Imagine your grandmother. Imagine her giving money to charity to
help that poor child she saw pictured in the media. Now imagine her
being taken to Guantanamo Bay as a detainee for possibly assisting
an organization that might have ties to terrorists.
It’s a rather hard scenario to take seriously. But when
the judge reviewing the cases of detainees challenging the legality
of their detainment asked the attorney general what would happen in
this example, the attorney general had to admit the grandmother
could have been detained.
In the greater scheme of things, I’m all for this.
It’s obvious old ladies around the country have been hiding
their terrorist affiliations under the guise of concern for those
less well off than them.
It’s time we stand up to these vicious bullies for our
national security. We’ll all be able to sleep easier once we
do. As the Queen of Hearts says in “Alice in
Wonderland,” “Off with their heads!”
I’d like to make a proposition as well. If we’re
trying to punish all those harboring terrorism, we need to turn the
eye inward. We have a problem of harboring terrorists in our major
cities ““ they’re called gangs. We have, as a nation,
failed to fix this inner-city problem.
Thus, we should enlist in the help of Britain to send its troops
here to blow away our problem. Excuses about how this problem is
too complicated to fix in a day would only communicate our support
for terrorism.
Furthermore, since high school teenagers are very likely to know
someone involved in a gang, or someone who knows someone
who’s involved in a gang, or maybe even bumped into and spoke
for a few minutes with a gang-affiliated youth at the mall, anyone
who was ever a high school teenager living in the inner city should
be detained.
If you think I’m overreacting, I’d like to highlight
the irony of my overreacting about a government that is clearly
overreacting in the same way. Now I understand this was a scenario,
and that for most people it doesn’t hit home, as the FBI has
not and would not approach their own grandparents. But for Muslim
and Arab communities, it does hit home, literally. Activists have
been checked out for lesser reasons.
This paranoia has even affected students on campus. Three of the
major advertisers for Al-Talib, the magazine for the Muslim
community on campus, were shut down by the government for alleged
ties with terrorist networks. “More than affecting us
financially, these were organizations that were doing good work. It
hurts the Muslim community’s ability to work (for good
causes),” said Mariam Jukaku, the editor of Al-Talib.
According to Jukaku, the UCLA Muslim Student Association itself
was accused of being a terrorist organization. In June of this
year, a guest on “The O’Reilly Factor” also
accused UC Irvine’s MSA of being connected to terrorist
organizations. He cited the fact that some students wore green
sashes with the religious statement “There is no God but
Allah” as an example of the terrorist connections.
“They were ridiculous allegations that didn’t make
sense,” said Jukaku. “We’re a grassroots
organization who want to provide a space for Muslims on campus to
feel comfortable and grow as leaders. … All funding comes from
campus, and we use those funds appropriately, just like everyone
else,” she added, mentioning the many outreach programs run
by MSA.
They sound no good. I say we should check them out, just in
case.
This bottom-up approach toward terrorism is one that only a
desperate nation would apply. In some way or another, if you try
hard enough, you can connect anyone to terrorism. Even
well-established organizations that are known for their
humanitarian aid, such as the Ford Foundation, have been accused of
aiding terrorists. The methods employed create the scary
possibility of the misuse of this war on terror, and other side
effects such as discouraging humanitarian aid.
Personal ““ or political ““ agendas can easily use
such a mentality of fear to put away anyone they want. And since
we’re dealing with the military, they can refuse to show you
the evidence against you, or even tell you what you’re being
charged with. National security, you know.
Of course, these strategies have been used for many years, long
before the war on terror began. But the war on terror is a new war,
in which civilians are seen as a threat. Still, these civilians are
being treated with the same strategies as those employed toward
soldiers and active combatants. Something is wrong here.
I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and walked
through a looking glass.
I’ll tell you what it is. It’s our mentality.
Security at this cost makes us less of a democracy. A state with
selective liberties, served by a military and an administration
that doles out fear and “safety” as justification, is a
police state. And though the Queen of Hearts might love that type
of control, I don’t. And I hope you don’t either.
Hashem loves Wonderland. Riddle her at
nhashem@media.ucla.edu.