Update Feb. 28th: The Star Tribune published an editorial yesterday about the open house at the Minneapolis mosque that is under suspicion (discussed below). It’s your typical, ho-hum, editorial about how we must all come together, but read it anyway.
A couple of articles came across my desk yesterday that I’m throwing together here because both involve a stepped-up campaign to help Americans understand our ever-expanding Somali Muslim population. The first is about a documentary film that follows the lives of two families resettled in the US from camps in Kenya. The filmmaker is Anne Makepeace, so I think you know where this is going.
I’ve just pulled this little bit from the article in BU Today (Boston University) to get your attention! Dogs are considered in the top ten dirty things in Islam right along with urine, feces, dead bodies and pigs. Families taking in Somalis should have been briefed about the Muslim prohibition about dogs.
…. there’s also a scene when the family going to Atlanta first gets there, and the hosts who take in the family want the kids to pat the dogs, so they’ll be friendly. But the hosts did not know that some Muslims don’t touch dogs. So the kid quickly touches the dog, because he’s pressured to do it. When that clip was seen on the Internet, the child was teased by his classmates, so his mother wanted me to take it out of the film. But it was too late — PBS already had it, and it was about to be broadcast.
Watch the brief film clip from the documentary because it gives a little view into the “education” received by refugees from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) before the refugees depart Africa. There is a discussion about what is “rape” in the US. Is it rape to force one’s own wife to have sex against her will, NO! answer the men and all the Somali women answer, yes!
Skipping out to Minneapolis
In the wake of FBI Director Mueller’s speech this week about the Somali missing men, the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center opened its doors to the community to show that the Somali Muslims are welcoming, want to be a part of the Minneapolis community and to assure the public they were not involved in any way with indoctrinating the missing youths.
The public relations campaign is working judging from responses like this one in the Star Tribune. I thought it was funny though how the reporter put the following paragraphs together. One of Abubakar’s ‘worshipers’ kills himself and 30 others in a suicide attack in Somalia and it’s all about prejudice, huh!
Henry Lippman, whose daughter lives in the neighborhood, came from St. Paul.
“I’m Jewish,” he said. “I grew up recognizing prejudice. I thought it was important to show support. … I know there has been prejudice against this community and particularly this center.”
Rumors connecting the mosque to the missing men surfaced late last fall when news broke about the death of Shirwa Ahmed, a Somali immigrant from Minneapolis who returned to Somalia and killed himself in a suicide attack in October. Ahmed, and some of the other Somali men from Minneapolis who disappeared had spent time at, or had ties to Abubakar, sources in the Somali community have said.
It is believed that the source is none other than Somali community mouthpiece Omar Jamal, NOT the big bad FBI or prejudiced Americans. Even the families of the missing youths say their “chidren” spent all their free time at the mosque. And, someone had to arrange for (and pay) their plane tickets out of the country.
The Star Tribune puff piece goes on:
Standing at the head table in the wedding hall, Hurre (mosque director) minced no words.
He said the disappearances are a tragedy that has left families and friends reeling. But a second tragedy is the “finger-pointing” and implication that the mosque was behind their disappearance.
“This mosque has nothing do with … Somali politics or indoctrination or recruiting or helping to return these young people to Somali,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Hurre said mosque leaders have talked among themselves and are convinced nobody on staff influenced the young men.
The article goes on to say that mosque leaders will soon be meeting with the FBI. Funny, this has been going on since late November and that hasn’t happened yet.
And, one final note, CAIR and the mosque invited Mueller to attend this ‘open house’ but notice was too short for Mueller’s busy schedule.
