CAN condemns racism against Muslims and Arabs
Tuesday, 28 February 2006
(new!)
Campus Antiwar Network Statement Condemning Racism Against Muslims and Arabs
The Campus Antiwar Network condemns all racism — including racism against Muslims and Arabs, which is being used to justify brutality against them and the occupation of their lands.
The Campus Anti-war Network condemns racism in any form, as recently displayed in the publication of a series of anti-Islamic cartoons. These cartoons actively contribute to an atmosphere of discrimination and violence. They create the conditions for individual hate crimes — just as, in the wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism after 9/11, the United States saw a sixteen-fold increase in anti-Islam hate crimes from 2000 to 2001.
Most of all, the images are helping to promulgate state violence against Muslims and Arabs — including the occupation of Iraq. The most offensive cartoons portrayed Islam as inherently prone to terrorism. Meanwhile, the ensuing coverage in the mainstream media has suggested that Muslims are protesting the racism against them only because they don’t understand “Western notions” of free speech and democracy.
All of these stereotypes are part of an ideological offensive, aiming to justify occupation by dehumanizing and infantilizing people from the Middle East. The arguments that the U.S. must stay in Iraq to “fight terrorists” in the country, or to bring “democracy” to a population assumed unable to do so for themselves, are directly buttressed by these racist caricatures of Muslims.
Anti-Arab racism has also emerged most recently in the controversy over whether Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, should be allowed to run six U.S. ports — ports which are currently run by a British firm. American politicians and pundits have openly embraced the blatantly racist notion that any Arab country or company is inherently a national security threat. This idea is not only offensive on its face; it also lays the basis for future U.S. military interventions in the Middle East.
Recent events make the consequences of these ideas tragically clear: the discovery of videotape footage of British soldiers beating unarmed Iraqi teenagers for sport; the release of sickening new pictures from Abu Ghraib; the United Nations Commission on Human Rights concluding that the violence against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay “must be assessed as amounting to torture.” Most of all, these ideas are helping to justifying continuing an occupation that has already killed well over 100,000 people.
This is why, as students dedicated to opposing our government’s occupation of Iraq, we must also unequivocally challenge racism in all its manifestations. Along with our support for all civil liberties, we will condemn all racist trends within the media. The Campus Antiwar Network stands in solidarity with Muslims and others calling for unbiased media and a recognition and eradication of racism in any form.
Campus Antiwar Network
http://www.campusantiwar.net/
Help Show How Students Can Challenge Racism
Students around the country have been helping to lead the movement against war and racism. The Campus Antiwar Network is compiling reports to show how students are organizing on the ground to challenge racism against Arabs, Muslims and immigrants. Send reports of actions and events to campusantiwarnetwork@gmail.com, and look for the list at http://www.campusantiwar.net/