The terrorist attack on the Sikh Temple Must be a wake up call

Sheila Musaji

Posted Aug 6, 2012      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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The terrorist attack on the Sikh Temple Must be a wake up call

by Sheila Musaji

In an article on the recent Sikh Temple Shooting in Wisconsin, I noted in an update on the identification of the shooter that

The identity of the shooter is now known.  He was Wade Michael Page, who was a former soldier in the U.S. Army.  According to CBS News, he was last stationed at the Fort Bragg Army installation in North Carolina, and attached to the psychological operations unit (PSYOP).  He had recently broken up with his girlfriend, and is said to have had a 9/11 tattoo on his arm.  Note: The Dictionary of Military Terms says that PSYOPS are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.  That definition clarifies why this was called an act of domestic terrorism. Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).

In that article, I also noted that within the Sikh and Muslim communities there was a feeling that this would turn out to be an attack motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment by an individual who mistook the Sikh Temple for a Mosque.  And, I referred to two important articles by American Sikhs — Islamophobia, Sikhophobia and Media Profiling by Simran Jeet Singh and We Are All Muslims: A Sikh Response to Islamophobia in the NYPD and Beyond by Sonny Singh.

Today, much more information has come out about the shooter:

The LA Times reports that Wade Michael Page “was demoted from sergeant to specialist and was not granted an honorable discharge when he left the service in 1998.”

The Washington Post reports “According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that monitors hate groups, Page was a “frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.” He had been “part of the white power music scene since 2000,” when he left his native Colorado on a motorcycle, attended white power concerts in several states and played in a variety of “hate rock bands,” the center said, citing a 2010 interview Page gave to a white supremacist Web site about his latest band, “End Apathy.”  The SPLC backgrounder on Page is here .

Think Progress reports that Should law enforcement confirm Page’s ties to white supremacy, and if that proves to be the motive of the attack, it will fit with a growing trend in this country. Hate groups — groups that expressly advocate against a religion, race, or sexual orientation — have been on the rise in the United States, rising steadily since 2000.  And the targeting of Sikhs is not new either. Often, the hate crimes against Sikhs originate out of misdirected Islamophobia: Sikh men can most easily be identified by their long beards and turbans, which they wear according to religious doctrine. Assailants will mistake these men for Muslims.

Business Insider published an article (including a photograph) on the meaning of one of Page’s tattoos.  They note that “In this case, the Celtic cross — a square cross overlaying a circle — is the symbol of the neo-Nazi White Power movement and the official logo of Stormfront, the online community for political racists.  We know that’s likely the true meaning of the Page’s cross because he has the number 14 tattooed in the middle of it. According to the United Methodist Church’s compilation of hate symbols, and the Anti-Defamation League, in fascist culture, “14” stands for 14 words in a quote from imprisoned white supremacist David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Sadly, not only Muslims and Arabs, but Sikhs, and South Asians have suffered from bias attacks since 9/11.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the government has investigated “over 800 incidents since 9/11 involving violence, threats, vandalism and arson against Arab-Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, South-Asian Americans and other individuals perceived to be of Middle Eastern origin. The incidents have consisted of assaults with dangerous weapons and assaults resulting in serious injury and death; and vandalism, shootings, arson and bombings directed at homes, businesses, and places of worship.”

As an American Muslim, I can’t help but wonder if this terrible tragedy might not be a manifestation of a culture of Islamophobia, Arabophobia, Sikhophobia, etc. that has been allowed to fester within American society, and has even been incorporated into our government and military training programs.  That concern is raised since on the same day as this tragic shooting in Wisconsin, a mosque in Joplin, Missouri was burned to the ground in the second arson attack in a few months.  Just last month The Nation published a special issue Islamophobia:// Anatomy of an American Panic with a series of articles discussing this at length.

In the article Islamophobia has consequences, I wrote that Islamophobes have attempted to distance themselves from the effects of their words saying:

“We are anti-Jihadists, we are opposed to terrorism, we have never told anyone to use violence or terrorism as a tactic against anyone.”  That may be true, however, they have indulged in a discussion about Islam and Muslims that is characterized by extreme rhetoric.  The climate they have helped to create or reinforce is one of intolerance, fear, and resentment. 

They have espoused and circulated memes such as:

Muslims are more dangerous than others, their very religion is what causes them to be this way, they are liars and you can’t believe anything they say, there may be some good Muslims but it is almost impossible to tell which are the good ones, most are some sort of a fifth column just waiting their opportunity to “go Jihad” or impose Sharia, they don’t respect the Constitution, they want to undermine the foundations of Western civilization, they want to take away everything we hold dear and are just held back until they become a majority, and since they breed like rabbits this “demographic jihad” could happen sooner than people think, , minarets are a statement of supremecism, mosques are incubators of jihad, where there are mosques, there are Muslims, and where there are Muslims, there are problems, they have never made any original contributions to civilization, they will rape your daughters, and convert your sons, Islam is a death cult, Islam is evil, Islam is diametrically opposed to everything we believe in, Islam is not a religion, Islam is a disease, and Muslims are infecting our society with that disease, Europe is rapidly becoming Eurabia and America is next, unless we do something to stop them our civilization is doomed.  There is no such thing as Islamophobia, as a phobia is an irrational fear, and fear of Islam is completely rational.  It isn’t Islamophobia, it’s Islamorealism.

...  This villification of Muslims, Arabs, and Islam has become relentless.  Repeating the same things over and over again has been shown to create credibility. False logic seems plausible, and even outright lies repeated often enough begin to sound like the truth.  Sadly, these stereotypes have replaced knowledge with ignorance and misperception, and ignorance fuels hatred of what we don’t know much about.  Muslims are consistently portrayed as “the other”, not part of us, and imposible to understand, and so not worthy of tolerance.  Just the mention of Islam creates a feeling of fear on the part of many non-Muslims because of what they have heard so often and causes them to believe that this fear is reasonable.  There is a propaganda industry involved full time in a demonization of Islam and Muslims, and this lead to seeing Muslims as suspect and Islam as the source of every negative action. 

If Muslims are so different from other human beings that there can never be any motive for any action they undertake other than Islam (no Muslim criminals, no insane Muslims, no political, economic, social, or cultural motives for actions), if you can’t tell a moderate from an extremist, and even the moderates are dangerous, then that really does seem to limit the options to either criminalizing Islam, interning and/or deporting Muslims, or carrying out a Crusade or “final solution” against the Muslims. 

When this demonization has led to a situation where even politicians and elected representives can make anti-Muslim statements, and even suggest that Islam might not be deserving of the protection of the Constitution, or that Muslims should not have the same rights as other citizens, or that there should be a loyalty test for Muslims in government, that America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization, this simply legitimizes the Islamophobes claims.  The ignorant think “You see, even our elected representatives know that Muslims are the enemy”.

Why does it come as a surprise to anyone that someone who really believed that everything they hold dear, their

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