI fell in 2014 in most categories, the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes rose, with Muslim Americans experiencing five times the number of hate crimes today than they did before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
Elmir went on to argue that condemning terrorist acts is an admission of guilt. Zealots “thrive and profit off of the fear-mongering, hate and violence generated by othering and silencing an entire community who has lived and contributed to our nation since its founding,” she wrote.
“The first Muslims in the United States were brought over bound as slaves, not immigrants. Muslims fought in every war starting with the American Revolution and have contributed to every facet of society - law, education, medicine, government, fashion, music, architecture and sports. And while some American Muslims have prospered, many face challenges - poverty, unemployment and under education - often overshadowed by foreign policy and compounded by pervasive discrimination in our country.
“But I believe in a freedom that is true, that is real and that is unapologetically principled. I will always do my part and fight for justice,” she concluded. “But terrorism is not mine. I will not claim it, not even through an apology.”