Posted on 10/11/2006 4:36:37 AM PDT by Alouette
A minor issue at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has potentially major implications for the future of Islam in the United States.
Some Muslim taxi drivers serving the airport declared, starting about a decade ago, that they would not transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol, for example, in transparent duty-free shopping bags. This stance stemmed from their understanding of the Koran's ban on alcohol. A driver named Fuad Omar explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we agree to [transport alcohol]. This is a Koran issue. This came from heaven." Another driver, Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol."
The issue emerged publicly in 2000. On one occasion, 16 drivers in a row refused a passenger with bottles of alcohol. This left the passenger, who had done nothing legally and morally wrong, feeling like a criminal. For their part, the 16 cabbies lost income. As Josh L. Dickey of the Associated Press put it, when drivers at the airport refuse a fare for any reason, "they go to the back of the line. Waaaay back. Past the terminal, down a long service road, and into a sprawling parking lot jammed with cabs in Bloomington, where drivers sit idle for hours, waiting to be called again."
To avoid this predicament, Muslim cabbies asked the Metropolitan Airports Commission for permission to refuse passengers carrying liquor, or even suspected of carrying liquor, without their being banished to the end of the line. The airport authority rejected this appeal, worried that drivers might offer religion as an excuse to refuse short-distance passengers.
The number of Muslim drivers has by now increased, to the point that they reportedly make up three-quarters of the airport's 900 cabdrivers. By September 2006, on average, Muslims turned down three fares a day on booze-related grounds. According to airport spokesman Patrick Hogan, this issue has "slowly grown over the years to the point that it's become a significant customer service issue."
"Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," Hogan added.
WITH THIS in mind, MAC proposed a pragmatic solution: drivers unwilling to carry alcohol could get a special color light on their car roofs, signaling their views to taxi starters and customers alike. From the airport's point of view, this scheme offers a sensible and efficient mechanism to resolve
a minor irritant, leaving no passenger insulted and no driver losing business. "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices," Hogan points out. "Our goal is simply to ensure travelers at (the airport) are well served." Awaiting approval only from the airport's taxi advisory committee, the two-light proposal will likely be in operation by the end of 2006.
But on a societal level, the proposed solution has massive and worrisome implications. Among them: The two-light plan intrudes Shari'a law, with state sanction, into a mundane commercial transaction in Minnesota. A government authority sanctions a signal as to who does or does not follow Islamic law.
What of taxi drivers beyond those at the airport? Other Muslim hacks in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country could well demand the same privilege. Bus conductors might follow suit. The whole transport system could be divided between those Islamically observant and those not so.
Why stop with alcohol? Muslim taxi drivers in several countries already balk at allowing seeing-eye dogs in their cars. Future demands could include not transporting women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples. For that matter, they could ban men wearing kippas, as well as Hindus, atheists, bartenders, croupiers, astrologers, bankers, and quarterbacks.
The airport authority has consulted on the taxi issue with the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society, an organization the Chicago Tribune has established is devoted to turning the United States into a country run by Islamic law. The wife of a former head of the organization, for example, has explained that its goal is "to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state."
It is precisely the innocuous nature of the two-light taxi solution that makes it so insidious, and why the Metropolitan Airports Commission should reconsider its wrong-headed decision.
The writer is director of the Middle East Forum. www.DanielPipes.org
Damn!
I wish I was a hack
Don't bring that Koran in here !
You're Muslim? Sorry, you carry the spirit of Allah within you .. my religion will not allow me to be within 5 feet of a false God
(sign on cab) Free pork chops with paying fare! (Wait a minute .. fat, beached whale Teddy Kennedy may never leave .. never get to cast another vote ... hmmmmm .. Free pork chops with paying fare!)
Heh! All non-muslim cabbies should carry a bag of pork rinds for any who wish to snack on them.
Perfect solution! Cabbies don't have to carry alcohol against their will and customers who prefer not to do business with Mo's kids have a convenient means to differentiate.
oops - thought that the MuzziePigs said it was a "Korean issue" and that therefore they were concerned about drunk unruly Koreans that wanted to chop their heads off.
Nevermind. Move along people - nothing to see here :-)
This is absolutely ridiculous. Once upon a time a bus company didn't want to let black folks sit in the front of the bus if there were white passengers present -- we saw what happened there.
Any sort of signal that allows for discrimination when dealing with a legal transaction should be discouraged, if not banned. If you're a hack (in most areas) I'm pretty sure that there are strict conditions upon which you can refuse a fare, and this is not one of them. If they can't deal with the notion that Americans purchase and consume alcohol, then they should be driving cabs in a country that doesn't allow it.
Passengers at the airport should turn the tables on them -- they shouldn't ride in *any* taxi that has this light on it, even if they don't have alcohol among their belongings (which, last time I checked, was none of the driver's business anyway).
I drove a cab, and the behavior of these drivers in Minnesota is contrary to the entire cab business.
Half the trips out there are picking up or driving patrons to bars and homosexual hangouts, hauling Mr. Lush and his 2 cases of beer from the local beer distributor to his home for a weekend of serious drinking, transporting the blind with their guide dogs or transporting people with their pitbulls.
I don't see how these muslim drivers make any money, their business model seems defective. Being liberal (in the traditional sense) in what one will accept is essential in that business.
Good, I'll know who to avoid.
I’ll bring in a slab of bacon and throw it on the front seat for the Muzzie’s tip.
The right and proper solution is that any cab or hired car driver who refuses a fare loses his cab and his license, permanently!
End of problem!
I am also concerned that some of these brain washed muslim cabbies may have a suicidal tendency towards killing some of their fares. Very disturbing.
If there is to be a two-light solution, it should be used to shuttle the Sharia-compliant cabs back to the end of the line without inconveniencing the customer. The taxi-stand operator can determine (in a culturally sensitive way, of course) if the customer would be offensive to the poor wittle feewings of the Muslim taxi operator, and move that taxi along to the back of the queue if he thinks there might be a problem.
There is no way a taxi operator should be allowed to refuse one passenger and then pick up the next passenger in the line. We should not reward such obnoxious behavior, regardless of the motivation.
You just knew the Airport was going to knuckle under in this situation. Weak little dhimmi pansies, they are. I hope their chains rest lightly upon them.
Alternatively, the authority having jurisdiction could require taxis to pick up and transport all paying customers, and pull the license of those who don't, like everywhere else in the World. If it came down to losing a license, you would be amazed how quickly these meticulously observent Muslims will look the other way. It is only because accomodations have been made that the Airport now finds itself in this position.
If a white taxi driver provably refused to pick up an African American fare because of his race, he would lose his license so fast your head would spin, and rightly so. The same standard should be applied here.
Bingo! Spot on.
I guess it's all possible but the best thing about it is companies that employ drivers like that will soon be out of business. What should NOT happen is that the Government shouldn't try and institutionalize such things with affirmative action, quotas and Gov't financed accommodations for every idiosyncrasy under the sun.
There is definitely an opportunity here for a Christian entrepeneur to create, let's call it, "Glory" car service, with a cross dangling from the rearview.
Moslems and vampires can use the sharia service, everyone else can use "Glory."
In New York there are a number of Jewish car services which I always use when I need a pickup from LaGuardia.
But if they were carrying a sack of dynamite it would be perfectly okay?..........or seven heads in a duffel bag?.......
Ten years ago the airport started making accomodations by letting taxi drivers refuse fares and setting up a mechanism to allow them to go back in line and pick up another fare. The Muslim taxi drivers took that accomodation and banked it.
Now they are back, demanding a new accomodation. They want to be able to refuse one fare and then pick up the next one, so they can maintain there discriminatory practice and no suffer any economic consequences. After they have this accomodation they will bank it as well.
Next they will be back for yet another accomodation. Perhaps they will demand that the Duty Free Shop not sell liquor or to ban liquor from cabs altogether. Who knows? And after some hemming and hawing, the Airport will accomodate them again.
It is a one-way ratchet. They demand little concessions, and we give in. Time after time. Our political system, which seeks conciliation and compromise, is self-defeating when faced with an intransigent foe. We will gradually, over time, put our heads in the noose and implement Sharia piecemeal.
Well, the time to stop that is right now. Set the rule, and demand compliance. If Muslims are unable to drive cabs because of their minority religious beliefs, well that's just too damn bad. Demand they comply with us, not the other way around, for a change.
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