Civil Rights In Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims

by Elaine C. Hagopian (Editor)

Muslims and Arab-Americans are increasingly under attack as a result of the US 'war on terror' - at home, as well as abroad. Since the tragic events of September 11, Arab and Muslim Americans have faced a major assault on their civil liberties. While targeting vulnerable groups and drawing on racist stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims, these measures threaten millions of people, including immigrants, activists, trade unionists, academics, writers, and anyone who the government wishes to define as a 'threat' to national security. The Patriot Act and new immigration laws primarily aimed at Muslims and Arabs have greatly expanded federal powers and eroded longstanding civil liberties. The US government has used its expanded powers to detain, deport, and try individuals, at times without access to lawyers or full disclosure of evidence and charges used against them. Civil Rights in Peril seeks to expose the impact of these new governmental powers on Muslims and Arabs, as well as other groups and individuals targeted as part of the Bush administration's 'war on terror', and to show how ordinary people can resist these attacks on our fundamental rights. This powerful anthology, edited by the well-known scholar and activist Elaine Hagopian, includes essays by Samih Farsoun, Naseer Aruri, Susan Akram, Nancy Murray, Robert Morlino and William Youmans.

Genres: Politics

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2004

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

ESSAYS WRITTEN IN THE AFTERMATH OF POST-9/11 ‘ANTITERRORIST ACTIVITIES’

[NOTE: Goodreads has the wrong BOOK COVER for this book.]

Editor Elaine Hagopian is a Syrian-American sociologist and activist; she is professor emeritus (and former chairperson) of sociology at Simmons College in Boston.

She wrote in the Preface of this 2004 book, “The emergence of the United States as the sole superpower after the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s coincided with the rise and solidification of the new radical Right, which brought together neoconservatives, Evangelicals, and the pro-Israel lobby… the neoconservatives favored an American global expansion secured through … unilateral, preventative war unrestrained by international law. The oil-rich and strategically located central Asian and Middle Eastern regions were seen as the trigger areas for this bold enterprise…. Afghanistan and Iraq were the first candidates for preventative war. Iraq, however, was the priority target.

“The abhorrent events of September 11, 2001, provided a mobilizing banner under which the new strategy and goal of global reach could be pursued. The pre-September 11 ‘war on terrorism’ which had singled out Arabs and Muslims, was given vigorous new life. The post-September 11 focus on terrorism allowed the Bush administration … to enact laws and legislation in rapid succession that abridged human and civil rights. Arabs and Muslims in the United States were targeted for investigation and prosecution under these laws. The demonization of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists … fed prejudice and accelerated ‘legal’ discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in the United States.

“This book analyzes the way that the demonization of Arab and Muslim communities facilitates the legal, political, and social diminution of their civil and human rights… The targeting of Arabs and Muslims as the ‘enemy within’ and the creation of new legislation, regulations, data banks, and technologies that potentially affect every citizen and noncitizen bring particular urgency to this project. The intention of this volume is to lay bare the interplay of domestic and foreign policy that must be understood if we are to reverse the dangerous course on which the nation is embarked and restore rights guaranteed under the US Constitution.”

In the first essay, M. Cherif Bassiouni states, “the nation has never before seen a more systematic erosion of civil rights than after 9/11. This has taken the form of undermining the legal system, coupled with egregious government abuses of power, all in the name of combatting terrorism. The targets of these measures have been Arabs and Muslims, but the effects extend to everyone.” (Pg. 1)

Susan M. Akram and Kevin R. Johnson assert, “The ADL [Anti-Defamation League] has… sought to silence pro-Muslim and pro-Arab speakers from engaging in public debate concerning the Middle East… The full extent of the ADL’s activities against Arabs did not come to light until January 1993, when … an FBI investigation of a veteran San Francisco Police Department officer and and ADL-paid undercover agent became public. Law enforcement authorities uncovered computerized files on thousands of Arab Americans and information on Arab organizations, as well as other mainstream organizations.” (Pg. 13)

Nancy Murray notes, “In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, some 1200 people, most of them Arab, South Asian, and Muslim citizens and noncitizens, were arrested and questioned and the FBI, INS, and state and local law enforcement… Of this number, 762 noncitizens were placed on the ‘INS Custody List’ because the FBI thought ‘they may have had a connection to the September 11 attacks or terrorism in general,' or because the FBI was unable, at least initially, to determine whether they were connected to terrorism… Not one of these ‘special interest’ detainees … has been linked to the September 11 attacks.” (Pg. 31) She adds, “Most of the detainees were charged with civil violations of immigration law, such as overstaying a visa… The Justice Department inspector general found that the average time to clear a detainee was 80 days.” (Pg. 33-34)

Robert Morlino observes, “though President Bush stood in the Islamic Center of Washington D.C., six days [after 9/11] and assured the world that the ‘war on terror’ was not also a war on Islam, his words did little in the vast echo chamber of the mass media to counter the many other voices, some of them sadly trusted by the public, who instructed otherwise.” (Pg. 71)

Will Youmans states, “Starting with the premise of an international Islamic threat, advocates of an aggressive domestic-foreign policy tend to agree broadly on several positions… The formula of security at all costs---even at the expense of minority groups and foreign populations---is borrowed from Israel, the network’s primary model and ally.” (Pg. 115)

Nasser Aruri quotes George McGovern about George Bush: "The President frequently confides to individuals and friendly audiences that he is guided by God’s hand. But if God guided him into an invasion of Iraq, He sent a different message to the Pope, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches and many distinguished rabbis---all of whom believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God’s will. In all due respect, I suspect that Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice---and other sideline warriors—are the gods (or goddesses) reaching the ear of our President.” (Pg. 171)

He points out that “Senator Edward Kennedy [said]… that the Bush administration has failed to account for nearly half of the $4 billion the war is costing each month. [Kennedy] said that he believes that much of the unaccounted-for money is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send in troops…” (Pg. 187)

Elaine Hagopian observes, “It should be clear that the aggressive, unilateral US policies and actions in the Middle East and Central Asia, a predominantly Arab and Muslim area, ipso facto draw their support from the American public by constantly generating fear of Arabs and Muslims as whole communities.” (Pg. 235)

This book provides, in addition to ‘historical’ details, interesting parallels with the current actions taken against ‘illegals’ in this country.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

First two parts were excellent analyses and commentaries on both the social and legal state of muslims in the US, third part is a lot of is US foreign policy of empire in the Middle East which feels largely out-dated now in many ways.