I want to draw TMV readers’ attention to the article earlier this week in the NYT about Debbie Almontaser. An Arab-American woman, she started a school in Brooklyn last fall known as the Khalil Gibran International Academy. The goal was to bring young people of Arab descent together with those of other ethnicities in order to create a cadre of students who would become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”
But Almontaser was forced out, as a result of a chorus of concerned voices who think she is bent on the imposition of Islamic law, the spread of radicalism, or the promotion of terrorism. As the article notes, “despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.” At the front of this campaign is the radical conservative Daniel Pipes, who has worked to paint Almontaser’s school as a danger to this country’s very foundation. The NYT article provides the following context:
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, critics of radical Islam focused largely on terrorism, scrutinizing Muslim-American charities or asserting links between Muslim organizations and violent groups like Hamas. But as the authorities have stepped up the war on terror, those critics have shifted their gaze to a new frontier, what they describe as law-abiding Muslim-Americans who are imposing their religious values in the public domain.
Mr. Pipes and others reel off a list of examples: Muslim cabdrivers in Minneapolis who have refused to take passengers carrying liquor; municipal pools and a gym at Harvard that have adopted female-only hours to accommodate Muslim women; candidates for office who are suspected of supporting political Islam; and banks that are offering financial products compliant with sharia, the Islamic code of law. The danger, Mr. Pipes says, is that the United States stands to become another England or France, a place where Muslims are balkanized and ultimately threaten to impose sharia.
Heh, those female-only pool times are making you nervous, aren’t they? Not to mention those Muslim-catering banks. Islamic law here we come! Matt Eckel, writing at his excellent blog Rational International (definitely worth bookmarking), argues that such fearmongering is is badly misplaced and that it misses the broader point.
…to act as though minor accommodations to a few Islamic cultural practices represent the first step toward imposing sharia law in the United States is simply absurd… A good rule of thumb to keep in mind when talking about American politics – one that goes all the way back to the Alien and Sedition Acts – is that whenever someone starts talking about vague, underground, conspiratorial movements to radically alter the face of American society, it’s probably bull$@#!. The fact that a few cabbies won’t give you a ride because you’re carrying booze, or that a few colleges have put foot sinks in their bathrooms so that Muslim students can wash their feet before prayer without breaking their necks, or that for a few hours a week some pools are restricted to women, isn’t a sign of some nefarious plot to islamicize American society. It’s a sign that institutions are making some reasonable accommodations to the cultural practices of the people around them. It’s the very definition of an appropriate, balanced, liberal response to cultural difference. Last time I checked, after all, Christmas was still a Federal holiday. I doubt we’ll hear Mr. Pipes complaining about that any time soon.
What he said.