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Boston Globe – October 6, 2005
Distressing words for Muslims
Massachusetts Governor's speech reinforces fears
By Missy Ryan
Mahmud Jafri, a Shi'ite Muslim who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and arrived in the United States 31 years ago, is adamant when he says he wants to be viewed as an American. ''We are Americans who happen to be Muslims," said Jafri, who is president of an Oriental rug company and active in Republican politics in Dover.
Jafri and fellow trustees of the Islamic Masumeen Center of New England in Hopkinton, one of the region's few Shi'ite mosques, were among the Boston-area Muslims who were alarmed by Governor Mitt Romney's recent call for heightened surveillance of certain Muslims to ensure national security.
''We should not be identified by our faith [or] by the acts of a minute minority who [do] not represent mainstream Islam in any way, form, or shape," Jafri said. ''I don't think America is about that."
Romney's suggestion that surveillance of certain mosques should be increased, made in a Sept. 14 speech on homeland security to the conservative Heritage Foundation, prompted a backlash from local Islamic associations, civil liberties groups, and religious organizations…
Romney, who is said to be considering a presidential run in 2008, has insisted he would only target mosques harboring religious extremists and would only advocate intelligence-gathering methods permitted under the Constitution.
''The governor is not going to apologize for doing what is necessary to protect our citizens and homeland," Romney's spokeswoman, Julie Teer, stated in an e-mail this week. ''The reality is we are at war and need to know when there are terrorists living in our country.
Hassan Abbas, an international security fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is vice president of the Hopkinton mosque. He is also a former Pakistani police chief stationed near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and the author of a book on Islamic political power in his native country. ''Yes, religious extremism is a serious issue," Abbas said. ''But Romney's statement . . . creates [a] stereotype. I personally think Romney crossed the barrier by saying that. . . . I don't think that's in the American spirit."
Many Boston-area Muslims said they have long felt welcomed by most local residents, but they add that they do worry about stereotypes and profiling, especially in the post-Sept. 11 environment. Their concerns are heightened when they travel, many said, because they believe they are singled out by security officials due to their last name, a head scarf, or a long beard.
Massachusetts is home to some 200,000 Muslims, Islamic groups say. The state's Muslim community includes people from a variety of homelands, ethnicities, and cultural traditions stretching from North Africa to Southeast Asia……..
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/10/06/distressing_words_for_muslims/
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