You Can Judge a Quran by Its Cover

History is full of examples of discrimination and over reactions. Today, being a Muslim on and airplane might just get you nowhere. Last week in my hometown of Minneapolis, a group of imams was asked to get off a flight because of “suspicious behavior” before and during boarding. I believe this was a case of paranoia and ignorance at its ugly best.

The facts are still somewhat sketchy, but here is what the passengers and some officials are saying.

1) The imams prayed before getting on the plane.
2) The imams shouted, “Allah, Allah!” before boarding.
3) The imams asked for seat belt extensions after boarding.

Wow! I am surprised they were not sent to Gitmo on the next CIA flight out!

I cannot be the only one who sees how ugly this is. Let me address these points one by one in an attempt to illustrate just how ridiculous this whole thing is.

1) The imams prayed before getting on the plane.
Muslims are required to pray 5 times per day. These prayer must be carried out in such a way that it would not be possible to hide the fact they are praying. So the contention that they “could have been more discreet” about it is crap. Americans pride themselves on their freedoms. Our nation was partially founded by people who were escaping religious persecution for Christ sake! Oh how hypocritical we have become as a people. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are surely rolling in their graves.

2) The imams shouted, “Allah, Allah!” before boarding.
Again I will hit the religious freedom chord. Also, I do not believe for one second that any real terrorist would be calling such attention to himself while preparing to commit a suicide bombing. Come one people! Get a fuckin’ grip!

3) The imams asked for seat belt extensions after boarding.
This is one thing I do not pretend to understand or have an answer to, but I can say I find it pretty harmless. Now if they had asked for extra sharp plastic knives or maybe some electric wiring…

I understand that this whole scene may have been disconcerting for the white-bread Midwesterners who were getting on the plane. And I also think that a part of the reason the imams did this was to see how far they could go. Maybe the whole thing was just a publicity stunt – that is a distinct possibility. But regardless of what they said or did they had just as much right to be on that plane as the paranoid non-Muslims did, and the imams were deprived of that right.

I guess the whole thing boils down to this…

If this had been a group of Christian missionaries singing and praying before getting on the plane… If they had shouted, “Jesus, Jesus!”… If these same Christians had asked for seat belt extensions for no apparent reason… Well, it is pretty obvious to me that we would never have even heard of this whole event.

So if Christians and Jews can do it; if Buddhists and Taoists could do it; if Pagans (well maybe not Pagans, we hate them too) – why can’t Muslims? Because some of their brethren are blowing themselves up. So we lump them all together into one group. It is as simple as that.

History repeats itself. 65 years ago, America lumped all the Japanese into one group and it meant a loss of freedom for thousands of people all over the U.S. (Side note for future topic: We did NOT put Germans into camps – only Japanese people.)

It appears that our paranoia is rearing its ugly head again and it’s focused squarely on the Muslims. No check that – people who look and act like Muslims. Come on you imams out there, tone it down! Shave those beards. Wear our clothes. Speak more English. Be less yourselves and more like us. We will like you better and let you ride on our planes.

I would bet anything that the passengers of the Mayflower heard the same rhetoric from Europeans in the early 17th century. I am glad the pilgrims of those colonial years did what was right and stood up for themselves. I am sad that their ancestors seem to be so ignorant of their own past.

And the oppressed shall become the oppressors.