PRESS RELEASE
March 9, 2011, Dallas, Texas
Mike Ghouse, president of the World Muslim Congress welcomes the initiative by Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security to hold the hearings on Islamic radicalism.
It is our duty to keep law and order and faithfully guard the safety of every citizen. Hate is one of the many sources of disrupting the peace in a society and it is our responsibility to seek the source of such hate and work to mitigate it.
Indeed, the last few attempts to mess with our nation’s security has come from men flaunting the Muslim label, and as Muslim Americans, it becomes our individual and collective responsibility to participate in ensuring the safety of every American, and we welcome the hearings. We hope it will lead us to find the sources and causes of such erratic behavior, and perhaps point out areas of concerns to be addressed and find lasting solutions.
We have to identify the criminals who are individually accountable for their actions, and need to punish them expediently according to the law. As a civil society, we must also resist the temptation to blame their family, nation and religion, and not fall for and legitimize their attempts to hide under a religious label for their evil acts. The use of phrases such as Islamic Radicalism is oxymoronic and must be avoided to uphold our civility.
As Americans together and Muslims together, we are planning to organize conferences and workshops on terrorism, anti-Semitism, Sharia, Quran, GLBT, racial profiling, Islamophobia and other issues which pit one American against another. We hope to separate realities from myths to help find solutions.
Mike Ghouse is the founder of America Together foundation, committed to building cohesive societies offering pluralistic solution on the issues of the day. His work is indexed in 4 websites and 21 Blogs at http://www.mikeghouse.net/
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FURTHER RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS:
I welcome hearings on Islam
I welcome the hearings, Muslims have nothing to fear and nothing to worry, let the man fall flat on his face “if” he resorts to untruths. What if he turns out to be honest and finds guys like Shehzad? Then we owe him gratitude, not just Muslims but the whole nation.
We all should be concerned about the hearings and hope and pray that Mr. King would be honest, sincere and fair, although his record is marred with bigotry. We hope he will not destroy the fabric of our society and pit one American against the other.
Acknowledging that “some of our own” are a security threat to our nation is the right thing to do; Mr. King is not the right one to do that with his own bias and his support for IRA terrorism. We Muslims should have done it ourselves, since we did not, we have to accept the bad choice of Mr. King.
I trust our Systems and the moral goodness of our nation, if Mr. King takes the wrong step, the American people will not put up with it, as they have done that time and again. I trust the Americans, the moderate Americans who are a majority and have supported and turned around Vietnam War, Iraq war, abortion issues, civil rights and other issues.
Just as we produced the Quraan conference in Dallas to evaporate the lies the right wingers had propagated, this will perhaps become the first nail in their coffin and hope they will stop pitting one American against the other to have political gains.
Solutions abound.
If nothing else comes from the hearings, one thing is for sure. Muslims are not a monolithic lot and they are no different than any of the 301 million of us. Each one of has a different thumb print, eye print, DNA, different sizes, shapes and colors, political affiliations. Let there be different faiths or no faiths as well. That is God’s universe.
Hearing is good, I trust our system
http://peterkinghearings.blogspot.com/2011/03/hearing-is-good-i-trust-our-system.html
King will hammer the first nail in right-wing coffin
Muslims should have taken this approach,
As a civil society, we must also resist the temptation to blame their family, nation and religion and not legitimize their attempts to hide under a religious label for their evil acts.
Phrases such as "Islamic radicalism" are oxymoron and must be avoided to uphold our civility.
Mike Ghouse, President
World Muslim Congress
