Two Faces of Fear
By Dr. Mohammad Taqi
Florida
Senator Joseph Lieberman’s call to violate the section 349 (a) (7), of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, smacks of a desire to go back to the days of the Executive Order number 9066.
The said order was used by Franklin Roosevelt during the WWII, for the internment of Americans of “Foreign Enemy Ancestry” (AFEAs), predominantly the ethnic Japanese, as many as 122,000 of who were then held in various government-run camps. Following in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, FDR had also suspended the habeas corpus writ.
The Title 8, Chapter 12, Sub-chapter III, Part III, Section 1481 of the United States Code, deals with the potential loss of US nationality by a native-born or naturalized citizen, the voluntary actions leading to such loss and the burden of proof to sustain the charges and the presumptions therein.
Simply put, the section349 (a) (7) states that a person can be stripped of his or her US citizenship for committing any act of treason against, or attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States, or conspiring to conduct any of these actions.
However, there is a glitch here – a constitutional one – that does not suit the expedient agenda of the hate-mongers like Lieberman. The law states that the offender can only be stripped of the citizenship “if and when he is convicted thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent jurisdiction”.
And why do Senators Lieberman and McCain despise this hurdle? The answer lies in section 349 (b) which states: “Whenever the loss of United States nationality is put in issue in any action or proceeding commenced on or after September 26, 1961 under, or by virtue of, the provisions of this chapter or any other Act, the burden shall be upon the person or party claiming that such loss occurred, to establish such claim by a preponderance of the evidence”.
Lieberman’s bill is completely in sync with the neocon methodology of prosecuting the war against terror, specifically in the Pak-Afghan theater, in the wham, bam, goodbye ma’m manner. They wanted to do it on the cheap and got the thugs like Ismail Khan and Rashid Dostum to do the donkeywork so the neocons could divert the resources to attacking a sovereign Iraq. On the Pakistani side, the action was outsourced to a military dictator and his corrupt jihadist Army.
The lazy and incompetent US planners in the Bush era – the motley bunch around Holbrooke not being far behind - never wanted to confront the complete monopoly of the Saudi Wahhabism over the mosque-centers in the USA. The previous US administrations had turned a blind eye to this Wahhabist coup because of their unholy alliance with the world Wahhabism against the Soviets.
Whereas no accurate data is available on the ethno-national background of American Muslims, the majority is of Indo-Pakistani-Bangladeshi descent. No concerted effort – by these communities or the US planners - has ever been made to free them from the chokehold of the minority Wahhabi lobby.
While pretending to be non-denominational, most Muslim groups in the USA serve as a front for the Wahhabi-Salafi ideology of hate. Their alleged financing by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states has been a subject of much writing but no official probe.
They systematically exclude people subscribing to the moderate Sufi, Shiite, openly Hanafi/Barelvi or other variants of Islam, from holding key positions within these outfits. So strong is the Wahhabi control, that in most mosques, run by these groups, the customary Friday prayer sermon is delivered only by members of these groups.By one account, ISNA alone controls about 2000 mosques in the USA. This is a whole lot of intolerant pulpits at the disposal of Wahhabist ideology to indoctrinate the vulnerable South Asian Muslim-Americans.
A vicious web of bigotry and intolerance has been allowed to flourish and prosper in the USA because the US decision-makers did not want to alienate their Saudi friends, who are the actual lords and masters of the Wahhabism Inc. While this multitude of Islamic groups, serve as the eyes, ears and sword-arm of the Wahhabism Inc. in the USA, the nerve-center and training grounds remain in Saudia and Pakistan, respectively.
After any terrorist attack, like the recent one in Times Square, the websites of these outfits are swiftly populated with boiler-plate statements condemning the dastardly act and pledging solidarity with the “adopted homeland”. But in private and many public conversations their leadership cannot hide their designated apologist status for Wahhabist terrorism.
For three decades Libermans and McCains of the world have collaborated with the Wahhabist maniacs like Faisal Shahzad across the continents,while majority of Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans stood up against two military dictatorships and a whole slue of Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Along with the hundreds of thousands of Pakistani progressives, I hold my head high, for confronting Islamism from the get go. We would not apologize for Faisal Shahzad’s actions – for we have stood against his ilk throughout our adult life, while Lieberman’s kind has financed, armed and trained the antecedents of such bigots. I would not be labeled an AFEA.
It is important to not let Joe Lieberman or Faisal Shahzad define who the Pakistani-Americans are. Yes, we denounce the past, present or future acts of terror but more than that, we demand and want to be part of a process that takes a proactive approach to this problem.
Senator Lieberman and his coterie must realize that even to create a cultural détente, let alone a rapprochement between the US and the Muslim world, we need to wrestle back the control of the mosque-centers from the Wahhabi-Salafi enterprise headquartered in Riyadh. This nerve center of fear should not be protected any longer.
The secular and progressive American-Pakistani individuals and organizations are up to the challenge and might indeed be the only viable vehicle to change the face of American Islam.
Attempts at witch-hunt against common Pakistani-Americans through convoluted legislation, suspension of civil liberties and blatant violations of the due process however, would only go to show the other face of fear.
(Author practices and teaches Medicine at the University of Florida and contributes to think-tanks www.politact.com & Aryana Institute. Email: mazdaki@me.com)
