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House Muslim Hearing Brings Out Strong Emotions
U.S. Rep. John Dingell had harsh, cautionary words for a committee examining radicalization in America’s Muslim communities and the potential for fomenting homegrown Islamic terrorists.
He warned against McCarthyism and said Arab-American communities like the large one in and near his Dearborn-based district are targets that “demagogues continue to mischaracterize and misrepresent.”
But the Democrat’s words were delivered in writing only. His spoken testimony was more measured, expressing confidence that the House Homeland Security Committee could “achieve a fine result in alerting the nation to a real concern.”
The hearing Thursday called by committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., stirred controversy among critics who complained he was unfairly targeting Muslim Americans.
It also had a metro Detroit feel: Rep. Keith Ellison — a Minnesota Democrat and Muslim who grew up in Detroit — brushed away tears as he recalled a Muslim man who lost his life trying to save people in New York City during the 9/11 attacks.
“His life should not be defined as a member of an ethnic group or a member of a religion, but as an American who gave everything for his fellow citizens,” Ellison said.
King said the hearings’ aim was to look at infiltration and recruitment by radicals — a problem, he said, the Obama administration has noted.
Muslim hearing stirs up tension
A New York congressman on Thursday denounced as “mindless hysteria” complaints in recent weeks about a hearing he called looking into the radicalization of Muslim communities in the U.S.
He promised more hearings in the months to come.
U.S. Rep. Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, held his first hearing Thursday before a packed committee room, introducing witnesses who claimed knowledge of radical elements infiltrating Islam.
King, in opening remarks, said the hearing was not intended to indict the religion or its adherents but as a response to a growing problem.
“Despite what passes for conventional wisdom in certain circles, there is nothing radical or un-American in calling these hearings,” King said. He added that it is the “logical response to the repeated and urgent warnings the Obama administration has been making in recent months.”
“The threat is real, and it is serious,” he said.
Still, critics said that by zeroing in on radical elements operating in Islamic communities, the committee may have victimized all Muslims. In prepared testimony, U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Democrat whose district is based in Dearborn, which has a large Arab-American community, said the hearing “must not be permitted to recall the evils of McCarthyism and the divisiveness and ill will it created.”
A letter he and others signed said, “Singling out one religious group and blaming the actions of individuals on an entire community is not only unfair, it is unwise.”
U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke, a Detroit Democrat whose Bangladeshi father — a Muslim — died when he was 8 years old, serves on the committee. He tried to strike a balance between the risk terrorism presents and the need to avoid singling out Muslims.
“The committee must make decisions based on reliable intelligence — not based on anecdote, profiling or stereotyping, which could fuel bigotry and hate,” he said.
The hearing had a distinctly metro Detroit feel. That wasn’t surprising, with the area’s large Arab-American population and concerns that anti-Muslim feelings would be profoundly felt in southeast Michigan.
King repeatedly referred to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — a group with an active Michigan chapter — as an “unindicted coconspirator” in a case involving funding for Hamas.
The October 2009 shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a Detroit Muslim leader, by FBI agents, also came up. Agents came to arrest Abdullah at a Dearborn warehouse for allegedly dealing in stolen goods and said he opened fire first. Local, state and federal investigations cleared the agents.
Zuhdi Jasser, who testified as founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, attacked what he described as Abdullah’s “ideology of separatism.” Abdullah’s supporters have denied he was an extremist, saying he was only trying to use Islam to better his Detroit neighborhood.
Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of CAIR, said his problem was not with a hearing on extremism but with singling out one religion.
“The scope was too limited,” Walid said.
After the hearing concluded, King said he thought it made clear there was no “monolithic American-Muslim community” and that he is interested only in battling radical forces.
The next hearing, he said, will probably look at radicalization of Muslims in American prisons. No date has been set.
Todd Spangler
Detroit Free Press