CAIR sees a role in Oregon

http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/35916651-78/cair-sees-a-role-in-oregon.html.csp

The Council on American-­Islamic Relations — a national civil rights and advocacy group for Muslims — is opening a chapter in Oregon. It’s unfortunate that one of the factors driving this is a spate of hate crimes against Muslims, including a well-publicized attack in Portland.

The Muslim population in Oregon is tiny. A 2014 Pew Research Center study put it at 1 percent of the state’s population, the greatest number of whom — CAIR estimates about 40,000 to 50,000 people — live in the Portland area.

It’s an unusually diverse population, CAIR-Oregon Representative Zakir Khan says, including Somalis, Syrians, Arabs, Pakistanis, Jordanians and others — including native-born Americans.

Those who came to the United States from elsewhere, like many other immigrants before them, usually came seeking a better life or fleeing from war and violence.

Like previous immigrants — Swedish, Italian, Irish, Polish, Mexican, Jewish — many have faced hostility, suspicion and prejudice. People whose families arrived in the country even one generation earlier have felt entitled to look down on newcomers throughout U.S. history, sneering at their speech and their food, and indulging in wild speculation and tales about their religious and other practices.

Unlike these previous waves of immigrants, Muslims don’t just face name calling, stereotyping, and subtle or not-so-subtle discrimination. They face a different kind of prejudice, fueled by opportunistic politicians, fear, ignorance and the age of the Internet — where anyone with access to a video camera can call oneself an “expert” and spout nonsense labeled as fact that will be quickly disseminated by the credulous without even a fleeting thought of fact-checking.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, there is also a new label for these Muslim immigrants, regardless of country of origin: “terrorist.” The label is used as a justification for abuse, hatred, even physical violence by some. Never mind that the targeted people themselves may be fleeing from terrorism.

A large part of CAIR’s mission in Oregon will be to protect Muslims’ civil rights, educating not just Muslims but also law enforcement agencies and other groups. It will also stand with other civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, in defense of these rights.

CAIR hopes to provide Muslims in Oregon with a unified voice when it comes to issues such as discrimination and hate crimes, and also teach newcomers, in particular, about participating in a democracy, including the right to vote and run for office.

This also includes working for anti-bullying ordinances at the local level and a passage of an anti-hate-crime bill at the state level — two previous efforts have both failed.

All of these are worthy goals.

It would be good, however, if CAIR also is able to expand its mission to include outreach and information to those in Oregon who are unfamiliar with Islam and have never even spoken to a Muslim. Ignorance can be fertile ground for violence and bigotry; it is far easier to hate and fear the unknown than the known.