American Muslims Face Growing Prejudice

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,785836,00.html

The Terrorist Next Door

By Ullrich Fichtner

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, America's Muslims have become the country's internal enemy. Conservative forces have seized upon the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" as a rallying point. Amid all the hate, Americans have lost sight of the real problem: the fact that their country has become paranoid.


Even on hot summer days in Virginia, Brigitte Gabriel receives visitors looking as if she were dressed for the opera. She has her hair teased up, copious amounts of pearls adorning her neck and arms, and her feet clad in rhinestone-studded sandals. This is her uniform in the war against what she sees as the barbarians of radical Islam. On three occasions, Gabriel has been the subject of declarations by al-Qaida, she says, and her name is probably on various death lists. Indeed, Gabriel, who emigrated to the US years ago from Lebanon, is America's siren on all things Islamophobic, and her speeches are one indication of how the country may have changed since the attacks of September 11.

Gabriel's position can be summarized as follows: The US is suffering from terminal cancer and is infected with rampant Islamist cells that are eating away at the country, its liberties and its constitution. "Our enemy," writes Gabriel, "is not an organization of people living overseas plotting to attack. Our enemies are the neighbors next door, the doctors practicing in our hospitals, and the workers who share our lunch break. Our enemies are terrorists driven by a dangerous ideology and clothed in deception who operate under cover and laugh about the advantages our sensitivity training, gullibility, and political correctness give them."

Some 300,000 copies of Gabriel's first book, which contains these sentences, have been distributed. TV stations now set aside ample airtime for her and her ideas. She has been invited to give presentations to US Senate committees, the FBI, the US Special Operations Command, the Joint Forces Staff College, the Republican Party, the Tea Party movement and Christian conferences. Brigitte Gabriel, who pronounces her name as if it were French, is an idol in the conservative half of America's deeply divided society -- but remains a reviled figure in the other half.

[Blue_Tires]

1. You'll never go broke if your business model is centered on fear and hate

[Scurrilous]

2. Thanks.

K & R :thumbsup: