| Decent American Muslims |
October
2002 |
The Faces of Reason
Since the Al Qaeda attack on America last year, there has been a xenophobic cry of, "Why don't the Muslims in this country speak up?" Well, on the Curtis and Kuby program on MSNBC the other day, America was treated to four young Muslim American men acting with the restraint and decency their religion demands. Three of them had been falsely detained in Florida on suspicion of terrorism, and the other was their lawyer. The only un-American thing said was, "We have no intention of suing."
The story has been told throughout the press, and the upshot is that three of these gentlemen, American citizens all, were on their way to medical school and were arrested on the strength of the word of a waitress in a Georgia wafflehouse. Intense investigation proved them thoroughly innocent.
The story then deviates from the usual. They don't plan to sue anyone. They understand how people make this kind of mistake -- "She might have heard a few key words that she misconstrued, and she was trying to be a patriot, I guess, for America, which is understandable." They aren't even angry, they say.
Kensington wishes Ayman Gheith, Omer Choudhary, Kambiz Butt, and their lawyer, Khurrum Wahide, the best of luck, doesn't expect them to succeed in preventing civil rights abuses, and hopes their professional careers are as splendid as these Decent Americans deserve.