Scandal no surprise to local Muslims

As stories of protests are quickly winding down in the American press, some local Muslims are confused as to why Newsweek's article about abuses at Guantanamo Bay was considered "news" when it was published May 9.\n"To be honest, I'm a bit baffled as to why there's an uproar now," said Nathan Ainslie, president of the Islamic Center of Bloomington. "I remember hearing about this sort of thing several months ago, reading about it in AP news stories about people who had been released from Guantanamo. I was unsurprised when I saw the Newsweek story."\nShahaab Uddin, vice president of the Muslim Student Union at IU, agreed. \n"This is not a new issue to many Muslims," he said. \nHe cited previous accounts of abuses at Guantanamo Bay aimed directly at "breaking" Muslim prisoners, including one instance in which a female interrogator smeared red pen ink on a prisoner's face and told him it was menstrual blood -- convincing him he would be unclean and thus unable to pray to Allah. \nUddin grew up in South Bend, Ind., although his parents are from India and he was raised Muslim. He said that as an American, he felt betrayed by the U.S. government's chronic insensitivity to Islam. \n"This is attacking our religion" Uddin said. "Because it has been done numerous times, it really hurts."\nNazif Shahrani, professor of anthropology at IU, said the Quran holds a special value to Muslims.\n"Quran to the Muslims is not just a book as you think of other books or even the Bible as viewed by the Christians," Sharhrani said. "Muslims view Quran as the literal words of God and may be comparable to the Christian view of the body of Christ ... It is the most revered and sacred item to Muslims. It is this view of the Quran that makes any act of desecration toward it utterly unthinkable to Muslims."\nImad Rahman, a Bedford engineer and member of the Islamic Center of Bloomington, said the severity of the reaction overseas was largely a difference in day-to-day life and education between the U.S. and many poorer Muslim countries. \n"If you look at someone in Iraq, for instance, and their father or brother or sister has died and all they see is western armor and guns, they say to themselves 'America equals my father dying,'" Rahman said. "There are a lot of strong emotions out there, and they don't know how to express themselves. Here we can do things that make us feel like we're doing something" like writing to newspapers or sending letters to congressmen. \nShahrani, who grew up in Afghanistan and maintains close ties with the country, said disillusion and frustration with the U.S. government's promise to bring democracy to places like Afghanistan might have also fueled an environment for violent protest.\n"The promise of improved economic condition, better governance, jobs, reconstruction, etc. has not materialized," Shahrani said. "People's patience is running out as corruption, nepotism and oppression gets worse under (Afghan President) Karzai's regime."\nOzair Shariff, president of the Muslim Student Union at IU, said Muslim groups have issued public statements, but it is a problem of the American media not paying attention. \n"They just don't get the air-time," Shariff said. "They're not appearing on CNN or Fox News."\nShahrani said protests in the U.S. are not an option for most Muslims at this time in our history. \n"In the post 9-11 environment of anti-Muslim hysteria in the U.S., most Muslims feel besieged and fearful of the government and Christian extremism, so it is unlikely that they would take their anger and demonstrate on the streets," Shahrani said. \n"A lot of American Muslims are scared," added Shariff. "They see people getting sent to prison and places like Guantanamo Bay as terror suspects." \n-- Contact Staff Writer James Klaunig Jr. at jklaunig@indiana.edu.