Finally, Something American Muslims and Jews can agree on: Stop the Hatred and Bigotry … Stop Trump!

Growing up in the US as a Muslim-American (not a term I had even heard or ever identified with until recently, since I’m not particularly religious – more on this in a later post), I had many Jewish-American friends and colleagues.  We usually got along great, and this translated into my professional career in Silicon Valley as well - at one point, for example, when I was running an outsourcing company with an office in Pakistan, we did work for a company started by a Jewish American, with an office in Israel.  If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it wasn’t - as everyone was professional and things generally went well. 

But like many American Muslims and Jews, I’ve found that there is one area where we almost always tended to disagree - and that was about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, namely, the policies of the Israeli government, the responses of the various Palestinian factions, settlements, etc.

Over time, the arguments about this intractable conflict, with its long history and everyone on both sides insisting they are “right”, went online and into social media.  Just as in the real world, I found that we rarely agreed on this issue either.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself on the same side of an argument with many of my Jewish friends recently, when I wrote about my fears of the cheering white Christian crowds supporting Trump’s ideas of racism and bigotry, and how it echoed Hitler’s rise to power and his party’s de-humanizing of the German Jews.  It is my contention that this de-humanizing was a necessary step before an atrocity like the Holocaust, or atrocities like slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansing can occur.

 Like some of my Jewish friends pointed out, the analogy isn’t exact (i.e. Jews weren’t doing terrorist bombings in Germany, and no-one, not even those of us invoking the Hitler analogy, literally expect anything as terrible as another Holocaust to occur here in the US).  Still, I was surprised to find that many of my Muslim friends and many of my Jewish friends agreed and shared the same concerns about the rise of Trump and more importantly, about the unleashing of racism and bigotry that seemed to be simmering just below the surface, and exploited by Trump, could be extremely dangerous.

I wasn’t the only one who made this analogy - it’s become more and more common over the last month.  

For me, this echo started well before the current rise of Trump campaign.  Not only does it go back to his insistence that Obama isn’t a ‘real’ American and wasn’t qualified to be President because he wasn’t born in the US (even though no one doubts that he had a white American mother and a foreign father, just like Ted Cruz, who also had a white American mother and a foreign father, and who  was also not born in the US).  Though Trump led the birther movement against Obama, you don’t see him or his supporters saying a word about Ted Cruz’s birth certificate. What’s the difference between Obama and Cruz? Take a look.  Pretty clear that racism was playing a big role here.

 The echo got stronger with his sweeping anti-immigrant comments earlier this year (using the crimes of some immigrants as an excuse to generalize the hatred), and it really started to sting when he went against all Muslims after the San Bernardino and Paris terrorist attacks.  Each of these were making de-humanizing of an ethnic minority “respectable” amongst a group of people in this country who always had some racism under the surface.

 As I said, I’m not the only one making this analogy.

Recently, The New York Daily news put  a cartoon of Trump chopping off the head of the statue of liberty (see image here ) while they and invoking a new version of a famous quote from German pastor Martin Niemöller who spent seven years in a concentration camp because of his anti-Nazi veiws:  

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

In the Trump version, it was about Mexicans first and then Muslims.  Who’s next?

 Once a country goes down this path, things that seemed unthinkable even a few years ago are given serious consideration, such as labeling members of an entire ethnic group or an entire religion as “undesirables” who need to prove themselves as patriots or “real Americans”.

 Dana Milbank, from the Washington Post, wrote a column recently about the kind of racist and bigoted emails that Trump supporters have been sending him ever since he pointed out that Trump was bigoted and a racist.  “Trump brings bigots out of hiding”.   

 Dana Milbank isn’t Muslim.  He’s Jewish.  But when you tell people it’s OK to be hateful towards one religious or ethnic group, you pretty much tell them it’s OK to be hateful towards any other religious group of “foreigners”, even if they're American (because they're not "real" Americans according to the Trump supporter logic).

And once it becomes acceptable de-humanize an entire group (ethnic, religious or otherwise), any law or behavior that an angry majority wants to impose on the minority is acceptable and "lawful".

 It took this country more than a hundred years AFTER the civil war to get out of the hatred towards African Americans, and many of the Jim Crow laws in the south weren’t just directed at blacks – “No Blacks and Jews” was a very common sign.  Why? Because that’s what a vocal majority wanted.  The United States even turned away several ships of Jewish refugees form Germany in the late 1930s and 1940s because of xenophobia against jews and fears of "German Inflitraters", similar to the Syrian refugee fears that Trump and others are fanning.

 A number of mainstream Jewish groups have condemned Trump’s proposals.  According to forward.com: “The American Jewish Committee’s director of policy, Jason Isaacson, noted the timing of Trump’s statement, which called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” coincident with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

“As Jews who are now observing Hanukkah, a holiday that celebrates a small religious minority’s right to live unmolested, we are deeply disturbed by the nativist racism inherent in the candidate’s latest remarks,” Isaacson said. “You don’t need to go back to the Hanukkah story to see the horrific results of religious persecution; religious stereotyping of this sort has been tried often, inevitably with disastrous results.”  Read more here . 

 Many in the world said, “Never Again”, after the extent of the German atrocities towards Jews and other “undesirable” groups was revealed.   

I’m not saying that Trump is as bad as Hitler was, but I’m saying that he’s opening the doors to racial hatred in a large group of angry people and making it OK to “de-humanize” minority groups, which his supporters are doing in droves.  

 Social media is serving to fuel the fire amongst this angry but vocal group, and his supporters are putting out ever more demeaning and de-humanizing posts first towards Hispanic immigrants and now towards Muslims and their faith.  I’ve even had to turn off my social media posts from many of my far-right friends because of so many hateful and racist posts they were sharing. When I try to call them out on it – they get angry and say “I’m not a racist – I’m sick of this crap.”  I’ve got an idea – if you want to stop being called a racist, stop putting racist and bigoted posts de-humanizing people that don’t look or worship like you do!

 Since we’re using a Nazi analogy, what do the Neo-Nazi and white supremacist and openly anti-semitic groups think of Trump?

 These groups were already super-excited when Trump was going after Hispanic immigrants, ranting about how  Trump’s critics were, according to Stormfront radio co-host Don Advo,  “are people living on the pieces of silver that they get from their Jewish paymasters so that they can preside over our extermination, our disposition, and our ultimate disappearance from the face of the earth.”.    Andrew Anglin, who edits the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, said that Trump’s opponents were simply  “Jewish groups are entirely obsessed with flooding America with brown people.”  Read more on buzzfeed. 

Once Trump announced his anti Muslim plan, the neo Nazis went from simply excited to doing orgiastic somersaults. Anglin for example, wrote, “Glorious Leader Calls for Complete Ban on All Moslems.”  Read more here on the Huffington Post  

Really?  Trump is now considered, at least in spirit, the Glorious Leader of the Neo Nazi White Supremicists?  Need I go on?

If ever there was a time for American Muslims and American Jews to put aside their differences it is now:  Let’s band together to stop the hate, and make sure this country, which we all love, doesn’t go down the slippery slope that others have gone before.

Travels In Pakistan, Part 1-3: The New War, The Old Culture, and Load-shedding

As part of my winter break, I've been travelling to Pakistan over the past two weeks. I kept a series of short observations about what i'm seeing, but haven’t gotten around to putting them up until now so here are the first few:

Pakistan, Entry #1: Winds of War?
There has been a lot of hoopla here lately and talk of a Coming War With India. This comes in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The Indian government has accused the Pakistani government of, well we’re not quite sure here, except that the terrorists were trained by a group here in Pakistan, and the one remaining terrorist may or may not be a Pakistani citizen. Read More...

The Indian government has held that the Pakistani’s aren’t doing enough to crack down on terrorism, and have included the option of surgical strikes within Pakistan as part of their response. This has the Pakistani public up in arms and the armed forces on high alert. There was an incursion for a few minutes into Pakistani airspace by the Indian Air Force earlier this week which raised the stakes.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) scrambled jets over a few major cities, including Lahore, a few days after the Indian incursion, in a show of strength. People were out on their rooftops in Lahore to find out what was going on and if the Indians were attacking. The news channels here are filled with discussions of what might happen between the two nuclear-armed countries.

Coincidentally, I wasn’t in Lahore during the fighter jet flights, but was visiting a PAF base up in the mountains between Lahore and Islamabad. We vistied a relative who's married to a commando in the PDF, who told us that these kinds of airspae incursions happen all the time, but this one was in ain unusual geography and longer than usual. Later in the week, something happened that we don't iknow about, but Pakistan's armed forces were put on high alert, and he wasn't allowed to the leave the base. Some units of the Pakistan army have already been directed to Kashmir.

Most people think that the situation is more serious than it’s been for a while; India recalled all of its 100-plus ambassadors from around the world this week. Supposedly they had done that before the 1971 war as well.

Pakistan has already said that if India attacks, even a surgical strike on uninhabited bases, it would move all of its forces from the Northwest border with Afghanistan to the eastern border with India and respond. The U. S. doesn’t want that because of the ongoing issues on the Afghan border. On the other hand, U.S. drones are constantly making strikes inside Pakistan – killing a few people here, a few people there, so the U.S. army isn’t very popular in Pakistan at the moment either.

Then there's the danger of this escalating into an all out war, whch no one wants. The traditional rivalry between Pakistan and India is alive on this side of the border, and perhaps on the other side as well.

For a moment, we were worried that our flight out of Lahore would get cancelled or delayed. After the initial hoopla though, everything seems to have settled down. As the Chinese say, "May you live in interesting times."

Pak, Entry #2: Lahore Culture and Visit to the Mountains

I had always assumed (like many in the west, I think) that Pakistan is a pretty homogenous place, culturally. After all, it’s over 90% Muslim, and was created in the partition from India in the 1940’s to be a place for many of India’s muslims to have their own homeland.

What i’ve found that Pakistan is a pretty diverse cultural place with a long history. In Lahore, after I arrived, we had dinner (on my birthday) at Coocoos, a well known restaurant in the old city of Lahore. It is an old brothel converted to a high class restaurant in a very historic building, with buddhist, hindu, and islamic artwork and architecture on display.

The history of Lahore reflects many periods, including as one of the key cities of the Moghul empire from the 1400's to the 1700's. Rulers of this empire, which went from Kabul to Delhi, included Shah Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal in India and the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, which shares a lot of architectural characteristics with it. The Mosque is an impressive site, and has a large open courtyard that feels almost like you’ve entered another world, forgetting the busy city of Lahore while you are inside.

Next to the mosque is one of the sacred tombs of the Sikhs. Next to that is an ancient Shi'ite place of worship. Nearby is the Lahore museum, which has many interesting historical artifacts on display. In Lahore itself, many of the well laid out sections of the city and well-know roads (Mall Road, Canal St) were laid out by the British, who left their mark all over Pakistan and India.

As you move beyond Lahore, more elements of Pakistan’s past come out. I went up into the Salt Range mountains between Islamabad and Lahore and stayed there for a few days. There I visited Ketas, which contains the remains of well-known hindu and buddhist temples. There were at one point, seven temples in one holy site.

The Hindu temple is built around a small lake, which legend has it was formed when the Hindu God Shiva shed tears after the loss of his wife. It is considered one of the holiest sites for Hindus in Punjab. The Buddhist temple, better preserved, contains very narrow stairs which wind around intricate chambers all the way up to the top of the temple, which offers a striking view of the area.

Across the street are Buddhist caves, which were used by Yogis to sit in meditation and contemplation. I had read about caves being used by Yogi's and seekers of enlightenment in ancient times, but have to confess this is the first time I actually saw a cave used for this purpose. I'll definitely write more about what I felt and sensed in these caves and temples in another forum.

This site demonstrates the rich intertwined history of different religions and sects in this area. A Muslim scholar, El Burreni, went to Ketas, learned sanskrit, and is best-known for measuring the radius of the earth from there many hundreds of years ago. The temples themselves were built more than two thousand years ago.
Near there, we visited the tomb of a Sufi, who is considered a local saint, and which peacocks are known to visit. Next to his tomb was a cave where another local saint came and did prayer for forty days and forty nights. The importance placed on tombs of Sufi’s in particular, religious mystics who often wrote and quoted poetry (who espoused a very different view of Islam from the western stereotypes being promulgated via the Taliban, etc. today), was one of the more unexpected bits of Pakistani culture. Having lived in the Middle East in the midst of Islamic countries before, this was almost entirely new but entirely ubiquitous within Pakistan.

On that same trip through the mountains, we also saw some gypsy girls, who looked different than the other residents of the area. They were much fairer skinned and had very pale colored eyes. I was told they came from the northern reaches of Pakistan, and were most likely part of tribal groups that were descendants of the soldiers of Alexander the Great who passed that way on his way to India.

Somewhere up there is the home of the Ismaelis, a sect of Islam led by the Aga Khan. Somewhere near there is an area in the north called "Kafirstan" which consists of an entirely different religion and culture from the rest of Pakistan. Near the border with Afghanistan, in addition to speaking Pashtu, there are the remains of the Gandara civilization, which built many Buddhist temples and statues (included in the Big Buddhas in the mountains that the Taliban so callously blasted down a few years ago).

Being in Pakistan, I'm sensing a rich cultural history with many variations and texture across this land. Pakistan is kind of a cross-roads – linking the civilizations of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent with a bit of British history thrown in too. I think one could spend a lifetime studying the very different cultures and traditions that make up this enigmatic land. And I haven't even visited Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan, or Islamabad, the capital city, on this trip. That’ll have to be on my next trip.

Pak Entry #3: Energy: Load Shedding, CNG, and Industry.

The city of Lahore is very big –with something like 10 million inhabitants, making it one of the most populated cities in the world. There has been a significant increase in the number of cars in Lahore over the past 3-5 years, I’ve been told. In particular, the ability o finance cars has led to a “car boom” here (before you had to purchase it all in cash).

This might explain why the air in Lahore, like other big cities, is kind of polluted. Except, if you actually ride in the cars here, you’ll learn that most cars run on CNG and not petroleum/gasoline. Turns out that this ends up being both cheaper and more environmentally friendly, with very little emissions.
So, if not the cars, where is the pollution coming from? Every now and then, even in an big city like Lahore, you'll see Donkey or Horse-driven carts carrying loads. Certainly not from them!

Turns out the buses, trucks, motorcycles, and rickshaws are the main culprits. You can literally see the smoke rising out of the back of these polluters as they drive around the country. Together they probably equal or exceed the number of cars on the road at any given time.

Energy has been on my mind a lot here. Most of Lahore and the rest of Pakistan is experiencing "Load Shedding" - which are scheduled brown-outs where no electricity goes to a neighborhood. It's pretty annoying, to say the least, but does show how the economy has been growing and how demand has been rising.

Most well-to-do houses, and all businesses, have generators which pick up the slack. I visited our software development offices in Lahore, run by my brother, which has multiple generators.

It's funny that when my brother visited me in California earlier this year, the lights went out, in the heart of Silicon Valley (Moutain View) and stayed out for a few hours. It doesn’t happen often- in fact this was just one of two times I’ve seen it happen in the last year. But he got a kick out of it: " Looks like California is just like Lahore, looks like you have Load Shedding here too!”