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Cartoons, riots offend N.J. Muslims
The Bergen Record, Thursday, February 9, 2006
By MAYA KREMEN and MARGARET K. COLLINS
STAFF WRITERS
Aref Assaf didn't like the incendiary drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that ran
in a Danish newspaper last September. He didn't like the recent news footage of
Muslims setting fire to European embassies, either.
"I'm definitely offended by the cartoons," said Assaf, president of the American
Arab Forum, a Denville-based think tank. "And I'm equally offended by the
hysteria and violent response to them."
Like many Muslims in North Jersey, he is caught between two opposite poles --
the anti-Islamic sentiments some say the drawings represent, and the fury they
unleashed among Muslims worldwide.
European newspapers have republished the cartoons, one depicting the prophet
with a bomb in his turban; this despite the fact that, to prevent idolatry,
Islam forbids images of its chief prophet.
Reactions to the cartoons have turned violent. Crowds set European embassies in
Damascus, Tehran and Beirut afire, and protesters have been killed by security
forces in Afghanistan. World leaders, caught between the issues of free press
and religious sensitivities, are urging non-violent protest and dialogue.
Nizar Nasser, who listens all day to radio reports about the protests in his
Islamic clothing warehouse on Paterson's Railway Avenue, argued that "violence
wasn't the solution." But he said that he understood the feelings behind it.
"They were pushed to do that," said Nasser, who is originally from Jordan. "The
violence has to stop, but they can't be blamed 100 percent. The people who
started it should be blamed."
Opinions about "who started it" differ. Nasser claimed at first it was the
Danish newspaper. Then he paused to say that the conflict between the Muslim
world and the West has much deeper roots.
"If you don't bother [Muslims], they're not going to bother you," he said. "But
throughout history, there's always someone hurting them, and they react."
Waheed Kahlid, a prominent member of Darul Islah mosque in Teaneck, sees the
cartoons as one more in a laundry list of injustices to Muslims -- from their
detention in U.S. jails, to denial of their visas, to wiretapping of private
citizens' phone lines.
He worries that beyond projecting a negative message about Islam, the cartoons
will further incite Muslims throughout the world.
"It's going to divide us further apart," he said "It's going to make things more
difficult to resolve."
The cartoons added to the sentiment that Islam is under attack, said Mohammad
Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County.
"Muslims all over the world, they believe that their religion is targeted," he
said.
Still, Muslims in the U.S. won't be incited to violence anytime soon, said
Assaf. The chance that Muslims here will take to the streets or participate in
riots like the ones that occurred in France last year is slim, he said.
"We tend to be more educated, have more rights and have assimilated more," said
Assaf. "We do feel that the laws are there to protect us. There is that
deep-seated hatred that's brewing in many European communities not found here."
For leaders who worked hard after 9/11 to depict Islam as a religion of peace,
seeing a cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb, and then footage of rioting Muslims,
has been frustrating.
"Globally, it affects the Muslim community," said Faiza Ali, a former director
of the New Jersey Council of American Islamic Relations. "It's going to be
harder to battle those stereotypes. I guess people who don't know about Islam
would assume it's a violent religion."
Qatanani and other Muslim leaders have spoken out against the violence in their
sermons and encouraged more peaceful forms of protest such as letter writing,
e-mails and educating non-Muslims about the prophet. The Council on American
Islamic Relations condemned on Tuesday the announcement by an Iranian paper that
it would publish cartoons lampooning the Holocaust. Last week, the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee called for "an open and constructive dialogue" and
condemned any violent reactions to the Muhammad cartoons.
"We got hurt, but we should react in the right way," said Hiyam Rimawi, vice
principal of Al-Hikmah Islamic School in Prospect Park. "The right way to react
is to reach the people and show them that all the prophets -- one God sent them.
Give them more knowledge."
Copyright © 2006 North Jersey Media Group Inc. |
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