Muslim Activists Reject Secular Fundamentalism By Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington Correspondent http://www.islam-online.net/english/News/2002-04/23/article17.shtml WASHINGTON, April 22 (IslamOnline) - Secular fundamentalism is just as much a threat to liberty as religious fundamentalism, according to speakers at the Minaret of Freedom Institute's annual dinner Sunday night. Personal stories of tribulations suffered by the speakers in the name of secular democracy shed light on the need for a better understanding of the relationship between Islam and freedom. The two speakers, Merve Kavacki - an elected Turkish parliamentarian who was removed from office because of the hijab (Islamic headcovering) she wears, and Sami Al-Arian, a tenured University of South Florida professor who is under threat of dismissal because of his activism, were described by the evening's moderator as victims of intolerance. "These are both people who have suffered from secular extremism," said Imad ad-Dean Ahmad, a professor at the University of Maryland who heads the Minaret of Freedom Institute, a Washington-based Islamic think tank that devotes itself to studying the relationship between Islam and freedom, appealing to both Muslims and non-Muslims for better understanding. Its fifth annual dinner took place in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington. Both speakers have addressed audiences time and again about the causes they represent - freedom of statement, freedom of religion, decrying the use of secret evidence, and supporting the Palestinian cause - but on Sunday night, they shared with the audience personal sagas that have fueled their activism. "The basic human right of a Muslim woman, denied by a Muslim country, was respected by a secular, predominantly non-Muslim country," said Kavacki, explaining the difference between democracy in Turkey and in the United States, and expressing her gratefulness for that, despite her concerns about civil liberties for American Muslims presently. Kavacki explained how she had been nominated, had campaigned, and had been elected to parliament by a landslide with her hijab - yet when the day came to take her oath in the Turkish Parliament, "Hell broke loose," and Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told his deputies to "put this woman in her place." Turkey, a staunchly secular but mostly Muslim country, forbids Muslim women from wearing the required headcovering if they are serving in public office or attending universities; Kavacki, ever since her 1999 fiasco, has been fighting against this rule in a country claiming to be a democracy. Kavacki worried that instead of Turkey taking its lessons in democracy from the U.S., the U.S. was taking lessons from Turkey in cracking down on Muslims - exemplified by the federal raids of Muslim institutions and homes in northern Virginia on March 20 that profoundly shook the surrounding Muslim community. She said that Muslims seem always on the defensive about their religion - even while being victims, they "are still sitting in the defendant's chair," she said. "Even today, when Muslims are being burned alive in India and even when their houses are bulldozed by tanks in Israel, we find ourselves as Muslims in an apologetic mode." Addressing the key issue of the evening - secularization - she said that it is always the "enemies of Islam" who are behind every effort to secularize or modernize Muslim countries. "Isn't the secularization of Islam an oxymoron? For the religion cannot be separated from itself," she said. While Kavacki's story touched on the definitions of secularism and democracy as illustrated by her experiences in Turkey, Minaret board member Aly Abuzaakouk introduced Al-Arians story as the saga of an American family. Al-Arian's American "saga" began in 1975 when he arrived in the country at the age of 17. A Palestinian born in Kuwait, he said his family was always involved in Islamic activism, and when the first Intifada broke out in 1987, he worked hard to promote the Palestinian cause. In the early 1990s, he was part of an effort to create an organization to challenge the idea of "the clash of civilizations." "We thought we didn't need a clash of civilizations, we need a dialogue of civilizations," he said. The World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), based in Florida, was intended to bring Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals together for dialogue, to hold roundtable discussions and produce volumes of their studies, he said. But "a lot of people didn't like what we were producing and started attacking us." When a former WISE leader left the country, only to turn up later as the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Arian said, "all hell broke loose," - echoing Kavacki. Al-Arian, a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, was put on paid leave for two years; his home was raided, and WISE was investigated and finally collapsed; nothing was ever found to incriminate him. At that point, Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen al-Najjar, who had a work permit for the U.S. but could not find anything, was offered political asylum in return for becoming an informant; when he refused, Al-Arian said, "they introduced secret evidence." It is Al-Arian's activism against the use of secret evidence - which he describes as the defendant being asked to defend himself without being told what he is being accused of - that he is best known for in the American Muslim community. Of the 29 individuals held under secret evidence after the 1996 anti-immigration legislation was passed, 28 were Muslims. Al-Najjar, who has three U.S.-born children and was never convicted of anything related to terrorism, spent more than three years in prison while being dubbed a "national security threat" by his detractors. After a federal judge ruled that there was no evidence against him, he was released, only to be picked up again after September 11 on a visa violation. Now, with nothing more than that being held against him, he is held under 23-hour lockdown, is strip-searched naked every time he wants to leave the cell, is allowed only 15 minutes a week to call his family, and is escorted around chained hand and foot, Al-Arian said. He has now been in these circumstances for five and a half months, Al-Arian said, "not for anything he has done, but simply because of who he is and what he represented." Post-September 11, things turned ugly for Al-Arian again, after he appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News channel on September 26 in which he said he was smeared by "a classic guilt by association type of thing," and received a death threat that very night. Two weeks of intense media coverage led to what he described as a "Kafka-esque" university board of trustees meeting, in which the trustees decided to recommend Al-Arian's termination, primarily because "I did not make it clear that I was not speaking on behalf of the university I came to campus once after they told me not to come, which they didn't tell me and I disrupted the campus because of death threats." Al-Arian has garnered support from the American Association of University Professors, as well as Muslims and civil liberties activists all over the country, but the university's president is still considering his termination, and he remains "in limbo," he said. He told the audience that the battle for civil rights had to be won before Muslims became politically empowered in the United States, but "I have no doubt that we're going to win. It's just a matter of time." Both Al-Arian and Kavacki urged listeners to get involved in lobbying representatives. "We have to take this opportunity to push the American public to put everything in perspective," Kavacki told IslamOnline, calling on Muslims to raise the consciousness of federal and local government. "Lobbying really works." Al-Arian added that in addition to political action, "We need your duaa [prayers]; we need your very sincere duaa." |