My (Muslim) Fellow American

Ten years ago - a week after the 9/11 attacks I drafted an editorial for New Jersey Lawyer "We Are All New Yorkers Now".  It reflected on the catastrophe and celebrated the spirit of national unity.  We were fortunate that George W. Bush honored that spirit and that he did not lapse into a tabloid rant about the Muslim threat.  He preached tolerance.  It was his finest moment as President.

Today there are still threats to that tolerance.  When a Christian fundamentalist slaughtered over 70 in Norway we did not conclude that Christians are dangerous.  But when a Muslim commits a crime too many blame Muslims.  There remain voices of intolerance, which are highlighted in the video below, a product of an educational campaign for tolerance: MyFellowAmerican.org

Accommodations: American Catholicism and Muslims in America

Thomas Nast's 1875 cartoon depicts Catholic priests as crocodiles seeking to devour American children

R. Scott Appleby, Director of the Kroc Institute International Peace Studies and John T. McGreevy, Dean of the College at Notre Dame comment, as historians of American Catholicism on the similarities between nativist anti-Catholic sentiment and the hostility to Muslims in America today.  Writing in the NYR (New York Review) blog here they ask  ` Should Muslims accede to popular sentiment and forego exercising their right to build near the World Trade Center?'  Appleby and McGreevy say NO:

Must Muslims unequivocally reject all forms of terrorism—especially those Muslims who wish to promote full Muslim participation in American society? Of course. But if the Catholic experience in the United States holds any lesson it is that becoming American also means asserting one’s constitutional rights, fully and forcefully, even if that assertion is occasionally taken to be insulting. The genius of the American experiment in religious liberty is precisely this long-term confidence that equal rights for all religious groups builds the loyalty every democratic society needs. Certainly American Catholics learned that lesson long ago.

h/t Religiousleftlaw.com

Countering the demagogues: Pope Benedict at Al_Hussein Bin Talal Mosque - 2009

Pope Benedict XVI at Dome of the Rock mosque, Jerusalem

As nativism and paranoia continue to flourish here (e.g. the current phony material circulating about praying Muslims blocking traffic every Friday in Manhattan refuted by truthorfiction.com), I thought it would be good to post the excerpt below from Pope Benedict XVI's address to Muslims last year in Jordan.

"Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures.

For this reason we cannot fail to be concerned that today, with increasing insistency, some maintain that religion fails in its claim to be, by nature, a builder of unity and harmony, an expression of communion between persons and with God. Indeed some assert that religion is necessarily a cause of division in our world; and so they argue that the less attention given to religion in the public sphere the better. 

Certainly, the contradiction of tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied. However, is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society? 

In the face of this situation, where the opponents of religion seek not simply to silence its voice but to replace it with their own, the need for believers to be true to their principles and beliefs is felt all the more keenly. Muslims and Christians, precisely because of the burden of our common history so often marked by misunderstanding, must today strive to be known and recognized as worshippers of God faithful to prayer, eager to uphold and live by the Almighty’s decrees, merciful and compassionate, consistent in bearing witness to all that is true and good, and ever mindful of the common origin and dignity of all human persons, who remain at the apex of God’s creative design for the world and for history."