Diary: Fear at Home
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MARCH 11, 2002 | CAIR (COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS)
“I am so happy we have this great organization. I didn’t even know they existed before September 11th. They’re the greatest thing happening right now. They tell people to do so much that I can’t keep up with them,” gushes my friend.
“I don’t respect other Muslim organizations as much as them. They confronted Ashcroft (U.S. Attorney General). They go out and do their job and they’re not afraid.”
My friend is talking about an organization called Cair, the Council on American-Islamic Relations which has seen its prominance explode since September 11th. This organization is a Muslim advocacy organization which seeks to “promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims in America.”
They monitor the media ceaselessly for evidence of anti-Muslim bias and issue ‘action alerts’ to the Muslim community at large. Muslims respond through phone call, faxes and letters. And the community has responded especially after seeing evidence of success. A few years ago Cair was successful at getting NIKE to remove a running shoe that had a word that resembled ‘Allah’ in Arabic on its sole.
Cair was established in 1994 in Washington. Cair chapters mushroomed throughout the United States and in 1998, the Canadian chapter opened. By 2000, Caircan formed and went national with an independent Canadian board from the mother organization in United States.
“In 1994 CAIR was the only Muslim organization that knew what they were doing with the media in North America,” says Dr. Sheema Khan. She has a phD in chemical physics from Harvard and is the director of Caircan. She is the only woman leading a national Muslim organization.
She remembers 1994 when a Montreal high school student was sent home for wearing a headscarf in her class.
“At that time there was no effective community response,” says Khan.
It was this event that inspired her to start Caircan. They now offer publications such as ‘An Employer’s Guide to Islamic Religious Practice', workshops and media kits to both Muslims and non-Muslims on their website caircan.ca. But most importantly they track the media.
“In 1999, CBC’s Air Farce had a sketch about a Terrorist Depot with Muslim terrorists. I called them about this episode and they hummed and hawed. So we issued an action alert to the Muslim community to respond,” she says from her office in Ottawa.
“Within a couple of hours the CBC faxed an apology."
Since September 11th, CAIR’s work civil rights advocacy has increased dramatically. They keep track of ‘anti-Muslims’ incidents, particularly at airports.
On December 18th, a 17 year-old high school student was forced to remove her headscarf by security at Baltimore/Washington International Airport. She immediately informed CAIR which has a civil rights coordinator Hodan Hassan. Hassan asked the airline for an apology. Delta President and Chief Operating Officer Frederick W. Reid called the 17-year-old personally after writing a formal letter of apology.
Sabiha Khan is the media relations coordinator of the national CAIR chapter in Washington.
“If there’s positive portrayals of Muslims, we get them out. If something negative happens in the media we encourage people to write articles to the editor,” says Khan.
“We’re trying to reach out to the broader community and work with different minority groups and different civil rights groups and make relationships with each other.
CAIR was one of the sponsors of the Mosque Study Project, the ‘largest, most comprehensive survey of mosques ever conducted in the U.S. The study is available on their website cair-net.org.
It’s a fascinating study which among its vast statistics, breaks down the ethnicity of Muslims, counts the number of converts to Islam per year and tracks Muslim participation in mosques.
As a direct result of September 11th, the Muslim community in Canada and the U.S. are getting their act together in a new way. They are trying to teach their community skills that were normally not part Muslim agenda until now. In the past, the focus has been raising money for mosques and Islamic Schools but now more effort is starting on training Muslims in political activism.
Cair is running a voter drive in the U.S. for the November election of the U.S. House of Representatives. Their goal is to get 100,000 Muslims to register for the vote.
“In Canada it’s different. There’s a permanent voters’ list,” says Sheema Khan.
Caircan hasn’t organized Canadian Muslims for any election yet.
“We’re not there yet. There hasn’t been any wide spread political initiative. We will do it but later on,” she says.
In Washington, Cair is holding a training conference on March 30. On the agenda is media relations basics, how to be an effective spokesperson, mobilizing grassroots activism, positive interaction with elected officials and most interestingly lobbying 101.
One of Cair’s outreach projects in the U.S. is the ‘Billboard Campaign.’ Although this project was in the works before September 11th, it was fast tracked because of the increased need to ‘promote good will between Muslims and their neighbours”.
Three billboards have been situated outside three major highways. There are seven smiling Muslim men and women with the slogan “Even smile is charity – a message from your Muslim neighbor."
Cair’s profile has grown tremendously since September 11th. Ibrahim Hooper, a Canadian born convert to Islam, is the national coordinator of CAIR.
“I’ve talked to more journalists in the last several months then I have since the formation of Cair,” he says from his Washington office.
They have easily become the most popular Muslim organization in North American.
“During our fundraising dinner, we had highest return ever," says Hooper.
I ask my admiring friend why she thinks Muslims have responded so strongly to Cair and Caircan.
“Muslims are getting more active because September 11th affected our freedom. When things start affecting you on a personal level you have to start doing things.”
