Tom Facchine – O Muslims, ACT NOW

			Brothers and sisters,
		

			when corrupt people are in charge.
		

			When corrupt people have power, they tend to abuse it.
		

			We know this from our own tradition. We've seen the story of Musa and Fidel
		

			when Philip island had the absolute power to the point where the people in his area thought that he
was actually a God, thought that he could actually bring down the rain and make the Nile River
overflow and bring abundance to them. That then he was capable of all sorts of evil and oppression
and slaving Bani Israel eel, murdering their children, and so on, and so forth. If evil people are
in power, or corrupt people are in power, then they will abuse it. I'd like to tell you a couple of
stories, a couple of stories about when I was a young man, and they actually relate to when I was
still young man. But when I was a younger man, and as they relate to some developments that are
		

			happening right here in our own community, in the wake of the aggression, and the escalation and the
occupation of our brothers and sisters in Abaza, and Philistine. When I was a teenager, when I was
in high school, the 911 happened.
		

			And shortly after 911 was the invasion of the Iraq War, just two years later. Now, at that time, I
was somebody who tried to educate myself and tried to understand. And I quickly came to the
conclusion that the foreign policy of this nation was mistaken. That when we were and this was long
before, I accepted a sense that this was an error. This was a moral mistake, we were on the wrong
side of history. And so I made a decision, I made a decision, even with the limited ability that I
had as just a teenager, to try to take a stand and try to speak up and try to do what I could. So
the first thing that I did was, I stopped standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. And you know, that
		

			in public school every day, they make you in homeroom, stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance, I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, et cetera, et cetera. And I was in a
town that was so conservative, that the homeroom teacher every single day, after we had finished the
Pledge of Allegiance, he would raise his fist in the air, and he would say, love it, or leave it
every single day. So you can imagine the reaction that he had, when I decided that I was no longer
going to stand for this, which is a constitutional right, by the way. Why I'm telling the story is
because the individual teacher, in that circumstance, in that scenario, tried to do whatever he
		

			could to punish me. He tried to use his power and His position of authority to try to silence me to
try to get me in trouble of Hamdulillah, I had some other people in the school that were much more
sympathetic, and they were able to intervene on my behalf. fast forward another year or two. I'm a
sophomore, I'm a junior. And our school this is a common thing in public schools, by the way, I'm
not sure if they do it in Utica was to allow different branches of the armed forces to come in and
run gym class. So they would have the army sometimes come in, and everybody would do push ups, or
they would have the Marines come in, and we do jumping jacks and this sort of thing. And it was
		

			money for the school. And it was easy recruitment for the armed forces. Now, this is during the
invasion of Iraq, and something that I'm morally opposed. And so I decided, again, with my limited
ability to do anything, I was just a teenager who wasn't even able to drive yet. I said, I'm going
to try to speak up and not do not do participate in this gym class. So I would actually sit on the
side, when the armed forces were running the gym classes, and I said, I refuse to participate. And
again, there were people in positions of authority that tried to punish me, the gym teachers, they
tried to give me zeros. They tried to failed me, it went all the way up to the level of the
		

			superintendent. Thankfully, the superintendent at that time was a very reasonable man. He listened
to my side of the story, and he intervened on my behalf. But sure enough, I wouldn't escaped High
School unscathed. Because people when they're corrupt, and they have power, they will attempt to
punish you. They will attempt to abuse their power to use it against you in whatever way they can.
One day, once I was able to drive, I had a license. I used to bring my lunch to school every day in
a brown paper bag. I'd make it in the morning and bring it with me. One day, I forgot it at home.
And so I thought, you know, rather than just go hungry, no one will notice I'll leave out the door.
		

			I'll drive I'll hop in my car. I'll drive home I'll grab it. I had left it right on the kitchen
table. And I'll come back and nothing will be a problem. Now this is after the incidents of
Columbine and mass shooting started happening and so school
		

			As they were changing their policies, and so that one of the policies that they changed was they
started having forbidding students from leaving the grounds of the school during the school day and
locking the doors during the day and all these sorts of safety precautions. So how did I get around
this I was a teenage boy. And you know how teenage boys think I took something like a rock or
something like that, and I propped one of the doors open. And I went, right. And then I came back.
And I thought that I had done it and gotten away with it. And that was fine. Sure enough, the same
teachers and administrators that were angry at me for my previous stances, they found this as a
		

			pretext and an excuse to finally punish me with something I ended up being suspended from school for
a week, for literally from propping a door open with a rock, because this is how they could exercise
their power over me, they would use their position of authority to try to silence me to try to
punish me to try to do something against me. So this is what your kids are up against in school, I
have to let you know, because there's been some developments in our community that you should be
aware of. And every time something like this happens, the escalation and Philistine by the
aggressive, oppressive criminal Zionist regime, with back in 2015, it was dash it was ISIS back in
		

			not 911, obviously, in the invasion of Iraq War, the people get up on the news. And they have
inflammatory rhetoric, rhetoric, and use inflammatory language against Muslims. And it makes its way
into the classroom, it makes its way to your to your child's teachers ears, and it ends up hurting
our children. It happens time and time and time again, a year or two ago, it happened in this
community, there was a family, they reached out to me, not in Utica proper, but in the surrounding
areas. There was a young man who was in a classroom and this particular teacher that he had in his
class would always bring up news events or current events that portrayed out ups and Muslims in a
		

			bad light. So if there was any sort of situation that happened in the world, where an act of
violence was committed by a Muslim, or by an autumn, they would actually bring it up in class, I
should say she was a woman, she would bring it up in class. And she would remind the students in the
class she said, everybody has to keep your eyes peeled, look out, they can be among us. Now, there's
only one out of Muslim in the class, this particular class, and I want you to think for a second how
this makes that individual feel, and how it deputizes everybody around them to now be on the lookout
for something, or in this case, nothing. Fast forward. What happened with this young man, this young
		

			man was viewing a Tiktok, right. And it was a common one that was going on. It was an Arabic where a
student, you know, the roofs of the schools where you can push up sort of the tiles, they hit a
Bluetooth speaker in the ceiling of the classroom. And then it was sort of a prank, because then it
would play music whenever they wanted to. And the teacher couldn't figure out what was going on. So
he showed this tic toc to one of his classmates clearly trying to be funny and impress them. And
they asked him they asked him like, what is that? Is that a bomb? And he English is not his first
language. And so he's in this position where he wants to impress these people. And he says, yes,
		

			that young man was had the book thrown at him. This is right here in the central and Central New
York in the Mohawk Valley. He was suspended four months, four months from school. And by the time
the family reached out to me, the hearing had already happened and had already exhausted the time
when we could have appealed anything. So you can see again, how teachers people who are corrupt if
they have power, they will attempt to use it against people. And you can bet that the teacher was
the star witness the person who was inciting her own students to turn against this Muslim young men
to turn against this out of young man that she was instrumental in the punishment of this young man
		

			for doing something in this case doing nothing. Recently, in the last week, we have reports that for
Muslim students have been suspended from the use of the school district for objecting to teachers
flying Israeli flags in their classrooms, and for voicing their support of the Palestinian struggle.
And you can bet that in their write ups that they're not saying that they're punishing them for
their pro Palestinian stances. You can bet that they're finding an excuse like propping open a door
in my case or some sort of attendance issue or some sort of insolence issue or talking back issue or
disrespect of authority issue. Brothers and sisters, we have to wake up. Brothers and sisters, we
		

			have to start paying attention. Brothers and sisters, we have to start organizing ourselves. They
will do this and they will keep doing this every time
		

			There's an escalation until we organize ourselves and push back and say enough is enough, enough
with targeting our children, enough with targeting our young men and our young ladies, that every
single person in this country has a right to speak their mind, and to voice their political
positions. And in a school, the teachers do not have a right to voice their political opinions. But
we have to be aware that there is Islamophobia there is bigotry, there is prejudice, there is hatred
in our schools, our teachers, the people who are teaching our young men and women. And so we have to
draw together and we have to come together in order to do whatever we have to do, right letters,
		

			emails, phone calls, when you see somebody out in the street, they're from the school board, or from
the city hall or the the mayor, we're not letting the mayor come in here anymore, and just take
pictures. This is wrong. We have to challenge these people and say, What are you going to do about
our young men and women? How are you going to protect our young, young men and women from these
people who are in power and abusing their power and abusing their authority that I mentioned a
couple of things that have happened in the last week or two, as examples of Muslims finally waking
up and coming together and doing whatever they can to stop this type of oppression. Recently,
		

			President Biden made a trip to Minnesota and Minnesota, as you will know, in the Twin Cities, they
have a large Muslim population. Well, they put their foot down and they said that there is
absolutely no support for the Biden administration. If there is not a ceasefire right now in Gaza.
And this is something that was an embarrassment to President Biden, he went to three places he was
heckled, he was shouted out wherever he went, people were peaceful Hamdulillah. But they made their
position known that we are not an automatic vote, we are not an automatic support. We are not of
Trump, in your photos or your PR that we care about certain things, and we have to be represented.
		

			And if you are not accountable to us, then don't come around the masjid, then don't come for the
dinners done. Don't come for the PR. We're done. We're tired of that. In New Jersey, I think today
or yesterday, 55 massage, this is what it's going to take, think about it 55 masajid, organized
together to release a joint statement to their representatives of all levels, the Senate, the
Congress, the mayors, et cetera. They, these 55 masajid represent hundreds of 1000s of Muslims in
the state of New Jersey that has the highest per capita population of Muslims in the country. They
had an open letter, expressing their disappointment expressing their frustration about how their
		

			representatives have failed them have failed to represent their interests and demanding a ceasefire
immediately, in New York. And in Philadelphia, just the other day, we've seen how folks of the
Jewish faith organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace have actually conducted citizens and have
actually allowed themselves to get arrested at the state capitol building and in other places and
the train stations just to prove a point that we demand a ceasefire now, and we're not going to be
happy. And we're not going to allow anybody to sweet talk us until we get what we are asking for.
This is going to keep happening. What happens to us what happens to our youth, every single cycle
		

			every single couple of years, if we don't take action, if we don't finally band together as one
Ummah, as one body as one group of masajid. Last week, I was with the brothers in Albany, and I know
those brothers in Syracuse, we have to get together, we have to organize an act as one. If we can
act as one, then we can start to do things and get our elected leaders to finally listen to us and
do what we are hoping that they do, which is the right thing. This is just the beginning. We've had
demonstrations last week in Utica, we have a demonstration today in Utica, four o'clock at City
Hall. We had them in Syracuse last weekend. We also had them in Albany last weekend. This is not
		

			just something that you show up once and you go home. This is not something that you show up on some
go home, we're going to show up every weekend with more people and louder and more insistent until
we get our demands met. And the very first thing that we're asking for is a ceasefire and an end to
the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric that our politicians are using that puts our young men and
women at risk, whether it's on the street, women in hijabs that are getting attacked, or in the
classrooms, young men are being punished by their teachers for just demanding the right to exist and
defend themselves. Every single one of us in this room. We have to be ready to sacrifice. We have to
		

			be ready to sacrifice if you came to this country to hide away and to not be challenged. I'm sorry
that that time is over that we have to be ready to sacrifice. Even someone who's a high school
students such as my
		

			myself back in the day, what little I could do, I was willing to take a zero, I was willing to maybe
get suspended. That was a sacrifice that I was willing to pay. Maybe you as a young man or a young
woman, if you're listening to this, if you're in the school system, maybe you have to get a zero,
maybe you have to get suspended, that's a price that we're willing to pay, maybe one of you are
going to have to lose your jobs. We've seen last week, there was a doctor, a Muslim doctor in a
hospital in New York City, they had a Zionist co worker that pressured the hospital system to get
them fired. They took their issue to care and care sued, and they got the doctor started working
		

			back in the hospital yesterday, if he had never spoken up, what would happen, we would allow other
people to push us around, we cannot allow us to be pushed around any longer, it will require
sacrifice, you might have to get fired, every one of us has to come back together to support the
people who are getting fired to support the people who are speaking up. Now, every single person has
a different situation. Some of us are citizens, some of us are on green cards, everybody has to take
the amount of risk that makes sense for them. If you're a citizen of this country, then you have a
higher responsibility, you have less to lose, you have protections and other people do not have. And
		

			so you need to be ready to sacrifice for your brothers and sisters. If you don't put yourself
forward, if you don't speak out. If you don't attempt to stop what's going on, then your brothers
and sisters are not going to be able to say so take the same risks that you are able to take. And
one last statement is that everybody has to be very, very intelligent. And know that there are
people we know that we've seen this show before. The FBI and the law enforcement are going to send
people maybe they're here in the machine right now. And I'm with Seth, and welcome. I hope you enjoy
your state today that if someone comes up to us tries to talk about violence, you know that this is
		

			not our way, you know that we are only doing things that are legal, we're only doing things that are
peaceful, right? If someone comes up to you and tries to stir up your emotions and tries to ask you
about things overseas and going overseas and doing this sort of thing. You can bet every dollar and
every penny that you have in your wallet that this person is at informants that this person is here
to entrap you. And so they're recording what you're saying. And they're going to throw you in jail
and try to make an example out of you. And they will put you in the news and on the Sentinel and
they'll have Oh suspected terrorist and all of this nonsense, and everyone will believe it. So you
		

			have to be smart. And you have to understand everybody is staying within the rules of Islam.
Everybody has staying within the rules of the law, but we are not going to be afraid and we are not
going to be silenced. And we are not going to be cowards any longer. And we are not going to let
anybody push us around. These are things that we've seen happen over and over my 34 years of life on
this earth. I'm one of maybe the youngest in the room. But I've seen this already happened three,
four or five times in cycles and cycles every five years, every six years. It's got to stop and
inshallah Tada, this is the time that it stops. How does it stop? It stops by all of us coming
		

			together, all of us working together, all of us following in Assam and demonstrating to people the
beauty that Islam has and the justice that Allah has. Don't be afraid by repression. Do not be
afraid of repression, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in your job, whether it's on the
streets, whether it's from the police or from the FBI, or anybody do not be afraid of repression,
because we'll hit on even the more repression that comes it's only proof that we're winning. Well, I
mean, they would not bother trying to repress us if they weren't afraid of our power once we
organize and act as a single body. So the more that they try to repress and equate us to terrorists
		

			and equate us to doing things that we know that we don't believe in, the more that we know that we
are winning, so do not be disrupt and do not be discouraged and do not lose hearts. Allah subhanaw
taala tells us beforehand, do not lose hearts. When you know that you're on the right side. We are
on the right side and Allah subhanaw taala is with us and we asked the loss of panel data to make
our feet firm