The following message includes:

1) Op-Ed by Surina Khan: Gays should know bombs
can't deliver justice
2) Letter to the Editor by Yassir Islam: Taliban

if to Islam as Falwell is to Christians

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1) Op-Ed by Surina Khan: Gays should know bombs
can't deliver justice

This following editorial appeared in the November
9, 2001 issue of the Washington Blade.

Gays should know bombs can't deliver justice

By Surina Khan

As a Pakistani-American lesbian leading the
International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights
Commission,

I have been asked often to share my views on the
tragic events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath. I
find it challenging every time. The brutal
terrorist attacks defy rational comprehension.

We have all been affected by these gross acts of
violence in innumerable ways. But we need to
think about how to respond, even as we try to
overcome our fear, anger, and sorrow.

Since Sept. 11 we have seen a rise in violence
against Muslim, Arab, and South Asians in the
U.S.

We have seen some of our civil liberties
compromised. Yet no issue is more difficult than
the bombing of Afghanistan.

Hard as it may be, we must ask ourselves whether
this military campaign is justified. We can only
address this question based on a common
understanding of goals.

First, I assume that we want to protect ourselves
and others from further terrorist attacks.
Second, that we want to bring those responsible
for terrorists acts to justice. And third, that
building democracy in Afghanistan has to be a
part of the solution.

Will we be safer after the bombing campaign is
over? Or will we have exacerbated anti-American
sentiments leading to further attacks?

The death of civilians from our bombs --
"collateral damage" to use the military term --
will bring new volunteers to the cause of
terrorism.

Widespread famine in Afghanistan will not make us
any safer. The United Nations warns us about the
starvation of millions of Afghanis if the bombing
continues and urgent aid is not delivered before
the onset of winter. How can we justify direct or
indirect responsibility for such great number of
civilian casualties?

Will the bombing help us bring the Sept. 11
criminals and future terrorists to justice?

Bombs cannot deliver justice. We need to create
an international criminal court that can deal
with serious international crimes. Most countries
are in favor of the idea; the U.S. is one of a
handful of countries that disagrees. How can we
tell the world that our military action is a
measure of last resort when we neglect the very
methods that could provide an alternative?

Are we building democracy in Afghanistan? At the
moment, people in Afghanistan are caught in
between the horrendous rule of the Taliban on one
side, and the specter of war with the world's
superpower on the other. The U.S. has joined
forces with the Northern Alliance as the enemies
of the Taliban, not with advocates of free and
open societies.

We condemn the Taliban's oppressive regime,
particularly towards women and homosexuals. So
does the Revolutionary Association of Women of
Afghanistan. They and others like them are the
agents of change in Afghanistan, especially in
relation to women's issues and sexuality issues.
And yet, despite the unbearable impositions of
the Taliban regime on women and gays, this group,
too, calls for other ways of serving justice
besides war.

IGLHRC takes a clear position against the bombing
of Afghanistan because as a human rights
organization, we do not believe that we can solve
one injustice by creating another.

Our concern grows from our commitment to
defending the full range of human rights -- but
also from our experience in working with lesbian,

gay, bisexual, and transgender people,
immigrants, and people living with HIV/AIDS.
Stigmatized populations tend to become more, not
less, vulnerable in times of armed conflict.

The consequences go beyond Afghanistan. In an
effort to build the coalition against terrorism,
U.S. foreign policy is placing human rights
considerations at the back burner.

As we approach the final sentencing of 52 men
detained in Cairo last May because of their
presumed homosexuality, what kind of pressure can
we expect from the U.S. government to set them
free? What can we expect from the Egyptian
government when they get the message that the
U.S. is willing to look the other way?

How can we argue against the trial being held in
a State Emergency Court, temporarily established
almost two decades ago to deal with terrorist
threats, when the U.S. responds to its own
terrorist attack with new temporary laws that
threaten our civil liberties? What pressure can
we exert on Egyptian authorities not to continue
torturing the Cairo 52 when our very own FBI is
publicly considering the use of torture against
suspected terrorists?

How will our LGBT sisters and brothers, and
indeed ourselves, be protected, when our foreign
policy devalues human rights protections and the
loss of civilian life?

Surina Khan is the executive director of the
International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights
Commission in San Francisco and can be reached at
surina@....

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2) Letter to the Editor by Yassir Islam: Taliban

is to Islam as Falwell is to Christians

The following letter to the editor appeared in
the December 7, 2001 issue of the Washington
Blade.

Taliban is to Islam as Falwell is to Christians

By Yassir Islam

From reading the Blade, it appears that Islamic
experts are popping out of their closets all over
the place. While much-needed debate has
contributed to a better understanding of Islam,
recent articles in the Blade indicate that this
cow has been thoroughly milked. Poor scholarship
and broad stereotyping is now being passed off as
informed analysis. Take Jamie Glazov (11/9) a
specialist is Soviet studies, who makes the
sweeping generalization that “throughout the
Middle East, men and women are taught to be
vehemently opposed to pleasure...” From this he
somehow concludes bizarrely, that repressed
sexual rage was behind the terrorist attacks!

Never mind that Glazov’s interpretation of
“pleasure” is never defined, that significantly
large numbers of attack victims were not
Americans, or that numerous other motivations
have been ascribed to the terrorists. It all
boils down to repressed sexual rage. To carry
this argument to its logical conclusion,
intensive sexual therapy for Muslim inhabitants
of the Middle East appears to be the answer to “
Islamic Terrorism”.

In the 11/16 Blade, Paul Varnell reveals to us
“the punishing truth about Islam”. Hold your
breath for this one: Islam, through much of its
history, been homophobic. Varnell knows his
facts, but one has to wade through what is little
more than an excerpt from Islam and Homosexuality
101, to get to a viewpoint, which turns out to be
yet another fact, one that he deems “hardly
necessary to remind anyone” of! Here it is: Osama
Bin Laden is from Saudia Arabia where a
particularly puritanical branch of Islam reigns
supreme! Please, tell us something new. For
starters, tell us why “ a Saudi government and
family that has channeled hundred of millions of
dollars to fundamentalist Islamic groups”, is
such a good friend of the United States.

If there are any inferences to be drawn from this
piece, it is that the treatment of homosexuals in
Islamic societies has been varied and complex,
and influenced vastly by prevailing schools of
religious thought. And those who would use Islam
to condone violence against homosexuals, must
remember, as Varnell fails to emphasize, that the
Prophet Mohammed himself, is not known to have
ever punished anyone for the crime of
homosexuality.

There is no monolithic Islam, much as
fundamentalist extremists would like us to
believe, or as it seems, some Islamic “experts.”
Trying to understand Islam through the lens of
the Taliban is akin to using the Ministry of
Jerry Falwell as a basis for examining
Christianity. While analysis of Islam is
welcomed, those from outside the culture and
religion would do well to first examine their own
prejudices and motivations. Otherwise they do a
great disservice to the millions of peace loving
Muslims worldwide, and especially to fledgling
queer Muslim movements, such as Al-Fatiha.




=====
M. Faisal Alam --- E-mail: mfaisalalam@...

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...An inescapable
network of mutuality...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed
to be what you ought to be." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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