Now They Call Me Infidel

by Nonie Darwish

  But if we closely examine Muslim culture we may find deeper, embedded motivations beyond the stated “religious” goals. Perhaps the concepts of envy, honor, and shame, which dominate Muslim culture, have something to do with it. The land of the infidels is putting Muslims to shame. Infidel Christians and Jews live in a much more advanced political and economic system in a democracy that provides a much better life for its citizens. Some Muslims dare to ask why Islam has not provided them with a better society than that of the infidels. That puts pressure on the radicals to raise the level of the lies and indoctrination inside Muslim society. There is some evidence that the game is no longer working on the Arab street, which now can see the world through satellite dishes, the Internet, and travel. What they see is beginning to throw the Muslim world into more contradictions and turmoil. In the “proud” Muslim culture, the mere existence of a better society that is not Muslim is a source of humiliation, shame, and victimhood. I recall something I heard a young man in Gaza say when I visited that region at age fourteen. He pointed at some European UN personnel and derisively said, “These Westerners are not worth a penny in their homeland!” The way he said it gave an impression of extreme jealousy and perhaps an inferiority complex as a result of a blown-up ego, no doubt given to him by an oppressed mother who will one day celebrate his death in killing the infidels. His description of “not worth a penny in their homeland” was actually describing how Arabs feel about themselves in Arab land. That is indeed how their proud, unbending governments regard these disaffected young men—not worth a penny. I truly believe that Arab men have been spoiled rotten as children by their parents; they were brought up to think of themselves as the best, of their religion as the best, and their lifestyle the best. When they finally grow up and are confronted with the confidence and competence of Western men they simply cannot stand it. Then the culture of pride, envy, and hate kicks in, and they begin to indulge in the blame game. Rather than examining their own system, culture, or religion, they say it must be colonialism, imperialism, past injustice, Israel’s existence, or a worldwide Zionist conspiracy that has caused their society to fail. Thus deep-seated feelings of inferiority creates marching jihadists who have nothing else to aspire to than either claim the West for Islam or destroy it.

  I do not want to be misunderstood. I am talking about culture and societal values, not about all individual Muslims; of course there are many exceptions. I believe that the majority of Muslims who left Muslim countries, even if they don’t admit it, have come to live under Judeo-Christian freedoms in America in search of a better future just as I did, a world that encourages personal responsibility and self-discipline and discourages envy, shaming, pride, and anger. Such a society is easier to live in. Nevertheless, once in America, some of them fall under the influence of the radical networks and organizations that dominate the mosques. There are many Arab and Muslim organizations that encourage Arab Americans to vote as a block and not as individuals with different preferences. It is hard to get rid of the bad habits of the old country since these behaviors are often spontaneous and seem normal. Many American mosques show no respect to their host country. They have come with the agenda of changing the culture and not to be part of America. Many of the imams get their salaries directly from oil-wealthy Muslim nations who have sent them to America on religious visas and built their mosques. They don’t have to pass the plate in the mosque for donations from worshipers and their salaries are guaranteed. Thus, they continue teaching the only thing they ever knew and are trained to do, and that is hate speech and anti-Semitism. Instead of being a source of comfort and wisdom, these preachers become a source of rage, hate, and subversion right here in America, working the worshipers into a frenzy of anger and paranoia not only against Western values and Israel but also against moderate Muslims who represent the majority of Arab Americans.

  Unfortunately, these Muslim radicals within the United States are not here to live in a pluralistic society that has respect for all. They have come to Islamize America. They have also come to manipulate the new Muslim immigrants to the United States, keep them within their camp, and spread doubt and rejection of America among their ranks. Many of them are easy prey since that was the way they have lived in the old country. These immigrants are then tragically prevented from fully experiencing the American way of life.

  Furthermore, to recruit new Muslims in America, radical leaders often go to the most angry and vulnerable population; that is, inside American jails, to turn them against America. And when it comes to converting African Americans, they use the race card. However, they fail to mention that Arabs were among the first cultures to enslave sub-Saharan Africans and promote the slave trade around the world, not to mention that slavery is still practiced by Sudanese Muslims. Radical mosques also work to recruit Middle Eastern immigrants—such as my friend and her husband—to the larger jihadist worldview that has one goal: to overtake and overwhelm America and other Western societies, bring the evil infidels to their knees, and conquer the world for Islam.

  Many devout Muslims hold at heart a dream of an Islamic Caliphate, a totalitarian political system encompassing the whole Muslim world—and eventually the entire world—which functions under one constitution (the Koran) and one law, Islamic sharia law. This is not some crazy notion espoused by some lunatic fringe Islamists. Conquering the world for Islam is the stated goal that emanates from powerful, ruling Islamic clerics throughout the Middle East, whether it is the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia, the mullahs of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the Taliban of Afghanistan, or the followers of Osama bin Laden. This is also the goal of many Islamic organizations operating under false pretences in America and financed and supported by radical Muslim states. Is the Islamic invasion of the seventh century on the superpowers of that time being reincarnated again on the superpowers of today?

  These were the questions, fears, and the thoughts that swirled in my mind during the 1980s and ’90s as I saw the increasing radicalization within the Muslim community in America. When I gathered my children and walked out of that Los Angeles–area mosque, when I left the house of my newly fundamentalist friend who wished to suck me into it, I turned my back on it. And I closed my eyes to it. But I worried about it. As a mother myself, I wondered how these newly fundamentalist American families could expect their children to live in total isolation and alienation from the larger society. Their only solution was to send their children to Muslim schools. And in these schools in America, the same indoctrination and hate speech against non-Muslims I experienced back in Gaza is now creating a new generation full of alienation and rage, a subculture that rejects the larger society. The indoctrination of these schools here and elsewhere in the West is producing angry young Muslims who cannot relate to the larger community. It is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

  As I observed my fellow Arabs in America, I was troubled by another thing: The double face of Muslim radicals in the West became clear to me, but unfortunately it was not clear to many fellow Americans. When learned Muslim scholars are questioned about hate speech and Islamic terrorism, they always make the point that Islam teaches love, compassion, and respect for other religions, and they quote supporting portions from the Koran. They purposely deny or ignore other passages of the Koran that encourage killing, jihad, and war against the infidels. Sometimes these respected, educated men will deny, with a straight face on Western TV, that hate is being taught, while in their mosques and on Arab TV one regularly hears hate speech equal to that of Nazi Germany, except that it is now taught as orders from Allah instead of orders from Hitler. Anyone who sees what is daily in Arab newspapers and on television, or looks at the material taught in mosques and schools, knows what is going on. Are some Muslim scholars that disconnected from reality, or do they think the West is too naive to catch them in their lies? Some of these scholars truly believe that Islam is a peaceful religion—that is, after all, a basic function of religion in society. But these same
scholars totally ignore the existential reality of the current Muslim society. They are eager to work to change how the West perceives Islam, but usually stop short of actually advocating peace to the people who need it the most—Muslims in the Middle East. I truly believe that the Muslim masses around the world are yearning and hungry for new concepts in their life, concepts such as love, respect, responsibility, compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance. Muslims are just human beings like the rest of the world, and deep down, I believe they are fed up with such cruel and archaic teachings, all in the name of Muslim unity against the infidels. However, having not been educated on the devastating psychological effects of such teachings, they are often unaware of how much damage such negative teachings do to their society.

  But there is a dilemma for Muslim leaders. If they were to start actually teaching peace and issue fatwas against terrorists instead of critics of Islam, we might begin to see Islamic peace, reformation, and an end to jihad. Ironically, in the current state of things in the Middle East, teaching peace instead of jihad would be rejected by most mosque-goers. You cannot suddenly take away from people what has been their basic religious teachings for generations. An Egyptian friend and writer, Tawfik Hamid, author of The Real Roots of Islamic Violence, told me he attempted to preach peace and nonviolence in an Egyptian mosque and was chased into the streets of Cairo with rocks and barely escaped with his life—and that was in Egypt, a place that is not considered a radical Muslim country, at least not yet. Hate speech and intolerance is so deeply rooted that even the average worshipers are sucked into it, thinking this is true Islam. Advocating peace, especially with Israel, would surely get anyone killed.

  To some Islamic idealists, what Muslims are doing on earth—terrorism and jihad—is necessary and will be forgiven because they have good intentions to spread Islam to those who don’t know they need it. They are sacrificing themselves to die in the hopes of spreading Allah’s word. To many, that is a good deed. In their minds, the ideal of peace will be achieved later when Islam dominates the world. They reason that peace can wait until that great achievement, and in the meanwhile, we’ll merely “talk about peace” to mollify the West. That is what goes on in the minds of these Islamist defenders. Lying is forbidden in Islam except in certain situations such as war to spread Islam to non-Muslims. The Muslim world considers itself in a constant jihadist war against the infidel non-Muslims, and accordingly lying and deception are permitted. To prove my point, you have only to ask one of these Muslim scholars, “What are you doing to end the lying about the West and the State of Israel in the Arab media and educational system?” You won’t get a straight answer to that question. The truth is that very few Muslim leaders even care to end the lies on Arab television—lies as outrageous as saying that Jewish rabbis want to kill Arab children to take their blood for baking cookies. They do nothing when Muslims on Egyptian, Jordanian, and Saudi television call Jews apes and pigs. They merely repeat that Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance” and count on the decency of Americans to believe them. Muslim leaders say one thing to Americans and another thing to Muslims. We Arabs understand that game—it was once an unconscious part of our own thinking.

  Yes, Arabs in America were changing. As I looked around me in the immigrant community, I noticed that some Egyptian Americans even started adopting an Islamic Afghani or Saudi look rather than an Egyptian look. Such changes it seems to me are deliberately intended to make a point to the unsuspecting American community, rather than for their own Muslim community’s sake. Indeed, much of what is done was defiance against American culture and values aimed at bringing Islam to the larger community. It is not like Indians wearing the traditional saris to their parties. It has a larger purpose. They have found a new identity in standing out against American culture. It has given them power. This trend has Muslims behaving in a way that boldly states, “I am different” and “I belong to a superior group.”

  I avoided radical Muslims in America who appeared fake and two-faced to me. But their presence and power was increasing, especially on college campuses, where Muslim student organizations were popping up everywhere. Muslim female students proudly wore the head covering on American university campuses. That was a new movement I have never seen before. I believe that many of these young women welcome the unique identity and defiance this outfit gives them. I have often wondered if these same American-born girls would still cover up if they lived under Islamic regimes that prohibited them from driving or doing many activities without the approval of a male relative. In fact, I believe that these same defiant young Muslim women, if forced to submit to the second-class citizenship their sisters in many Muslim countries endure, might be the first to stand up in defiance and burn their burkas. Most of them were born in America and have never lived under the Taliban or Iranian or Saudi sharia law, and look at their long lost heritage with naive nostalgia and pride. They have never felt the humiliation and oppression that many Muslim women live under. Instead of feeling gratitude to the culture that liberated them, they use their head cover or veil as a form of jihad in defiance to all that America stands for in its pursuit of freedom and equality for women. I was once told by one of them: “My Islamic attire is a political statement.” I believed her 100 percent.

  Furthermore, I see Arab professors on U.S. campuses who are equally if not even more radical and elusive than any imam in a radical mosque. They are merely more clever in conveying their message of hate and anti-Semitism than the crude preachers are. I heard one Arab professor claim she “just wants to live in peace with Israel,” but her speech was full of quotations from anti-Semitic figures who say that Israel is not “worthy” of having a state. Contradictions like that are endless among Muslim leaders and intellectuals. They display a split personality: one side supports and justifies terror and another claims “Islam is a religion of peace,” leaving many perplexed as to what their real position is. Whether double-speaking professors or imams, when confronted by the West, such Arabs deny their true intentions regarding Jews and Christians. What they tell one another is different from what they tell non-Muslims. As an Arab speaker I know that. As a child I often saw respectable adults lie to present Islam in a positive light. Even moderate Muslims often find themselves on the defensive to justify this or explain away that.

  The same radicalism I watched in this country was, of course, also spreading in the Middle East. My contacts and family in the Middle East reported the same thing: some were afraid of an Islamic coup d’etat in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood. Family and friends told me that many Egyptian women were covering up, some of their own choice, and others under pressure from their husbands or other women. As I heard these reports, I realized that what is happening was not just some phenomenon of disaffected Arab immigrants in this country, but a worldwide jihadist movement supported and financed by oil money from Saudi Arabia and other rich Gulf states. The movement was taking place not just in moderate Muslim countries like Egypt, but was radicalizing and causing uprisings among Muslim minorities around the world, whether in Chechnya, the Philippines, Africa, Bosnia, or India.

  As we moved into the 1990s, Islamic terrorism was also on the rise around the world. Oil wealth—the new Arab governments’ openly used weapon—had given Arabs an advantage over the West. The sword as an Islamic weapon cannot officially be used by most Muslim governments, even though some radical ones, such as Iran, are foolish enough to make such threats. Thus the sword is left to the terrorists who are the hidden hands of radical Muslim leadership and governments. Oil money was now buying access for radical Islam in the West. Political and cultural demands were being made daily in Western democracies to accommodate Muslims while at the same time prohibit Western influence within the Muslim world. Think about it. Muslim countries do not give the same accommodation and tolerance to Jews, Christians, and minorities in the Middle East that they demand for themselves in the West. Muslims have been building mosques around the world for decades while prohibiting the buildi
ng of churches and synagogues on Muslim land. I was hearing of more and more Christian Egyptians being discriminated against, and violence against churches in Egypt was on the rise. With increased Muslim power and wealth has also come increased intolerance of non-Muslims.

  As for me and my family, we chose to assimilate and be part of America. We had friends from all backgrounds and races. I was an independent thinker and simply could not submit blindly to any ideology, especially radical Islam, which was now in control of most of the Muslim world. I was tired of my character being defined simply as either a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Nor did I wish to face the dilemma that involved being filled with pride and superiority for practicing Islam or being filled with shame and guilt for not practicing. I considered religion to be a personal matter, not a matter of warriors preparing to conquer the world. Radical Islam has ruined the beautiful aspects of Muslim culture. Despite my natural inclination to be a moral and religious person, I could not be a practicing Muslim because I could not accept the way Islam was being taught and practiced in today’s world. I could not dissect the radical portions of Islamic teachings, such as “kill the infidels,” from the religion. That should be the job of Muslim scholars who should reform their religion to rescue it from interpretations that lead to violence and terrorism. Islam, as taught today, says that jihad is not optional for a Muslim; even women and the elderly are ordered to give asylum and aid (Surah 8:74). What jihad means to all Muslims is a religious holy war against the infidels. Some Muslim scholars dispute this interpretation, especially in front of Western media. But if they truly dispute this meaning, they should start reeducating their people as to the correct meaning, because people are being slaughtered around the world due to this supposed misunderstanding.