Open Letter to Representative Peter King

Dear Representative King,
It is regrettable that instead of working with your party to find an amenable solution to the budget crisis, you have opted to drive a fork into the American community by targeting Muslim Americans for acts committed by a small minority of their community. In calling this series of hearings, not only are you stigmatizing law-abiding Arabs and Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, you are heightening Islamophobia in a way that is reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy’s attack on alleged communists in the 1950s.
Why must the United States Congress be dealing with this in such a grandiose way and what does it aim to accomplish? I have watched the hearings and the most telling sign of a hearing gone astray is reducing Muslim American Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) to tears at the recounting of a story of Muslim American patriotism during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Not to mention how polarizing it is among members on both sides of the aisle. What the Congress should be doing, as one intelligence expert claims, is rethinking its “reductionist theory” of homegrown radicalization – that is, that Muslims turn into terrorists simply based on religious markers such as stopping drinking or smoking. The truth is that it is just “not that simple.”

The United States intelligence service spends upwards of $80 billion to understand just what you are trying to accomplish (with varying results). Would it not be more worthwhile to the American people if you had a more reputable list of speakers that provided testimony on intelligence strategy altogether? We condone the FBI conducting raids on mosques and ethnic communities, but do not think twice about the possible consequences in targeting a particular ethnic group. Cooperation with law-enforcement is a two-way street: Muslim Americans would most likely be more inclined to oblige with law-enforcement officials if they accorded them the same respect that any other American community receives.
When non-Muslim Americans such as Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, or Jared Lee Loughner perpetrate independent acts of violence, Congress seems to perfunctorily cast them aside as isolated cases of insanity, perverted ideology, or both. Yet in doing so, it fails as a body to thoroughly examine the steps of their own “radicalization.” Why are such offenders not afforded a more thorough examination?
I would also like to echo Jon Stewart’s astute observation, Rep. King. In the 1980s, you said the following in declaring your support of the Irish Republican Army, an internationally recognized terrorist group:
“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.” In light of attacks on civilians by the IRA at the time, you went on to state, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.”
In defending these statements of IRA criminal activities against “British imperialism,” you claim it to be justified since they are not occurring on American soil. I cannot help but realize the inherent hypocrisy of your statement, however.
Would all this not mean that if you were a British member of Parliament, you would endorse the attacks of American terrorists against the government since they were not occurring on British soil? If we are selective in our view of terrorism, we run the perilous cost of alienating our own and not tackling pressing problems head-on.
Finally, I would like to comment on the way in which this scenario ominously parallels the “us” versus “them” scenario commonly associated with the racist sentiment this country embraced during the era of Jim Crow.
In talking to CBS News, Rep. King, you called out to young Muslim Americans and said, “the future is theirs.” Is this an ultimatum of some sort to do as the government wishes or be unjustly assailed? If these young Americans speak out against invasive government practices, are they to be labeled as “un-American” and “jihadists”? We as Americans should be looking for ways to unite against extremism. We should not be afraid to discuss rational ways of curbing domestic extremist influences, yet we should not support stereotypical views that only serve to engulf the nation in turmoil.
Rep. King, please do the truly American thing and adjourn these hearings.
Sincerely,
Naji Filali
Photo Credits: United Press International