CAIR Asks South Dakota Governor to Veto Anti-Sharia Bill.

Have you heard about this bill?  Well it’s pissing me off and South Dakota isn’t the only state with one in process!  I urge you to click on the link above and read what the Council on  American-Islamic Relations has to say about it.  I’m not angry about it because  it once again demonstrates the appalling lack of understanding and intolerable amount of prejudice must be endured by Muslims in the United States. That deeply saddens me more than it pisses me off.  As an educator, I will do my best to fight against this kind of ignorance.    Americans are innately curious and open-minded, there is simply so much misinformation that has  so massively skewed perceptions.

I am annoyed, ok a little pissed off, that not only South Dakota, but approximately two dozen other state legislatures are wasting time on such frivolous bills when there are so many other pressing issues facing the states and our nation as a whole.  What’s all this talk I keep hearing about budget crunches,  fiscal austerity, and cutbacks?  Both Virginia and West Virginia have debated this kind of a law, as well.  These people, our elected representatives, don’t even understand our system of government, it seems. They pass frivolous, unnecessary legislation to prevent things that are already impossible, instead of dealing with real issues.

Just last night West Virginia announced that it would seek a waiver for the No Child Left Behind standards this year.   I do not wish to criticize that decision, as it may well have been the right one. The No Child Left Behind standards were highly problematic, perhaps lesson themselves than in the issues of properly funding  the educational systems that were supposed to help children reach them, among other things. I simply mention it because it is a salient example that there are many pressing, still unresolved issues at the state level.

There simply is no need for a law banning courts from considering sharia law. As this article from Mother Jones magazine and this from the Christian Science Monitor demonstrate, no one has been able to show any indication of the need. It is sure paranoia that is leading to the implementation of these laws. The United States is experiencing tough times right now, and in a classic pattern many here have taken to blaming powerless minorities and outsiders.  Hyperbolic comparisons to the Holocaust are far too common these days,  so please note that I’m not saying were are on the verge of a campaign to exterminate North American Muslims. But I do want to emphasize that we are living in a state of fear strong enough to convince more than 20 state legislatures to take up an issue that simply is not a threat.  What’s next, the Boogey Man?  This at a time and led by a political party that still questions climate change. Muslims are routinely subject to police and judicial harassment in this country, especially immigrants the very people who come to this country out of a commitment to our way of life.  That is shameful.
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And that brings me to the point that does make me angry, livid in fact!   I am outraged by such laws because I am an American who had inculcated in me from elementary school onward that each and every American was guarantee certain right by our Bill of Rights. I was taught, and came to believe, perhaps naively to this day, that these are inalienable, that what can only be deprived of them with just cause and through due process, and that they are based on universal rights.  Not everyone had them in fact, but they had them but divine right, and this country would guarantee them to it’s citizens.  I came to believe, naively I now understand, that the United States of America  exists as a kind of “shining city on a hill,” an example to the world.  I now understand how much and how often we fall short of that goal, a phrase that is commonly used to allude to the times that this country has deprived citizens of the rights our founding documents do clearly seem to promise.  It’s something of an understatement, though.  African-Americans are far from the only group not provided their rights, but they are certainly among the most egregiously wronged.  It took the law of the land over a century  to even make them full  persons  before the law, and another century or so to give them their full rights as citizens.  But as Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out in his most famous speech, the principal was always there.

So when do we plan to start learning from history?   In the 19th century Irish immigrants in many cities were victims of terrible violence  because they didn’t belong. That would be hard to imagine visiting a city like New York now,   but soon enough it would their turn to make Cubans and Puerto Ricans unwelcome.  And so it goes…

But we know better, and we can be better.  Sign the petition and pass it on.

If you think the laws are necessary, then you need to educate yourself, both about Islam and about our own systems of government. When it comes to learning about Islam, use scholarly books, not books by politicians, pundits and “analysts” who are usually on someone’s payroll and thus have a vested interest.  Try to avoid books by clerics, strident atheist, or people who don’t who due respect to the other faith, either.  If I may be so bold, I’d like to recommend the Arab Culture and Civilization Online Resource, not because I oversaw it’s creation, but because I know how much help I had and the strict mandate under which I functioned.  The details are not important here, you can read them in the site.  What mattered was that it was to be a scholarly resource that didn’t have a policy agenda, in which content was chosen after seeking a great deal of knowledgable input from various perspectives, and that the ensemble be objective.  That’s not to say, of course, that every single resource is objective, but they are contextualized or balanced appropriately.  The site as it appears now is as it was frozen when we retired it in 2007, and there are other excellent, more recent resources.  But I am so hesitant to recommend anything without reviewing it as carefully as we reviewed everything that went into that site, so it is all I’m comfortable pointing out as a general resource at this moment.

I would, however, be eager to hear your suggestions.  Please comment below.