Anti-racist unity with Muslims wins the day

Thousands of people gathered in City Hall Park near this city’s World Trade Center site on Sept. 11 to show solidarity with the Muslim community and condemn the racism and bigotry whipped up by the right wing over a plan to build an Islamic community center in the neighborhood.

WW photos in slideshow: G. Dunke, Greg Butterfield, Monica Moorehead and John Catalinotto

The pro-unity rally, called by the Emergency Mobilization Against Racism & Anti-Muslim Bigotry, greatly outnumbered a heavily publicized and financed Tea Party event protesting the community center. In addition, hundreds more anti-racists surrounded the Tea Party bigots to oppose their message of hatred.

Just two weeks earlier an orgy of publicity in the corporate media and a big advertising budget gave a false picture of broad support for the anti-Muslim gang. The same media also exploded with coverage of the pastor of an obscure, reactionary sect in Gainesville, Fla., after he threatened to burn 200 copies of the Qur’an on Sept. 11. Media attention to these viciously racist events sparked physical attacks on Muslims in the United States.

In response, progressive forces joined together to mobilize resistance to the anti-Muslim attacks. In New York they also exposed the role of the billionaire corporate backers of the Tea Party, which tries to present itself as representing workers.

In countries with large Muslim populations like Indonesia and Pakistan, thousands of people began to demonstrate at U.S. offices to protest the wave of anti-Muslim bigotry and xenophobia. In Afghanistan, mass demonstrations targeted NATO bases and government buildings.

For almost a decade, the U.S. government has used anti-Muslim propaganda to build support for its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and its threats against Iran. But the anti-Muslim excesses at home were undermining U.S. diplomacy and its military occupations. In the week before the 9/11 anniversary, Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates personally pressured Gainesville pastor Terry Jones to cancel the book burning.

It was the response of the people that turned the tide, however. In Gainesville, 300 rallied and marched in response to the threatened Qur’an burning, organized by the Gainesville Area Students for a Democratic Society. There were also demonstrations in solidarity with Muslims in Minneapolis; Chicago; and Asheville, N.C. And the night before the Sept. 11 anniversary, other thousands joined a candlelight vigil in New York to support the Islamic Community Center.

In The Hague, Netherlands, 200 joined the anti-racist NBK group to protest anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders and his racist PVV party. Wilders spoke at the Tea Party action in New York, along with U.S. ultraright figures.

New Yorkers defend Muslim rights

In New York, home to more nationalities than any other city in the world, all of them seemed represented among those who answered the call of the Emergency Mobilization Against Racism & Anti-Muslim Bigotry. People from Boston, Washington and in between joined thousands of New Yorkers in a display of the strength of the anti-racist movement that embraced young and old, people of all the colors of the city and region, gay and straight. The demonstrators exuded a spirit of unity and cooperation by chanting, marching and then chipping in their labor to clean up at the end of the day’s action.

International Action Center co-coordinator Sara Flounders, one of the rally chairs, said that “10,000 people joined today, coming from dozens of communities in the city. They represented neighborhood organizations, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and other religious groups, political and anti-war groups and human rights groups. Many workers wore their union caps or T-shirts. We had to organize on a shoestring budget,” said Flounders, “but we showed that a broad section of the city won’t let the racists dominate 9/11.”

Just naming Flounders’ co-chairs gives a modest idea of the breadth of the rally’s support: Sayel Kayed of American Muslims for Palestine; Dr. Asha A. Samad-Matias of the Safrad Somali Association and the Muslim Women’s Coalition; Honduran-born Lucy Pagoada of the May 1 Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights; and African-American Amadi Ajamu of the December 12th Movement.

Some of the speakers well known to progressive activists included former congressperson and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, human-rights leader Ramsey Clark and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan.

The message from the nearly 50 community and religious leaders greeting the Emergency Mobilization rally was solidarity with the Muslim community and unity of all the forces in the struggle against racism, scapegoating and U.S. wars abroad.

One of those speakers, Larry Holmes of the Bail Out the People Movement, said, “We brought out the real New York City — a city of workers and people of color from all around the world. This mobilization started because we were forced to defend our Muslim sisters and brothers. It will continue as we open up the struggle at home to fight for jobs, education and social benefits.”