Tariq Nelson

I absolutely agree with Amanullah Shahed and the others quoted in this article. The old way of separation from the wider community and disengagement has been a miserable failure on many levels. Muslims must be engaged with their neighbors and co-workers. Muslims must be a part of the wider community and not the insular people trying to avoid them at all costs. The other plus to this is that it will prevent an environment of bizarre conspiracy theories and paranoia

In spite of the fact that some are still mired in the old insular mentality, the good news is that more and more Muslims are now realizing that not only is there is nothing wrong with participating in neighborhood watch, community clean ups, and participating in other civic efforts to improve the communities we live in, but that it is a duty. We are now seeing Islamic Centers come out of their shells in ways never thought imaginable a few years ago.

We seeing more and more often that the people who gave the foaming at the mouth anti-Israeli speeches and called for isolationism are being replaced with people giving speeches about civic involvement and engagement. There is still a ways to go, but I am very happy to say that I think that the culture of Denial and Pretentiousness is coming to an end.

However, the extremist lunatics are not happy about it. There is no one more insular than the terrorist loving lunatics who often do not even attend a mosque are not active, consider non-Muslims to be too irredeemably evil to participate in any community affairs, and consider those at the mosque to be beneath them.

In the past, it wasn’t strange to find that people would look on in awkward silence (disagreeing, but saying nothing) while some lunatic goes on some insane anti-American rant. Now people have had enough and the loons are being told to shut up and go some place else with that garbage. People are not only sending the loony emails to the SPAM box, but asking to be removed so that they know that they are not down with that deranged methodology.

This has forced these deranged people into even deeper isolation in the real world, but they are finding a home on the internet on the nutter websites - especially from the UK nutters - where they can not only spew filth, but achieve rock star status - with their legendary cut and paste skillz and become internet jihadis.

I am absolutely convinced that many of these people are mentally disturbed. But if these mentally disturbed individuals only hear a message of social services and outreach and not some raving anti (whoever) message, they will not be inspired to become the lunatics that can be found on the nutter websites.

From SF Chronicle

After nearly six years of intense law enforcement scrutiny of Muslims in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is reshaping his agency’s approach to Muslims and invited four prominent Muslims to help the agency prevent homegrown radicalism. The four leaders Chertoff called on — a former ambassador from Pakistan, a Santa Monica author who grew up in San Jose, a Houston city councilman and an Austin, Texas, blogger — suggest increasing youth services, working with bloggers to fight extremist ideology on the Web and even changing the terminology the government uses to describe terrorists.

The May 8 meeting — the first of its kind the Homeland Security secretary has called with Muslims — was part of a series of gatherings that Chertoff told Congress in March would be “an unprecedented level of cooperation” with various ethnic and religious communities to “prevent radicalization.”

Daniel Sutherland, the department’s officer for civil rights and civil liberties, said Chertoff invited the four leaders last month because they are among the most influential Muslim scholars and thinkers in the nation. Sutherland, who has been with Homeland Security since its inception, said he believes that previous secretary Tom Ridge never had such a meeting.

[...]Participants in last month’s meeting praised Chertoff’s desire to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the 2.5 million to 8 million Muslims in the United States and figure out how to find terrorists of all nationalities.

“I like the idea of shifting the focus from policing an entire community to doing ideological battles with the very people who are threatening,” said Shahed Amanullah, 39, an Austin blogger and editor of Altmuslim.com. “It’s much more surgical. You’re going right after people who are causing the problem.”

The 90-minute conversation produced no specific plans, and participants said the U.S. government must develop long-term policies toward the world’s billion-plus Muslims and the major Muslim nations.

“This is not going to be a quick affair,” said Akbar Ahmed, 64, an American University professor and former ambassador from Pakistan. “Emotions have been unleashed. This is going to be a long, simmering relationship.”

For all participants in the meeting, the two top concerns were finding commonly acceptable terminology for terrorism and figuring out how to keep young people from radicalizing, Sutherland and the participants said.

[...]“Our department’s conclusion is that the American Muslim community is very strong,” said Sutherland, who helped organize and attended the meeting with Chertoff. “It’s well-educated. It’s well-integrated. It’s different than Europe and other parts of the world. How do we preserve that strength?”

The four Muslim leaders suggested increasing interfaith efforts and social services for Muslim youth and encouraging parents and community leaders to allow disaffected young people to talk about their concerns.

“Just like we’re concerned that our children don’t get involved with gangs and drugs, we have to be proactive and make sure they don’t have interaction with people with extremist ideas,” said M.J. Khan, 57, who is in his second term as a Houston city councilman. “The responsibility lies with community members, and especially parents, to make sure we have open discussion and guide them properly.”

Ahmed said Muslim leaders in the United States and abroad must create a public discussion about Islam so non-Muslims have a more accurate understanding of the faith. American Muslims also must study American history and learn from the progress of other minorities, particularly African Americans, he said.

Amanullah, 39, the blogger, said extremists don’t come to mosques or Muslim community centers because they fear scrutiny from law enforcement. But they thrive unchallenged on the Web, where it’s easy for people to find them — and difficult for leaders to control them.

He said he and other Muslim bloggers would like to be able to fight extremists on the Web through blogs and critiques in other online forums. He wants to create a program that would give some Muslims explicit freedom to visit extremist sites and do that work.

“We’re not going to get the hard-core ‘jihadis,’ but at least we’ll get to the disaffected people who are wondering what side they should be on,” said Amanullah, who lived in the Bay Area for eight years until 2004 and remains an adviser to regional Muslim groups such as San Jose-based Islamic Networks Group and American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism.

Sutherland, the Homeland Security official, said Chertoff was “very interested” in Amanullah’s proposal but wanted the blogger to work out details.

Starting the conversation about terrorism is problematic. The term “Islamofascism,” used by President Bush and others, offends Muslims who believe their faith condones no violence and other religions are rife with examples of terrorism. Many Muslims also reject terms such as “Islamic terrorism,” “Islamist terrorists” or “Muslim terrorists” for the same reason.

Amanullah and Reza Aslan, author of “No god but God” and a professor of religion and creative writing at the UC Riverside, prefer the term “jihadist.”

Many Muslims object to it because it modifies the Islamic term “jihad,” which refers to an inner struggle — not a military one. But “jihadist” has been widely adopted in the Arab world as a way to describe terrorists, said Aslan.

Aslan, 35, who grew up in San Jose, went to Santa Clara University and taught at De La Salle High School in Concord, said agreeing on terminology is vital.

“If you’re in an ideological war, as we’re told we’re in, then your most powerful weapon becomes your words and your words become very important,” he said.