(Part 2) Experiences With The Muslim Community In Colorado Springs: Anecdotes, Thoughts, And Reflections

Note: Originally written August 2012

Now we leave my anecdote and move to reflections. Understandably so, many of you will severely disagree with many of the observations and opinions presented. In fact, if there is not any umbrage taken by persons on both sides of this issue, I will have failed.

First I will begin with a brief reflection on my experience with the Colorado Muslim community. As those of you who read it may recall, it was a very pleasant experience. Not only that, it was not unlike in many ways the myriads of church luncheons dotting my childhood. To be sure, I winced at the sight of segregated sexes, but it is to be expected at some point. The persons I met were not ‘stealth jihadis’, not shrouded in suspicion and mystery, but kind and surfeited with joy at my presence. Absent a few minor differences, I could have closed my eyes and thought myself at any other all-American picnic with families of faith exercising their freedoms alongside other good citizens.

In order to gain perspective, there are a few opinions that must be broached. First, that it is an undeniable fact that the West is involved in some level of conflict with politicized, militant forms of Islam. To deny it is to turn a blind eye to the history of the world. While all faiths have been exercised in militant fashion throughout history, it is my strong contention that there is something endemic within Islam that lends itself to a greater propensity for violence and militancy. To deny that is to slough off the burden of nearly a millennia and a half of terror brought forth by militant Islam. Unlike Christianity, whose Savior is as non-political as a religious figure can be, Mohammad (pbuh) was a military commander with more political intentions for Islam, as part and parcel of the culture in Arabia at that time. This, and many other factors, gives Islam a relatively larger penchant for radicalism in the modern context compared to Christianity, especially after the Reformation unyoked large portions of the Church from the oxcart of the State.

This viewpoint is not made out of ignorance or political expediency.  My interpretation of Islam as susceptible to a framework for ferocity and antipathy for those of other faiths is drawn from my understanding of the Quran in total. The Quran is a beautifully written text with a combination of remarkably poignant calls for the best of religious devotion and rather unsavory calls for violence. Those on the fringes who excoriate the Quran, the hadiths, etc. as automatic instructions for violent war are missing a broader framework, but it is not an entirely unfounded perspective.

Additionally, while a vast majority of Muslim communities in the United States are as welcoming and the finest of citizens as the group in Colorado Springs, there is also a small yet troubling number of Muslims in the United States who are not. This is due to many factors, and I refuse to bog us down in the question of “why?”. The simple fact remains that there are indeed, as the Imam corroborated, a number of radicalized Muslims who seek to harm the American community at large, driven by a heavily politicized and theologically myopic view of their faith.

 To those of my friends on the Left who seek to downplay this threat as simply another chapter in the book of American xenophobia and racism: you are in denial of the many of these cases known and unknown involving radicalized Muslims.  In your self-righteously noble zeal to defend those who appear persecuted under the American system, you are doing nothing more than offering social safe haven for the enemies amongst us. By seeing every legislative attempt to protect American citizens from an incredibly real danger as an assault on the Muslim community at large, you only move us closer to the social segmentation that currently wallows Europe in a race-relations morass that makes our problems appear meaningless. Tolerance  at all costs becomes criminal when applied to that which is undeniably evil and harmful to society, and I fear that your gallant attempts at radical inclusion only reap a bitter harvest.

To those on my Right who see a few instances of radicalism and proceed to denigrate an entire community as a fifth column, I urge you to embrace sanity. One can be anti-radical yet supportive and defensive of the Muslim community in this country, but all I see from you is bile and bigotry.  While I am in agreement that politicized Islam is hazardous to our shared values and our vitality, the vitriol and ignorance I find among far too many of your ranks is nothing short of disgusting. To me, it matters not that you may be right in some instances. If you so loudly wail that you cannot find a ‘moderate’ Muslim voice, perhaps you should consider the fact that your rank antipathy for Muslims at large prevents them from making the inroads they so desperately want to make in this society. If you truly sought a nation free from radicalized Islam, you would defend them. But I am more convinced that there are those among you who quietly yearn for religious war of their own, and seek pretext for it by bashing Muslims.

So what is to be done? Is there hope at all for acceptance of Muslims in American society and their absorption into an American fabric? Given that the excesses of the Right and Left are willing to use a ‘new’ (in the American experience) faith community as a political bludgeon, is there room for consensus? Part Three will discuss these issues.