The lure of violence: Dreaming of disaster?

Zazi gets attention

For those hoping that President Obama’s inauguration would herald a relaxing of constraints on Muslim Americans’ civil liberties or a more general opening of political space, the past year has been a disappointment. Deaths of Somali-American men from Minneapolis in the horn of Africa, apparently in suicide bombings, have prompted anxious hand-wringing in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

In March, Sen. Joe Lieberman warned that Minneapolis was “most significant case of homegrown American terrorism” since 9/11. Yet in May of this year, it seemed that Lieberman spoke too soon: New York police arrested four men in the process of preparing the last stages of a violent attack on a synagogue. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg soberly described the attacks as timely warning that “peace is fragile and democracy is fragile.” (So fragile, indeed, that it cannot accommodate the religious beliefs of Muslim schoolchildren in the New York educational system). Finally, the arrest of Najibullah Zazi, apparently based on evidence sourced from an imam who served as a font of information for the FBI, only cements the impression that a tide is turning – the wrong way.

Arrests and allegations of conspiracy spreading from Minnesota to Colorado to New York should be troubling for two independent reasons. Unlike other Americans, Muslim Americans have not only to be concerned for the safety of loved ones and their country, but also to worry about the political dynamics that these incidents license. For example, they provide factual cover for those oppose political mobilization by any and all Muslims because “the Muslims are moving in and taking over.” Such was the sentiment raised against an Elizabeth, New Jersey, imam’s effort to organize a prayer day on Capitol Hill. Christian groups have already organized a counter-effort.

The danger here hinges on the possible vicious circle incipient in these facts: Foolish, criminal actions of a few will precipitate a wider populist counter-reaction and more repressive measures, which in turn will alienate more young men. Because this dynamic weakens the moderate center to the benefit of both extremes, one finds this gloomy narrative being played out on both sides. Two sides seethe in anger while the reasonable center crumbles away.

For those who saw Obama’s election as a “new beginning” (to steal a phrase from the President’s landmark Cairo speech), it is not too late to turn the tide of bad news around. Like the President’s lead advisors, they should search for opportunities in crisis, not letting the chance to make political inroads.

Here’s why. For the duration of the Bush Administration, Muslim Americans had little to offer those in power in the scramble for political access and influence. Knowing that Muslim Americans were seen as anathema by much of their base, conservatives in power had little use for this domestic constituency. No matter that many American Muslims share the Republican party’s social views.

American Muslims, however, have had a closer and complex relationship first with Candidate Obama and then President Obama. However fraught this relationship is (and it’s unclear how successful in the long run Obama’s effort to drawn in a more varied staff at the White House will be), it does contain kernels of openness that can be exploited.

And Muslim-Americans do, for the first time, have something to offer politicians that no other interest group can. Muslim-Americans have an opportunity to turn the negative publicity and rhetoric of the Minneapolis arrests, the Newburgh conspiracy, and the Zazi affair into an advantage. Perhaps these incidents demonstrate that there will be, from time to time, a hotheaded individual or small group that can be lured into noxious criminality either by an informant or a genuine recruiter. While everyone hopes these individuals and groups will be quickly caught, the fact is that Muslim American community is the best placed both to counter the risk in the first place and also to flag actual problem cases when they arise.

First, Muslim Americans can provide an alternative form of political mobilization for those frustrated with conditions in their natal or family lands. If the disintegration of Somalia is a source of frustration, or if the crumbling of the Pakistani state under the weight of corruption, human rights violations, and incompetence is a source of anguish, then there are means of organizing and being active that can draw attention to an issue and—as human rights groups and other ethnic lobbies have shown—make change. Muslim-Americans, that is are better placed to siphon off political energies that might otherwise emerge as violence (something I hope we can agree even if there is no agreement on the actual scale of the problem).

Second, effective political channels for the expression of Muslim Americans’ strongly held views about foreign policy are few and far between. In part, this is due to geographic diffusion and a (largely false) complacency born of middle-class success. But in important measure, political mobilization of this kind has been blocked by other interest groups – often in the fear, noted above, that “the Muslims are moving in and taking over.”

And, for once, there is an effective, practical answer to this argument: Muslim American political engagement and mobilization is not just consistent with our traditions of free speech, of assimilation, and of diversity – it is also good for our national security. In this light, budding groups such as Muslim Advocates are doing more to protect the nation than the phalanxes of security experts that rotate through CNN and Fox News

So the coming prayer on Capitol Hill, and other examples of Muslim-American mobilizations are a win-win proposition for Muslims and for the political establishment. The only losers are the bigots, bloviators, and bombers who dream of disaster as their royal road to political power.

Aziz Huq is counsel in several cases concerning detention and national security policy, including Omar v. Geren and Munaf v. Geren, challenges to US citizen’s detention in Iraq. He has advised and spoken before legislators on issues related to the Separation of Powers, excessive secrecy, and illegal detention. His book with Fritz Schwarz, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power In A Time of Terror (New Press), was published in 2007, and will be reissued in paperback in spring 2008. He is a frequent contributor to The Nation, the American Prospect, the New York Law Journal and Huffington Post. His articles have also appeared in the Washington Post, the New Republic, Democracy Journal, TomPaine, and Colorlines. In 2006 he was selected to be a Carnegie Fellows Scholar. He also teaches a seminar in Just War Theory and Terrorism at NYU School of Law.