Islamophobia – The Crisis Of Muslims In The West

Hamza Yusuf

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argue in Washington, he actually argued this is the White House in the Brookings Institute was he said that in logic, we're taught to ask questions in a certain order. One of the things that Ill trained minds do is they ask questions in the wrong order, and then this results in the wrong answers. So for instance, he said, You should always ask what before Why?

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So for instance,

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Newsweek has an article that says, Why do they hate us? Instead of asking, do they hate us? Because when the Gallup went out and actually pulled the Muslims all over the world, they found that they did not hate us. And so by asking why before asking what

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we come up with Wrong answer, so I want to look a little bit at Islamophobia. in in in the United States, and you see a lot of cartoons and cartoons are.

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Okay, Islamophobia is irrational fear of Islam as terrorism. Interesting. So what would you call the rational fear of Islamic terrorism, sanity? So this is framing.

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The already Islamophobia is being framed here. So they're telling you what it is, this is not what Islamophobia is. But cartoonists are actually very, very influential if you have close because many people read the funnies and don't read any other part of the newspaper. But I've seen that on many occasions. So Islamophobia, according to according to word net source of many people's definitions, was all phobia is prejudice against Muslims from the prejudging columns English dictionary, Islamophobia is hatred or fear of Muslims or of their politics or culture, and then care. Islamophobia isn't care here? Islamophobia refers to unfounded fear and hostility towards Islam.

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Because phobia according to a psychiatric used phobia is an irrational fear. Because not all fears are irrational. Like I think it's valid to fear a terrorist attack as as, as a possibility for people that are involved in that. But for the average people, you are more likely to get struck by lightning, or die from a dog bite in the United States that die from a terrorist attack. So this idea of having this fear of terrorists, I mean, I always amazed it at the airports they say, Please report any suspicious behavior. Everybody says suspicious at the airport. I mean, just start looking around. They're all telephony, oh, my God, you know, when they get there, because they're gonna

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lose, or they left something, think you got people with backpacks that could have bombs in them. You know, it's a type of insanity. When you create this environment, where people begin to fear other people, because all of us have a weapon of mass destruction. We drove here in it. There are millions of weapons of mass destruction in the United States, but people aren't driving their cars into places some guy did it in Scotland. Out of 6 billion people on the planet, that's not bad.

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Right, one guy drove it remember that the airport crisis they're in. So there is an irrational fear. But if you want to look at the roots of this, and I think, Dr.

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Earlier, we were talking with Dr. Algar, and he said, you know, we fail to look at the sources of these things. And I said, like the crusades, and he said, Well, even before that, and I would agree, because if you I don't know if they still use it anymore, but when I was in school, we had to study a book called Norton's anthology of literature. And, and the first entry in nordens book is the song of Roman. So Western literature begins with a song that celebrates the defeat of the Muslims.

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And this is very interesting. And if you look, if you look at the, the, when the pope spoke in Germany, he mentioned manual, the second manual, the second was an emperor who went around Europe, about 50 years before the fall, actually about 30 years before the fall of Constantinople, which is now assembled. And he argued that the Christians needed to help him defend

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Constantinople from this Turkish onslaught, and he failed. But if you think about European identity, Europe, Europe has two fundamental identities historically. One of them is a Christian identity, which is a positive identity, but they also have a negative identity, which is that they're not Muslims. And this is very important historically in the Christian consciousness of Europe is that they really saw

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The Muslims for centuries as a serious threat to to European civilization. So it's it's it's important that we remember that the Crusades are a major turning point in European civilization, one because of a massive influx of Muslim culture into the West. The rise of colleges is a good book to read from George McCluskey. Also we forget St. Francis Assisi and the Franciscans have have a wonderful narrative in their tradition. St. Francis of Assisi is actually, according to the Franciscans ended the crusades, because he got a papal dispensation to allow Crusaders to get their expiation by making a pilgrimage to Assisi in Italy, where he had a monastery, and that's part of

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their tradition, there's actually a book about St. Francis, the st. And the Salta which narrates that story. It's a wonderful story. Now, if you look in the consciousness of America, 911 now has emerged, like probably from my father and mother's generation, the

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the turning point for them was Pearl Harbor. And my mother was actually at the University of Berkeley when Pearl Harbor was bombed. This was a turning point my father was, he's younger than my mother, but my father was 17. At the time, he literally got a dispensation from from his mother who got permission to join the Air Force. And so at 17, he did not finish his last year of high school, but he actually went into the Air Force, as a young man from a very, very wealthy family. But that was the type of fervor that that event created in the United States, where people literally went just to sign up. So that's important to remember that this mice, my son, my 17 year old is an

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artist, and he's been drawing pictures of buildings on fire since he was about 12. So this is in the consciousness of a generation of Americans now.

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And all of us, you know, for people that are,

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I think over 50 have, when they all know where they were when Kennedy was assassinated for Americans today, they know what.

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Okay, so there's a lot of forms of media that are now being used. cartoons. And cartoons again, have this is a cartoon from the time when the Greeks were fighting the Turks, and Lord Byron actually went to fight with the Greek so this was a very popular war. For the romantics to go and fight There's a wonderful picture of him in in a turban because the Greeks actually were lived under Muslim rule for several 100 years. They actually adopted a lot of Greek clothing actually comes from Turkey, and the Greeks have worried the

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most of the coffin think of the Greeks from wearing the I guess they were worried about.

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Here we have Pope Benedict and for the Catholics excused, because I don't like these type of cartoons. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. Are you calling us violent?

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I mean, wonderful caricature is there if you look at Jewish cartoons from the Germans that very similar it's really interesting. Jihad devils behind it. Islam I love this one Islam part of America. So that's Barack Obama the official version but here's the Muslim how to build a bomb. Right? So this is the Muslim that measure the pulse words over cartoons over the modern world, mildly dyspeptic over car bombings beheadings don't count

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and then

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I love this one the West I did disagree with what you say but I will defend that right to work get right radicals like chopping the head off

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and then here on the scene in my head goes to you infidel pigs and finally apologize for Danish cartoons hang up I was in therapy all week because it really was affecting my productivity

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as pretty much you know, these things are every day in the United States people are reading this stuff outraged by the cartoons and and then books written by non Muslims. So this is is an incredible industry that's emerging. This is and it's important because you play all who cares Americans don't read well talk show radio host read. And and then they in turn, you know this, I used to monitor this stuff. The first book that I bought was in 1994. I think it was called

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matches amazing industry.

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I'm actually in the Muslim mafia WITH YOU ARE YOU

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I'm a Muslim mafia DOM,

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according to Muslim more than unsuited, and you know what their evidence is, I live on a cul de sac. And they actually quoted an FBI agent who said, mommy does prefer to live on cul de sacs, because it's harder to do drive bys. And it's harder for the FBI to monitor them. So, so that and then I don't know, Dr. bezanson, Kobe said,

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they said, all these most of Omar from care design included, I said, Well, I have five kids. So that's what I was thinking about when cars drive slower on cul de sac. But this is and then in another book, Islamic infiltration. I was a stealth jihadist that infiltrated the White House.

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So the another one actually said that I had information.

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Because I said in a speech two days before September 9, that America has a great tribulation coming to it two days before, so I had insider information. And this was put into an Ico, I promised a lawyer. And he said, Well, you're a public figure Tough luck. Because we don't have good libel laws in this country. But I want to reinstitute restrict these dueling, because when freedom of speech, freedom of speech was a law in America, when when they wrote the Bill of Rights, right? They had Julian, it wasn't until the 1830s. So somebody said something nasty about you could actually send your second like, I could send him and say, Man satisfaction. And then I could just go toe to toe

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with them. And we could duel it out. But now you just say whatever you want. And since Sullivan versus the New York Times, which was a complete, liberal, unfortunately, it was a complete liberal disaster, because some of them was some races. And he was libel in the New York Times. And he sued them. And because it was during Earl Warren's It was very liberal court system. They actually said, because he was a public figure, that they have higher standards. So it's harder to prove libel. So now we have two laws in the United States for public figures and private figures. So you can say whatever you want about a public figure, and they have no recourse to law to redress that, but

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private so my wife has protection under the constitution for being libel or slander, but I don't have protection. And it's just not right, but this is what we're dealing with. You know, these people can say whatever they want, and they're here doing what what is called Swiftboating. Now these are the the people that are writing books now from within Islam nobody who Palestinian people what rock Pakistani, leaving a small plastic speak out a God who hates wafaa salon, voices behind the veil? Why I'm not a Muslim, unveiling Islam origins of the Iranians showing that it's all made up why I left jihad. And then I and her she's she's the poster child because she's attractive

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Ethiopian lady, so they love her. And then why. Sorry, why we want to kill you. Yeah, Ethiopians, by the way. I know a secret about them. They kill the babies.

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Because you will never see an ugly and it's impossible statistically. So they I think they must do something

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beautiful.

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Why do we want to kill you? Look at that. I mean that you know, scary.

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And now we have Muslim reformers. So these are the ones that want to reform Islam from within, right?

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Inside jihad, the trouble with Islam she didn't like the change and struggle and so on today, and this is my favorite one learn tolerance for tolerance. A discussion between tolerance and Mr. Finland, I think we should get started around to death for committing adultery in order to show respect to your culture and sensitivity to your religious values. Many minutes Mr. tolerance for having respect for my religious values, you are indeed an amazing infidel.

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So sales managers on books may not be high, but commentators read these books and amplify the effects. So you have people like Michael Savage is one religion about which so many in America has said censor themselves when it comes to talking about or making fun of. Is it just beer?

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Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because they're violent because they threaten us. And

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that's just so amazing.

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But where are the Southern Baptist suicide bombers were in the Methodist marketplaces massive true types. It's clear

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But the problem is as long and let me play devil's advocate here that

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wants to win hearts and minds in the Middle East in a Muslim world, which is a good thing. I do know that as a soldier, we can kill all Muslims.

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So we have to win some of the most. And she's incredible statement.

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This quote, and get your thoughts out there, my glasses. The fact that in my holiday the law, every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine. Must delay the final extinction of slavery until the fate of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. pretty outrageous stuff. Yeah. You didn't say that, though? I didn't say that. No, no. Winston Churchill said that, yeah, Winston Churchill, as a matter of fact, in the book, and the 50s also made a comparison, like in Italy, but also Winston Churchill, the comparison between mind and the Quran. One of the reasons that I'm being prosecuted, I don't remember, Winston Churchill got the

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Nobel Prize for this book, really would have been prosecuted. I have nothing against people, I have nothing against Muslims. But my point is that Islam is a totally terrible ideology that should be compared not so much with our religions, but the other totalitarian ideologies like communism, or fascism.

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trouble if we don't stop covering up what is what

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is what is a file.

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That

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is a political system is a political system bet on the overthrow of the governments of the world, how they ended and world domination.

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Now, see what you have to realize from this, this is going on constantly. I have watched in my lifetime, the 700 Club, I think five times, every single time there was anti muslim statements, so I have to assume they must do that all the time. And these people reach large numbers of people, you know, you can say, oh, only 20% of Americans hate Muslims. Right? Well, it's actually the pupils are showing, it's more than 47% that has bad opinions about Muslim, but you're dealing with millions of people in a country that is, is rooted in civil society, and if anything should threaten the stability of that society, because I my personal view, is after 911 minus measures of the American

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people went up considerably. Under that really means because I was convinced that there was going to be a tax on loss, there was going to be costing of Muslim women, I really thought it was going to get very bad. That was my initial feeling. I was overwhelmed by the amount of goodwill that came out of average people, we got for every one hate call, we got to the mosque, we got 100 people saying, we're really troubled by what we're hearing and people making attacks against your religion, flowers were actually sent to several of the mosques to say, Look, you're part of America. And and many, many people came out in real solidarity and support with the American Muslim community, despite the

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fact that, that, you know, they thought that Muslims did this horrible thing. And so that, to me,

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is a testimony to the one the innate goodness of a lot of people in this society, but also to the fact that many of the ideals of this country that maybe at the founding of the country, we're not fully realized or even partially realized that a lot of these have really been embodied by people, because Jefferson was a philosopher. And Jefferson wanted to see America as a neutral religious ground, a safe place. And he actually says for Christians, Jews, mohammedans, Hindus and atheists of every stripe. So that was his vision, the vision of the founding fathers was to see a pluralistic society in ir 10s. In the debates, the constitutional debates in North Carolina, that she debated

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whether if they didn't have religious test, there could be a possibility of a Muslim president. This is 230 years ago, they're debating the idea of a Muslim president and the debate was won by those who did not want religious tests. And one of the things they argued was, if there ever was a Muslim elected to highest office in this country, it would be one of two reasons. It would be because that people found him the best and most virtuous candidate, or because the majority of people had become Muslim.

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In either case, that is their prerogative. So this was the argument of the founding fathers, which is quite extraordinary. So I think it's really important for us not to underestimate the impact. One of the things my father told me in 1940, he saw a cartoon that had very big impact on me as a young, young boy. And he saw this cartoon, in which in the first frame, it had Hitler saying, the world is flat. And everybody in the audience says, That's crazy. And then in the next frame, he's saying, the world is flat. And then somebody saying to one of them, well, what's the evidence that it's actually round. And then in the next round, he says, The world is flat. And then they say, you know, he's got

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a point there. And then in the final frame, he says, The world is flat, and everybody's saying the world is flat, that one of the things that our marketing masters in this country know is that repetitive messages have an impact, if you keep saying something over and over again, eventually takes hold in people, which is why you'll find yourself buying press now. That's because Islam is the first anti American, anti Western religion, anti the American left, and liberals like our caller,

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stand up for Islam, because it is an anti American, anti Western religion.

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And they identify with it.

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And then this is a whole other field, which is very important. 20 million people got that in the face of evil 21 hours of Muslim terrorists, Islam, what the West needs to know Delta Force, all these have muslim terrorist among us at the siege of Latin, right? Because a lot in there, it says, you know, it might they don't like your face that cut off your nose. It's barbaric, I know, but it's home. And then he's got a scene where Aladdin steals an apple and the guys can cut his handle. So it's an associated little children associating with that, I just put that in. I didn't like the line.

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Now, this is another amazing customer. Now these terms like media is a rarified term Islamic law that most Muslims don't even know. But But and this is something in the Shia tradition, it's more emphasized, but it is also permissible in the Sunni tradition. If you are under threat of death, you can actually deny your Islam so somebody is going to kill you, because I'm not a Muslim.

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That's called me. But there are you know, when Hamza Yusuf comes and tells you as long as a peaceful religion, he's practicing tukey yet, because he's a stealth jihadist. And he doesn't really believe any of this. You see. So it's very insidious, the way that they're using these terms, and then you know, Obama said you move American but these are very, one of the interesting things about some of these you will find ties with the the armaments lobby is funding some of these. It's very interesting. Raytheon, General Electric, we've been good things to death.

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And then conservative dialysis, moving liberal waste from the American bloodstream.

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From hate to love,

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Islam, religion of hate and Christiana Christianity.

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Because Muslims, we don't love, we don't love our wives or our husbands or our children.

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And this is, I think, one of the worst because it's all

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from original sources. And one thing I'll say about original sources, and this is a problem, pre modern text, I can take St. Thomas Aquinas, which I've read enough Aquinas to know that and and sister Marian did a PhD on Aquinas. So I think we can ask a Christian advice on this also, but I can take a coyness and make Christianity look like a completely insane religion, by just quoting him in in certain environments. I mean, Aquinas argues for apostate laws, capital offense, you could do all this and Aquinas is is an incredible, brilliant emphasis spiritual master. I mean so many things, but I can take the pre modern tradition from the Jewish tradition.

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The Talmud that a six year old child and I asked the chief Rama is the one

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who's the chief rabbi. But I asked one of the chief rabbis of Israel about this, because we were talking about Ayesha and marriage laws in the town moon, six years old.

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A marriage can be consummated. With a six year old, you can take any pre modern religion. And in modern with the modern sensitivity, you can show to the completely insane tradition, really, I mean, this is we can do this with Christianity, with Judaism with Islam, any of these religions, but how has the normative practices over time defined itself, this is what is not being taught. So it's taking these things. And if you notice, this, this is more from the right within appreciate the Jewish tradition. To be fair to the Jewish tradition, I have seen very little from the Jewish community about this, because if you live in glass houses, don't throw stones, what you can do with

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the Islamic pre modern tradition you can do with the Jewish tradition, as well. And so that that's an important aspect of this, the gates of Vienna, God saved the USA, the real story, Jihad watch, again.

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I mean, it's, these are really well done, and they're very well funded.

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So when you do searches, you'll often come up with these websites. I'm going to pass through this one people probably saw this.

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And then unfortunately, and this is the ugly truth, because I want to be fair, we have Netroots, we have 1.3 billion Muslims, you will always have a percentage of people in any religious tradition that are insane.

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It's just it's just statistic because you haven't seen people here. Like, for instance, people talk about oh, look how bloody Pakistan is that, like they killed, you know, 10 people yesterday

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20 people will probably murdered in the United States yesterday, violence is a human problem. When it's done in the name of religion, it's particularly odious, but people are violent, we've got a problem, religion, the major problem with religion is that you can get normally good people to do really evil things, as has been pointed out. And I have argued that in some ways, the metaphor that I like to use is in some ways, religion, it could a metaphor for religion could be atomic energy. Atomic Energy is a relatively clean energy, but it has toxic waste. And that toxic waste can be very, very harmful as we're finding out from Japan. If religion historically it has had ways to

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mitigate that, and it hasn't always been successful, but we do have a problem. And this poor British lady, first of all, you know, we can say in Islam, I mean, I studied theology, it's it's one of the areas that I spent a lot of time on, I studied with real, really great teachers. It is prohibited in Islam to say anybody's going to help. The Quran talks about going to hell and condenser people help. That's true, but I cannot point to anybody and say you're going to have it's, it's not, it's not our prerogative to do that. And so, you know, this is just a lot of this man was wonderful for the tabloids, because he actually had a hook as a hand and an eyepatch, and used to go on about Jihad

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and Sharia for the UK. I mean, if you ask these people, what a shame that they couldn't define it. I guarantee you, they could not none of them are scholars, they're, you know, they're just these are slogans, great things with friends like that, who needs enemies, right?

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behead those who say, as long as Bible

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must be an agent pocket.

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British soldiers burden hell.

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massacre those consultants.

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Assad will dominate the world.

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And then we've got you know, these poor people, you will eat your babies. God is your enemy. God hates America.

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Now, I just want to look a little bit in the past, you know, does anybody know where the Ku Klux Klan got their fashion design from? Morocco? No. Does anybody know seriously, you know,

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from the Inquisition, this is the Spanish Inquisition. And that is exactly where they got them from. This is one of the early terrorist organizations in the United States. And they were Christian in their understanding, and they modeled themselves after the Inquisitors in Spain. And so there's a lot of transference of racism gets blacks and Jews and other communities now on to the Muslim community because Muslims, by and large in the United States are brown. They're people of color and

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And so there is a lot of it. And in fact,

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you know, if you join us long you will join an oppressed minority and learn how it feels to be African American, or I have, I know a white lady in Canada who became Muslim, put on a hijab. And she said, I really felt firsthand that I got to know what it was like to be in an oppressed minority, because she said, I didn't realize that I had this white.

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Mexican wife nodding her head. Yeah.

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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The demonization of Native Americans, right. I mean, there it is.

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Right. And we don't show what we did to them. Right in this country. But this was

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and that's what leads to Wounded Knee were unarmed. Native, this was the last

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really battle in the American Indian Wars, unless you include the ame battles, the later ones like Alcatraz and things like that, but that this is, I like this. Homeland Security. This wasn't the original homeland, fighting terrorism since 1492

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demonization of African Americans, this is something that our culture

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was very good at. Also wonderful. She had she, you know, she tried to commit suicide, that poor girl, I mean, she, if people read her history, Elizabeth Eklund, I think her name was, but just all race mixers. We there's a hidden genocide in this country that nobody talks about, in the South Pole, black populations after the Civil War disappeared and counties literally disappeared, because they just killed him. And this has been documented by historians in this country. So we have a very dark history, we forget apartheid. When I was born, that was still apartheid in this country. So it wasn't that long ago. You know, and people struggle to get these rights, many of them Jewish

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Americans, a lot of these people that were in the early civil rights movement, were out of the Jewish community because they understood that they

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sided with them. And there's a wonderful book called when the Irish became white. Which because the Irish Catholics were I'm going to get to that in a second. So the evil Chinese, right, same thing for Dr. foo Manchu exclusion laws. There were exclusion laws in this country, excluding Chinese immigration. And we forget also the pogroms of the Chinese that happen even in San Francisco we have a horrible history of brutal attacks on the Chinese community.

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Right world dictatorship sound familiar? Right? cruel, insidious, treacherous. Dr. Fu Manchu. Now it's Dr. Abdullah in his ruthless man scheme to rule the world. So and this is one of the

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evil Japanese also we forget the demonization of the Japanese community jabs keep on moving white man's neighborhood, this is your enemy again.

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And then this is what it ended up in. Right. So Japanese Americans were in turn in California, we forget, because a lot of the best farming property in Santa Cruz, Monterey, Southern California were owned by Japanese. So there was a move to get Japanese Americans in turn here, confiscated their land that didn't happen in the Midwest. Japanese fought they were actually interpreters and many of them have decorated soldiers.

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It's still there to even go out there and see this. And by the way, this has never been overturned constitutionally in terms of a collective group of people in the United States. It has to actually happen again. For those that but there was an official policy in the 70s, but it has never been deemed unconstitutional. And and FEMA has actually they have internment camps. This is one of the 25 most censored stories Sonoma State the School of Journalism has shown that they're actually returned to camps if there was ever quote unquote, illegal immigrants becoming

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rebellious so that they actually have camps to determine we sort of want to know Spanish or Mexican. Right? This for some people Mexican This is called Atlanta, new

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Texas was stolen from Mexico.

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When I said to my wife wants you guys to take it over, she said, No, we're not we're taking back

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so the demonization of Jews I mean, how does that how does like they're upset say whatever you want, but they look just like Arabs to that's what's so interesting, you know is that the cartoons of the Jews? look very similar.

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But this is this one has impact on people. There was a Jew plotting away his ghetto result. This is how the anti defamation league and other organizations were started because of the lynching of a Jewish man. And then obviously the Jewish financier is controlling the world. The Jews are terrorists versus 1907. USSR.

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demonization of Irish Americans is my favorite one because my family suffered from this, you know, any color or country except Irish, like, you know, help wanted no Irish need apply? Not enough. I mean, this is and then look, they're African American, Jewish, and the Irish guy. So they were all equal opportunity, prejudice. The they were seen as drunkards that they were actually likely African Americans shown to the eighth like,

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and then this is what it resulted in the Kensington riots. This happened in Philadelphia in the 1840s. They actually there was a rumor spread that the Irish were going to get the Catholic Bible to replace the Protestant Bibles in the public schools. And they saw this as the Protestant saw, this is kind of atheism. And so they went and they burned two huge cathedrals that were built by the Irish Americans, my great, great, my great,

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great grandfather, Michael O. Hansen,

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was in Philadelphia at this time, he migrated to Philadelphia in 1838. So he was there for these writings, and scores of Irish were killed. It actually changed the consciousness in this country because people became ashamed afterwards. But the Irish were bribing into enfranchisement. Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish orator, as the Irish Catholics to stand by the African Americans in their fight for liberty in this country, and unfortunately, I would be much prouder of my heritage have they done the right thing, but they didn't they, they went into the political process, and they actually

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sided with the oppressor. Here's citizenship, there's the Irish, just like now Muslim is the guy that can assimilate. And he's got his nine because the Irish are violent. Anyways, anyway, the final thing is just about models of possibility. I think it's important to remember that in this country, that people people have overcome immense difficulties. And, you know, I, these are the great chiefs meeting at the White House. With Coolidge. Now we have many, many great Native Americans that are recognized by the dominant community African American model is also an extraordinary model. But it was done with a lot of hard work and effort. You do not get enfranchisement in this country easily.

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It's never been given to a group of people outside of the Anglo Saxons that came to the shores. It's never been given to any group of people without a struggle. And that is part of the history of this country. And it's possible. So I think the Muslims have Chinese also capable of doing this. The Muslims food is one of the things that now they're learning Tai Chi be shooting people, acupuncture, we've got Governor's now from the Chinese, Korean Japanese also have

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the Mexicans also please the Irish I mean, to to President, the first Irish president that was anti Jackson, people don't know that. But he was an Austrian, Irish, he was Protestant. And that wasn't more considered Irish. The FBI is Catholic.

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Kennedy's considered the first the Mexican please excuse the next slide are not Hugo Chavez.

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embarrassment. But hey, you know,

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the Jewish model is an extraordinary model. My point is, now you can just look at the vote the Jewish vote and how much it impacts politics in this country. So the Muslims have possibilities but but the Muslim community has to fight. And I don't mean like, violence just in Chinese. There's a debate about this. But the Indian grandfer crisis is also the immigrant opportunity. In any crisis, there's always immense opportunities. The Muslims have an opportunity to educate people that are people genuinely interested in Islam. Unfortunately, if you go to a bookstore today, if you go to the wicker section you how I embrace the moon goddess and found inner peace, you go to Satanism, how

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I came to know Satan and found enemies. I mean, it's just amazing. Every religion. You go to the Muslim section, why I'm not a Muslim, the trouble with Islam, you know, leaving Islam it's just amazing.

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that the people who hate Islam are defining Islam. And that's why the Muslim voices really are absolutely essential. But I would also challenge those people. Good people like sister Marianne Farina, she always gets embarrassed. But I love that woman, because she, to me represents the best of the Christian tradition. She is somebody that takes very serious.

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And I know she doesn't view Muslims as enemies, but she takes very serious things like turn the other cheek, and love it. these are these are very difficult things to do. But the real Christians have to step up to the plate, that real Jews have to step up to the plate, people that recognize that an attack on any religion is an attack on all religions. That is just the simple fact of the matter. Because at the essence of religion, is a commitment to something that transcends the set it all religious people that are part of this incredible tapestry of religions that we have in the world, are people that are saying there's more to life than just this physical world that we're

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into. We share immense commonalities in our ethics, Islamic ethics, as sister Marianne knows, is identical to Christian ethics in so many areas, virtue ethics of ghazali is the virtue ethics of Aquinas. These are the commonalities and the bridges that don't need to be built. They need to be pointed out. Everybody talks about building bridges, there are so many bridges that are already there, we just need to recognize them through the fall.

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And then make that effort to cross them and meet somewhere in the middle and just enjoy the incredible view. I was once with a group of Muslims, my wife was with us was my understanding and some other people. And we were walking across a bridge just after 911. It was a very narrow bridge. And there was some two people coming on to the bridge. And we got to the middle and I just made a joke. This bridge isn't big enough for the both of us. And he looked at he said, You're Muslims, aren't you? And I said yes. And he said, The bridge is big enough for all of us. We're very disturbed at what's being done to your community. There are people out there that that need to reach

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the Muslims need to reach out but we also need to hear from those people. Thank you very much.