veiled4allah: Independence Day

Part One

Free Palestine! Free Chechnya! Free Kashmir!

Many Americans don't seem to understand that people who hate America don't hate it because they "hate freedom." People who hate America do so because all too often it doesn't allow others the same freedoms it enjoys for itself.

The American colonists were justified in mounting a revolution because of some taxes and yet the Palestinians, the Chechens, and the Kashmiris don't have the right to take up arms against brutal oppressors who engage in murder, torture, and systematic brutality? What kind of justice is that? A better question is, who wouldn't hate America and its double standard?

Here are some words from the Declaration of Independence:

...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, layings its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happinesss.... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security... [emphasis added]

All that the Palestinians, the Chechens, and the Kashmiris want is the same freedom that we in America consider our birthright. Why does America not allow this? Are some people "more equal" than others?

Part Two

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Oh, and then there's the question of rights and freedoms right here at home. I think the cartoon pretty much says it all. (the cartoon showed Ashcroft suggesting equal rights for all except Muslims, Arabs, immigrants, and other minorities). The so-called anti-terrorism legislation makes a mockery of the very principles the Fourth of July is supposed to be celebrating.

Part Three

I was born and raised in America. This is my home. I value the freedoms and rights that I have here because I know many places in the world where I would not have them. For several years, I felt no conflict between being a Muslim and being an American. But since September 11, it seems as though some people, people with influence over the government, are determined to make me feel a conflict, by treating Muslims as though we don't belong in America. I am very sad. These peoples' America is not the America that I love. Their vision is a perversion of the ideals that America was founded on.

I will not give up Islam. If it becomes impossible for me to live as a Muslim in America, I will have to leave. I never thought I would ever have to contemplate such a thing. Yet I do. May Allah SWT help us all. I don't know if anybody understands how much this hurts me.