I watched today’s Peter King hearing on “the extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community” held by the House Committee on Homeland Security which he chairs. The congressman deserves some credit: he did not call only his allies and there were two stories of radicalization told by two witnesses. Congressman King even allowed two democratic colleagues to testify on the damaging effects of the hearing. Keith Ellison wept as he recalled the story of a Muslim 9/11 myrter: First Responder Muhammad Hamdani who gave his life to save innocent people, only to be later suspected of terrorism because of his Muslim faith.
Two witnesses, a Somali American relative to two young men who went to Somalia to fight for the extremist groups Al-Shabab and an African American father to a young Muslim convert who also went overseas for radical Muslim causes, talked very briefly about their encounter with radicalization. Shockingly, there were only a couple of probing questions by members of the committee about the details of the stories or the Muslim leaders and organizations involved or became aware of the incidents. And I did not get the feeling that members of the committee were interested in exploring what the two incidents meant for measuring the extent of radicalism among American Muslims or what the information means for government counterterrorism policy—which is the declared objective of the hearing.
Several members used the incidents as a proof, a smoking gun, that justified throwing in the names of objectionable Muslim groups (e.g., CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas) even though they were not involved in the incidents and whose mention was connected to learning from the serious radicalization stories that the committee just learned. Thus we had a vivid demonstration of how the politics of Islamophobia mix: It is about projecting fear-provoking Muslim things together for an audience that is supposed to only make a decision where their emotions and loyalties are—regardless of the facts.
Los Angeles County Sherrif Leroy Baca testified that he was pleased with his relationship with the Muslim community. When in a response to a question he affirmed that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-LA cooperates with his department on counter-terrorism, a republican member of Congress turned against Baca in an attempt to bring him back in line with the anti-CAIR message that King opened with. CAIR-National had been publicizing a statement he allegedly made about the presence of too many mosques in America.
We also learned in this hearing about the extent of the strict secularism of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim physician with ideas about contemporary Muslim political thought. He was given much of the witness speaking time. We learned about the actors in Muslim world politics (even beyond America) that he dislikes. He definitely opposes the Muslim Brothers, including those who are willing to play by democratic rules. But Obama does not object to their participation in government and Bush had successfully courted them in Iraq in the effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power. In Tunisia their Ennahda party has been legalized. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is establishing a new political party calling for a civil state and accepting members regardless of faith.
But a discussion of this nature does not fit in the work of a committee that is paid by taxpayers to watch government performance in homeland security. This is not to say that such discussion should not to be had in the halls of Congress. I set up educational panels in congressional meeting rooms on American Muslims; the functions were open to members of Congress and their staff. But these events were not part of a government sponsored investigation.
The politics of Islamophobia and resistance to it were balanced in quantity and passion. Some members of the committee dropped in talking points about Sharia creep in the United States, a popular talking point on Fox News, while others complained that despite the religious affiliation of the KKK and its terrorism in America over a century, Congress never held a hearing on their ideology. But the real loser of today's hearing is the tax payer whose government did not gain any new ground in combatting terrorism.
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