In his recent piece "Republican Presidential Candidates on Islam," Mr. Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, signing his piece as a 'Muslim Chaplain, Attorney and PoliticalAnalyst' apparently implies that he expresses the views of the 'Muslim Americancommunity" simply by being an American Muslim critic of the Republican Party candidates to the Presidency.
Unfortunately, there are no representative institutions of millions of Muslims in America, elected by Muslim-American citizens from different ethnic backgrounds. Hence neither Mr. Amr Ruiz or anyone else can simply claim that Muslim Americans think in this or other direction. Amr Ruiz represents only himself when he postulates about Islam, Muslims, or any position adopted by any other US citizen, public figure or not, regarding anything Islamic. There have been too many lobby groups and self declared 'representatives' who unilaterally impose themselves as spokespersons for four or more million Americans who hail from more than 50 nationalities and ethnic backgrounds.& Amr Ruiz's article represents his own views and those of a select few Islamic organizations mentionedin his piece, including CAIR and others who represent themselves and not the views of the community as a whole. The day that we have a Millet system in this country so that religious communities would elect their own representatives to federal levels, then the elected officials for Muslim-Americans can claim this representation. Until then, there are no edict or fatwas accepted as expressing the authoritative view of Muslim Americans. Each one speaks for him- or herself in this community, as is the case for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Bahais, or Atheists.
In addition, Amr Ruiz's position does not represent the views of Muslim-American conservatives. He may represent the views of Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists, or political Islamists in the US, but certainly not MuslimAmerican Republicans. He doesn't represent US citizens from Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Lebanese, Sudanese, Pakistani, Iranian, Libyan, Nigerian, and other nationalities nor does he necessarily represent African Americans or all converts from other nationalities, who happen to be members of, or supporters of the Republican Party. We are an extremely diverse community and our conservatism is as diverse as all other Americans. Most "Conservative Muslims" reject the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact most Muslim conservatives are secular as similar to views expressed by theAmerican Islamic Forum for Democracy led by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser. Republican leaders and candidates are less likely to be pressured by anyone claiming representation ofAmerican Muslim Republicans. The latter Muslim Conservatives are very diverse: onforeign affairs they can support Hamas but also the PLO, the regime in Sudan but also Darfur, the Iranian regime but also the Green Movement, Hezbollah but also Hariri, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt but also the Wafd and April 6. It is a gross misnomer that all Muslim American conservatives think alike, and certainly not like the Muslim Brotherhood exclusively. The author may well support the MB, but not the majority of those he claim to express in his blog.
Amer Ruiz also blunders as he expresses his own views of how Republican candidates view Islam and Muslims. Amer Ruiz attacks Herman Cain on the grounds that the African American conservative "unreasonably argues that it's not religious discrimination for a community to ban a mosque." Well, there are many Muslim Americans who very reasonably oppose the erection of a Mosque at a particular location at a particular junction of American history. This is a matter of Muslim debate and American debate, it is not a matter of political fatwa by Islamist pressure groups. Besides, in Muslim majority countries there are way more debates about where to build Mosques. The critique of Cain's position on "appointing or not Muslims to his cabinet" though is legitimate and needs to be addressed.
Amer Ruiz considers Governor Perry's position regarding the Muslim Americancommunity as acceptable because the Governor "signed a Halal Law, which makes it a criminal offense to sell Halal and non-Halal meat in the same store without specifically labeling the two and to misrepresent non-Halal meat as being Halal." Amer Ruiz jumps over Perry's sharp pro-Israel positions and forgets them, just to make his point. Perry has stated "It is time to change our policy of appeasement toward the Palestinians to strengthen our ties to the nation of Israel, and in the process establish a robust American position in the Middle East characterized by a new firmness and a new resolve," Perry said, criticizing President Obama as lax in his approach.
This is a stark reminder that the issue of Palestine and foreign conflicts can be used to criticize some candidates and erased to push for another candidate. Following is evidence of Amr Ruiz's "Taqqiya".
The center of the Islamist lobby attack in their position towards Republican candidates is Mitt Romney, who had almost no statements about the religion or the community, unlike most others. Here is how Amr Ruiz zoomed in on the greater threat to the Islamist lobby produced by Romney. He writes:
"Mitt Romney's relations with the American Muslim community have not been smooth. Recently, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) asked the presidential hopeful for the ouster of Dr. Walid Phares a recently appointed foreign policy adviser to his team. Phares authored "Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America" and also acts as an advisor to the U.S. Congress on the Middle East. According to CAIR he worked as an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian militia, and other militias that reportedly took part in various massacres of Muslims. The controversialappointment has certainly created a wave of controversy within theAmerican Muslim community that waits for Romney to take their concerns into consideration."
In the eyes of observers from the Muslim American community, including the silent majority and non Islamists among them, it is the appointment of a leading scholar on Jihadism that is considered as 'catastrophic" to the interests of the Islamists in the US and worldwide. Indeed, Professor Walid Phares is -via his books and articles- la bete noire of Wahabis, Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeinists. Amr Ruiz repeats the lies and fabrications of Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR and Hezbollah propagandists in America. First the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) doesn't represent the majority ofMuslim Americans. CAIR represents the "Islamists" not the "Muslims." It is, according to published research and reports, a front for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. One of its officials was indicted for Terrorism act in 2002 and is now serving a sentence in jail. That Terrorist, Ismael Royer triggered a smearing campaign against Walid Phares for years, which was picked up by CAIR's boss Nihad Awad this year.
Before he immigrated to the US, a quarter of a century ago, Phares was an author and a head of a social democratic group represented in the political coalition of parties in what was then East Beirut, a largely Christian zone of Lebanon during the conflict. By the words of young Muslim writers Phares is not only an author promoting pluralism in his books, but is considered as a hero to liberal Muslims in the region.
According to leadingexperts on Lebanon, Phares' scholarship, including his prescient book "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East"promotes secular democratic change in the region. Professor Walid Phares is a top expert on the Arab Spring and democratic revolutions in the Middle East, an expertise resented by the Islamists who are trying to influence US Foreign Policy via the current dominant elite of American Middle East studies.
In short CAIR, those who are pro-Iranian regime, and their blogger - armies fear Romney's advisor more than all the other candidates statements combined.
Amr Ruiz criticizes Newt Gingrich for being scornful regarding Muslims in a so-called "Muslim hysteria." He blast Gingrich for daring to compare "the Islamic Community Center project to building a Nazi monument outside the Holocaust Museum." Cutting and pasting out of context the blogger states that this "very insensitive position will take more than a simple apology -- not that it is expected -- to amend." But the blogger ignores that the same position was uttered in Muslim liberal debates online. Arab Muslim bloggers call the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies the Salafists as "fascists and Nazis" not Gingrich. Amr Ruiz should help his readers to understand the debate, not confuse them about it.
Then he accuses Michele Bachman of stating that "Muslims are not assimilating in France." What is the value of such an "accusation" when French Muslim leaders and secularists have been making the same statements and French Muslim clerics are calling on their adherents to assimilate as soon as possible into French society?
Amr Ruiz blasts Senator Rick Santorum, accusing him of joining "Gingrich's Islam-bashing team, expressing misleading comments on the question of sharia taking over the U.S. court system," framing the debate in a propagandist fashion The debate about Sharia and court system is not just in the US, but also in Europe, India, and the Muslim world. There is as much resistance to imposing or even introducing religious laws so secular systems in Indonesia (the largest Muslim country) than in Michigan. The question of Sharia in court is not an Islamophobic phenomenon in the US, it is a worldwide debate including among Muslims. However, propagandists in North America portray any rejection of Sharia as some sort of abuse, when it is just the opposite. Imposing Sharia is the abuse, and everything in between is subject to discussion.
Indicatively Amer Ruis celebration of John Huntsman's and Ron Paul's "politically correct" attitudes on all things Islamic reveals what CAIR and Iranianregime lobbies seek for Republicans to adopt. Huntsman and Paul in particular adopt the exact talking points the Muslim Brotherhood wants Western politicians to broadcast, namely it is all the fault of American Foreign Policy. Fortunately, these talking points are far from biting within the popular bases of the Republican Party and even within the moderates and left of center folks inside the Democratic Party.
The bloggerconcludes that "the comments and actions that vilify Islam and Muslims -- or any other religion and its practitioners -- by the Republican Party presidential hopefuls show an evident betrayal of commitment to the freedom of religion consecrated in the U.S. Constitution. Exploiting Muslims for political gain will undoubtedly alienate them from a significant section of the voting public who hold religion dear to their hearts." This very traditional propaganda typically attempts to intimidate Republican candidates and accuse them of wrong doing against Muslim Americans. It is a tall order and twisted attempt to hijack Muslims' political will in this country and use it in US politics as not just as a surrogate to the Obama campaign, but more dangerously as a surrogate to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Republicans are very sensitive to religious freedom as they have been the ones introducing many, if not all of religious freedom legislation that have become laws since 1998. Republicans and Democrats are both united in defending civil liberties at home and freedoms overseas. But Islamists are the ones abusing American political culture and laws to deter US politicians from agreeing on the appropriate principles to push back against the Jihadists and the Islamist dictatorships in the region. CAIR, the pro-Iranianregime groups, and their surrogates in the US are the real foes of Muslims at home and worldwide. Apparently, their goal is to confuse Americans and drive a wedge between their politicians so that they can crush seculars, liberals, women, minorities and democracy seekers in the Muslim World.
Family Security Matters Contributor Ali Abdallah is a writer on Muslim and Arab affairs in the West.