Employees at the nonprofit agency Senior Services were extremely moved-- with some even in tears-- at the end of an emotional training program conducted by CAIR-WA on December 19, 2011. Designed to improve cultural competency, the program in downtown Seattle was organized by CAIR-WA Volunteer Coordinator Kelsey Caudebec and Outreach Coordinator Bushra Rahim, along with Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari.
Following the introductions from the participants, Bushra and guest speaker Shaykh Qasim Hatem, a scholar at the Mihraab Foundation in Bellevue, explained to the audience the fundamentals of Islam. During his presentation, Qasim sought to challenge many of the misconceptions around Islam and expressed the need to re-appropriate the word ‘Jihad’. “This is often mistranslated. Jihad doesn’t mean holy war…..It actually means the struggle against something. This could be the struggle and strife you go through your life trying to accomplish your goals, or it could be the struggle against yourself, which is considered the greatest jihad…. Jihad in reality is a beautiful thing.”
After the ‘Islam 101’ session, there was a presentation by Arsalan on ‘Challenging Islamophobia’. According to him, Islamophobia is getting strong going by the increase in hate crimes towards Muslims that have been reported to CAIR-WA since 2009. (Over 12 cases in the past two years, compared to 3-4 per year in previous years).
One prominent case to which CAIR-WA responded involved two women being verbally and physically abused at a Tukwila, WA gas station in October, 2010. The two women came to CAIR-WA, which consequently pushed the authorities for action and ultimately succeeded with the perpetrator serving a jail term for the hate crime.
Another example of Islamophobia, according to Arsalan, can be seen in the controversy surrounding the citizenship status of President Barak Obama. “Now suppose he was Muslim, what difference does it make?” said Arsalan. “The fact is that it isn’t true. But it was used to smear him and it was made to imply that (if he is Muslim) he is not fit for the position. (But) In the constitution, is there a religious test for office?” He then concluded by encouraging the audience to be proactive and counter Islamophobia when it occurs by responding to it directly and reporting it to CAIR-WA.
BORDER ISSUES
A CAIR-WA civil rights client then came in to relate to the audience the terrible experiences he has had when re-entering the US through the US-Canadian land border. According to him, he has been detained at least three dozen times, with interrogations sometimes lasting 8 hours. One time upon returning to the US, following a trip to overseas, he got into a misunderstanding with officers at the airport and was detained at gunpoint. He said, “You have officers with guns looking at you, someone is telling you that you’re lying, that you’ll be going to jail. Imagine what it does to your psyche. It is total mental abuse, you experience things that as a human being I’ve never experienced before. To be so humiliated, so dispirited, to not be able to do anything, it was horrendous.”
And it is not just he who has suffered. A few years ago, his mother came to the US to visit her grandchildren but when she was leaving, the security personnel at the airport were so rough with her that she was traumatized by the experience and cried the whole flight back. It was so horrifying for her, that she told her son that she couldn’t come back to visit him anymore. “She said, ‘This is too horrifying for me, I’ve done nothing to deserve this.’”
The man decided he had enough and decided to take a stand after another forcible detention at the US-Canadian land border left him with a rotator cuff injury and a burst blood vessel in his wrist. After being released, he took his case to organizations such as CAIR-WA and ACLU-WA. “As a kid, it was my passion to go travelling and see the world. But it became ugly to me. They (border patrol) took the fun out of it.”
BORN IN THE USA
It was then the turn of Shaykh Qasim to talk about his experiences as a Muslim born and raised in the US. Qasim has an intimate connection to the growth of Islam in the US with his grandfather responsible for the establishment of a mosque in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that was the first to be officially recognized in the US. According to Qasim, he initially did not face any problems because he was a Muslim but started becoming the subject of various religious slurs after the first Gulf War. In order to deal with it, Qasim began to-- which he now realizes --internalize the abuse and resent his Muslim identity. “I began to think that I should be like everyone else ….. I just didn’t want to be myself.” He found that he excelled in sports though and that helped fulfill his need then to assimilate. He subsequently secured a football scholarship to the University of Washington and was part of the team that won the 2001 Rose Bowl.
After 9/11 though, things changed and people started treating him differently. He was being “randomly” searched every time he went through an airport and upon returning to the US after several years abroad pursuing Islamic studies, he found things have gotten even worse.
To challenge the rampant Islamophobia, Qasim now makes it a point of wearing a religious robe wherever he goes. “One of my reasons (behind wearing traditional clothing) is to break down stereotypes. So that when people see someone like me, they don’t automatically think terrorist. When people see me, they first feel threatened, but once I talk to them and lighten the mood, they get to know me and see that I’m human too.” Qasim takes his cue on how to deal with ignorance from the Prophet Mohammed. “In a war, once the prophet was hurt and someone else told him to pray to God so that he would destroy the prophet’s enemies. However, the prophet replied that because of his mercy, God should guide the prophet’s enemies, for verily they do not know.”
FEEDBACK
In the question and answer session, one of the participants had a query on how workplaces could best accommodate Muslim employees. Responding to the query, the need to have a clean prayer space was stressed with an indicator essential as to the direction of Mecca. There was even a mention made of respecting the tradition of breaking the fast at sun down during the month of Ramadan. This usually takes half an hour period after sundown and it would mean a great deal to Muslim employees if businesses chose not to schedule any important meetings during that time.
Giving her feedback on the training, one of the elderly Senior Services employees expressed her deep appreciation for what CAIR-WA had done. Speaking directly to Qasim, she said, “I appreciate that you had your traditional dress on. (If I had met you) on the street before today I would have never said anything to you (but now I would be more comfortable). We pass by people everyday, we have these pre-conceived notions of who they are. (What today’s training shows us is that) you don’t know who anybody is, until you hear their story.”
