Month: May 2008

The BAMs vs. the IMMs! Tribalism within US Muslim community?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since I’ve written on several occasions lately about black Americans having conflicts with black refugees in communities where the volags apparently placed the refugees—assuming the black ‘African’ brothers would bond, I don’t think I am going too far afield to discuss this very fascinating post I came across yesterday.    It is written at a blog called Muslim Matters and is entitled “The Scourge of ‘Internet Tribalism'”.

This article is also relevant because we are bringing large numbers of Muslim immigrants to the US through the Refugee Resettlement program, so things could get still uglier in the Ummah.

There has been a recent uptick in phenomenon, which for lack of better terminology, I will refer to as “Internet Tribalism”.

This tribalism is pitting black brothers, who I will refer to as BAMs*, against immigrants and their progeny, who we will simply abbreviate as IMMs.

Wow (or Woe)!  I had no idea that Black American Muslims (BAM’s) are suspicious of Immigrant Muslims (IMM’s).   We have been told it’s all peace and love among all of Islam’s brothers and sisters.   But, this article and the comments that follow suggest there is much going on under the surface which the author, Amad (an IMM), is desperately trying to resolve by discussing openly. 

If you are interested in this, and you should be as we continue to bring in Muslim refugees, I encourage you to read the whole post and the comments there.     It is a lot to absorb, so I’ll just pull out a couple of things that interested me.

I guess we may need to add a new category at some point, the BIMMs—Black Immigrant Muslims—-hmm, wonder where they will fit in the mix? 

Anyway, back to the tribalism which Amad describes and then says this, which is apparently one of the things “hate-mongering” BAM bloggers are discussing:

Before I move on, there is a fundamental question that needs to be addressed: Is this social gap between IMMs and BAMs a result of CONSPIRACY, involving a series of deliberate actions by the IMMs to keep the BAMs down and away from the circles of influence and wealth? Or is it that just how history played out where each community was engrossed in its own priorities and issues that it did not stop and think about the other? Or as a third option, does the truth lie somewhere in the middle?

As an IMM who has been active in the Muslim community for nearly 15 years, I would like to believe the following: There is no conspiracy at hand and that there was/is no plan to keep our BAM brothers “down”. But I cannot deny that affluence and authoritarian attitudes of the immigrant community have played a role in silencing and stunting the growth of the BAM community, inadvertent as it may have been. So, while there is no conspiracy, the result has been similar – the BAM community has been kept “down”.

Regardless, conspiracy it is not. And this strange belief of the all-powerful “Immigrant Syndicate” is part of the increasing internet nationalism that has reared its ugly head,

Also, Amad is very concerned about how the “Islamophobes” will use this information.  Apparently the blog Little Green Footballs had already at one point seized on this racist rift. 

As a result of this “internet tribalism”, we saw the formation of new blogs along similar lines of hate-mongering against IMMs. In fact, the Islamophobic community, sensing an opportunity to exacerbate disunity among Muslims, found the posts so appealing that two of them were prominently linked on the most notorious anti-Muslim, right-wing vitriolic site called LGF- Littlegreenfootballs.com (whose members appropriately refer to themselves as lizards). While singularvoice (link) has mysteriously gone offline, the two posts can still be found on LGF.com (google singularvoice).

Perhaps there is something to the BAM’s concerns, maybe they know their history and know that it was the Arab traders who enslaved Africans in the first place.    Although American ‘whites’ get the blame, we fought a Civil War and many Americans died to free the slaves here.   Islam still tolerates slavery of certain people and slavery of Africans by lighter skinned Muslims is still going on according to this account at wikipedia (scroll down to Slavery in the Muslim World).

Amad says its a wild insinuation that modern Muslim activist groups in the US are suppressing BAM’s and seeks to dispel that notion in a section that begins:

The wild insinuation that “I.S.N.A, Q.S.S., C.A.I.R., M.A.S., I.I.I.T, [Muslim activist groups in the US] etc, clandestinely subscribe to this noxious belief that Arabs are Master Race, and that this “fact” has led them to suppress BAMs.

But, one commenter, Abu Noor Al-Irlandee, makes an interesting point by saying that if the Muslim Brotherhood is behind most of the Muslim activist groups in the US, that needs to be discussed or suspicion will continue to grow among the BAM’s.    

I know no one wants to play into talking points of our Islamophobic enemies, but if all the major Muslim organizations really were originally founded by people associated with or sympathetic to various branches of the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon [Muslim Brotherhood], then we should not try to hide that fact but should explore what the real truth of those associations was. And if such groups are now led by people completely independent from those organizations and even by people who do not subscribe to the methodologies of those organizations then we should be clear about that as well. Covering up such issues will always lead to conspiracy theories and to the idea prevalent in many immigrant led masjids for a variety of reasons (some related to this, some not) that there is a true inner circle of the masjid that outsiders cannot really reach or understand and that what is said in private is different from what is said in public. Even if this is for good reasons, this leads inevitably to “suspicion” and then people are uneasy about what is said publicly even when nothing is being hidden. Of course, post 9/11 persecution of Muslim charities and organizations for foreign affiliations has made this problem a more difficult one.

For what its worth, I believe there is an “inner circle.”    See my earlier mention of the Muslim Brotherhood in this post:   Muslim Mayors coming to a city near you.

 

Immigration: Legal or Illegal it’s all the same to many

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I guess things have not calmed down in Waterbury, CT, at least according to this letter to the editor to the Republican American.  The letter writer is director of something called CT Citzens for Immigration Control.  Notice that it doesn’t specify “illegal” immigration.   In my post on Maryland a few days ago, I tried, perhaps inarticulately, to make the point that increasingly citizens fed up with illegal immigration have begun to make no distinction between legal and illegal.

So, when refugee promoters continue to cozy up to groups and individuals promoting ‘open borders’ it will definitely be hurting the refugee cause.

Here is a portion of Paul Streitz’ letter:

Letter to Editor
Republican American, Waterbury, CT

The International Institute of Connecticut claims on its website, “we have assisted over 7000 people each year integrate into American life. We have paved the way for them to find a place to live, to find employment, to learn English and to generally improve their lives and be happy and adjusted in their new country.” These are for profit organizations engaged in trafficking human cargo, paid for by the U.S. State Department. They bring over hapless people to Waterbury, dump them in roach invested apartments, and then abandon them after ninety days to local welfare. What great humanitarians!!

[….]

Lewiston, Maine has 2,000 Somalis, with about 13,000 [82,230] in the United States. The problems of the world are dumped on unsuspecting towns and cities across the United States. Welfare, fights in schools, endless charges of racism, xenophobia, etc.

[….]

The best solution to this problem is to return the Burmese, Somalis and Hmong. Pay them off and set them up in their own countries. They would be better off and so would citizens of the United States.

Paul Streitz
Director
CT Citizens for Immigration Control

 

We have covered the controversy in Waterbury, CT extensively here.

Somali refugee workers file suit over work uniform

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again, another example of Somali Muslims refusing to assimilate,  wanting special treatment by not following the rules of their workplace.  Thanks to a tip from Eric, here is the story today at Hotair:

A group of Muslim workers at a tortilla factory have filed suit for religious discrimination after their employer required them to wear the uniforms that other employees wear. The factory claims that the loose-fitting scarves and dresses worn by Muslim women represent a safety risk. CAIR, who has unsurprisingly provided support for the lawsuit, says Gruma is simply bigoted.

Rohingya really want to be resettled in a third country

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is additional news on the visit to Bangladesh by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that I reported on earlier this a.m.    Antonio Guterres says that he would like the Rohingya Muslims to return to Myanmar (Burma), but it looks like many are saying ‘no thanks’. 

The repatriation program for 27,000 refugees has been unsuccessful to date because the refugees are unwilling to return to Burma out of fear of persecution by the authorities, a refugee source said.

A refugee source added that many refugees in Bangladesh are willing to resettle in third countries rather than go back to Burma, but only a few refugees were given the chance to resettle in third countries such as Canada last year.

The UNHCR has also arranged for the resettlement of these remaining refugees to third countries, and currently Canada is receiving the highest number of Rohingya refugees. UNHCR is also in discussion with other countries, including some South American and Southern European countries, about resettling refugees. 

I suppose if Rohingya are going to Canada and South America they will soon be in America too whether we like it or not since our borders are wide open.    As for a southern European country, I bet it won’t be Italy with the mood they are in!

Journal of American Medical Association reports high cost of vaccinating refugees in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A report in the most recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) says that our practice of allowing refugees to enter the US unvaccinated is costing the US taxpayer a bundle and possibly resulting in the introduction of preventable diseases.

I was surprised to learn that refugees can wait a year to be vaccinated.  

Since 2000, approximately 50,000 refugees have entered the United States each year from various regions of the world. Although persons with immigrant status are legally required to be vaccinated before entering the United States, this requirement does not extend to U.S.-bound persons with refugee status. After 1 year in the United States, refugees can apply for a change of status to that of legal permanent resident, at which time they are required to be fully vaccinated in accordance with recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). A potentially less costly alternative might be to vaccinate U.S.-bound refugees overseas routinely, before they depart from refugee camps. To compare the cost of vaccinating refugees overseas versus after their arrival in the United States, CDC analyzed 2005 data on the number of refugees, cost of vaccine, and cost of vaccine administration. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which suggested that, in 2005, vaccinating 50,787 refugees overseas would have cost an estimated $7.7 million, less than one third of the estimated $26.0 million cost of vaccinating in the United States. Costs were calculated from the perspective of the U.S. health-care system. To achieve public health cost savings, routine overseas vaccination of U.S.-bound refugees should be considered.  

They also suggest that preventable diseases may enter the country due to this practice.

In addition to cost savings, vaccination of refugees overseas has the potential to reduce importation of diseases into the United States and reduce costs associated with response to outbreaks. Refugees often come from areas where vaccine-preventable diseases are endemic (e.g., measles in Africa). During 2004-2007, CDC responded to 19 outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases that occurred in overseas camps housing U.S.-bound refugees.

One thing JAMA did not mention, and maybe they don’t know, is that refugees can ‘disappear into the woodwork’ of America within the first few months of their arrival and no one even knows if they are vaccinated because the volags do not keep track of refugees they resettle. 

See our entire “health” category to learn more about other health issues related to refugees.

And, sorry for the lousy font in the quotes.  Either I’m incompetent or sometimes it seems Wordpress has a mind of its own when it comes to moving text to our blog.