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HisDaughter
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« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2008, 03:17:17 PM » |
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Distribution of 28 million copies of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" stirs discussion across the nation
Prophecy News Watch
Abdiamar Bare, 21, walks up to the nondescript mosque in Greeley for noon prayers and pauses a moment to talk about his faith.
He is asked by a visitor if he's seen the DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." No, he says. He's asked if the principles of Islam allow other religions to coexist with it.
"Every religion is the same. No religion is better than another religion," Bare says. "I believe in Islam. I like my religion, and I don't want it to interfere with other religions."
Bare is one of about 120 Muslim workers recently fired by JBS Swift & Co. for walking off the job after a disagreement on prayer breaks. He enters the mosque, off 8th Avenue near the University of Northern Colorado campus, to join dozens more for prayer.
It's a low-profile, unmarked building in which Greeley Muslims come to practice their faith, which again finds itself in the crosshairs of scrutiny locally and nationally.
In Greeley, the dispute continues on prayer breaks for Muslim workers at the meatpacking plant. Sentiment has spread among some in the community that the newcomers are pushing too much, exhibiting a desire not to assimilate but rather impose their religion on others.
Nationally, the DVD arrived on 28 million doorsteps as rhetoric on homeland security heats up in the presidential race.
The confluence of recent events -- the Muslim workers' dispute and, on its heels, the "Obsession" DVD -- is the talk of the town. Many Greeley residents have noticed the 400 mostly Somali refugees who've arrived in the past 18 months to take jobs at JBS Swift. The workers say they are here to escape the oppression of their war-torn homeland, build a new life and peacefully practice their religion.
What to make of these newcomers and their religion, which is indelibly linked to 9/11 and other violent acts across the globe, has sparked a variety of views. The DVD alone prompts widely different opinions.
A Greeley woman calls the disc "neo-con propaganda," while a history professor at Colorado State University says the film is factually accurate and shows it in his classes.
Meanwhile, in the day-to-day operation of the Greeley meatpacking plant, the African refugees' religion is at odds, especially during Ramadan, with the assembly line production.
Brianna Castillo, a JBS Swift employee for four years, said the Somali workers are asking for special treatment and making non-Muslim plant employees pick up the slack.
"Somalis are running our plant," Castillo said at a recent protest by non-Muslims against the Muslims' request for a changed break time. "They are telling us what to do."
'They need to be flexible'
Bill Jerke, a Weld County commissioner, said he worries that if a large percentage of workers walk off an assembly line at once, it can lead to an over-stressed and potentially dangerous situation for the remaining workers.
He said the Muslim workers who walked off the job because of the prayer issue should be more flexible.
"Every other group that's come to the United States, that maybe has a little different angle on culture and religion, has learned to assimilate with the majority, and that's what I think they need to be flexible enough to do," he said.
Jerke has watched "Obsession" -- he bought the DVD a couple of years ago at a Republican function -- and read a book called "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It." Those sources, which he deems well-researched, as well as worldwide bombings by radical Muslims over the past 15 years, make him circumspect of Muslims in America.
"With the Muslim religion, their practices will dominate over what your American practices would wind up being," he said. "And part of that is they believe that Islamic law should dictate over laws of man."
He said the issue in Greeley, Weld County and across the country boils down to "whom will accommodate whom and whom will assimilate to whom." He said "America Alone" argues that Europe is "reverse assimilating" in that fewer Europeans are being born compared to Muslims, and the continent is being overwhelmed by Muslims.
DVD and presidential race
Greeley resident Marise Downing said she doesn't know enough about the JBS Swift labor dispute to decide which side is right -- the workers or the company. She said she has no problem with Muslim workers attempting to follow their beliefs.
Downing is more pointed about the "Obsession" DVD, which in an e-mail to The Tribune she called a "disgusting piece of neo-con propaganda." The film was a paid advertising insert in the Sept. 14 Tribune and 70 other newspapers nationally, including the Denver Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Downing said she hasn't watched the hour-long film, produced by the New York-based Clarion Fund, but said she's researched it enough to satisfy her belief that it's fear-mongering propaganda.
"I understand it's a matter of money I presume (for the newspaper)," she said. "To me, it gives it a kind of authenticity that it wouldn't otherwise have."
The packaging says the DVD's intent is to educate people about the threat of radical Islam. It adds that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing the issue openly.
A story in Editor & Publisher said about 28 million copies of the DVD have been distributed so far, mostly in swing states in the presidential race.
Hasan said she believes the DVD's main intent is to spread fear and sway the election.
"I don't know -- is this anti-Obama, is this for McCain?" she said. "Either way, this is a very bad way of doing things."
Mainstream vs. radical
James Lindsay, an associate professor of Middle Eastern history at CSU, takes an opposite view on "Obsession." He believes it's a straightforward look at radical Islam.
He said the producers are explicit that film is about the radical ideology within Islam, which is advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and other groups. The film's introduction states that most Muslims are peaceful and don't support terror.
The militant Islamic branch -- which the film says makes up about 10 percent to 15 percent of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.2 billion, the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity -- has a conquest ideology, Lindsay said.
"It's one of subjugating the world to their ideology. There is not room for another ideology, according to the radical Muslim ideology, and it's frightening," he said. "But it's part and parcel of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaida types that they want to impose their will on everyone."
The film acknowledges that part of that mindset stems from a fear that the West is out to destroy Islam, and that the religion's followers must strike first.
Hasan agrees that there is a radical strand that claims adherence to Islam. But she dismisses them as brainwashed and "sick, sick individuals" who don't practice Islam but rather a singular and misguided hatred of America.
Hasan, who is married to a physician and has homes in Denver and Beaver Creek, returned from Washington, D.C., Thursday after being invited to the White House's annual dinner observance of Ramadan. Hasan, an ardent supporter of the Bush administration, said she spoke last week with a Brazilian ambassador about the problems at the Brazilian-owned JBS Swift plant in Greeley.
She believes the Somalis in Greeley will assimilate within about eight years. Resettling people to the United States from a country of poverty and poor education is a complex process, she said.
The U.S. or United Nations should assign social workers to the refugees to smooth their transitions, Hasan said, "then the communities where these people are sent to, it would be a much happier atmosphere."
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