What Does Fort Hood Mean for American Muslims?

By all accounts, on November 5, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 12 soldiers and 1 civilian at the Fort Hood Army base where he was stationed.

While investigators and reporters try to piece together the events and what prompted them, one fundamental aspect of the rampage is not in doubt: the alleged attacker was Muslim.

Writing shortly after the incident, the perceptive young American Muslim writer Wajahat Ali understandably cautioned against leaping to conclusions: “A cousin of Hasan, interviewed by reporters, has suggested an alternative motivation, not necessarily influenced by religious conviction. ‘He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,’ said Nader Hasan. ‘He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there [in Iraq and Afghanistan],’” he wrote.

But in the face of additional evidence that emerged today, it is not reasonable or logical to pretend that some great wall separated Hasan’s own sense of Muslim identity from his motive. Witnesses report that he shouted “God is Great!” ahead of his rampage; family indicated that he was deeply upset over discrimination he said was visited upon him for being Muslim; and he openly expressed his hostility to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by describing it as a “war against Islam.”

Of course, we do not yet know precisely what combination of factors led to the attack, and with more than 20,000 Muslims actively serving in the U.S. military, it would be absurd to mistake one man’s warped and skewed understanding of Islam and graft it onto every other Muslim.

But the scale and nature of this incident raises a number of uncomfortable questions about what usually goes unseen and remains unsaid outside of military circles.

A psychiatrist, Hasan heard the stories of soldiers returning from combat: did these accounts of killing, abuse and other horrors fuel his anger at American policy as the date of his own deployment to Afghanistan neared? What kind of harassment was Hasan subjected to on base for his Muslim identity? How widespread is enmity toward Muslims and Islam among the very soldiers who Gen. McChrystal is sending to fight alongside Muslims against Islamist extremists?

There are also other, equally pressing questions that directly affect young Muslims, such as me, who call this country our own. People will invariably ask why and whether Muslims are in the military–or perhaps even in the country at all–and what sort of measures will be taken to “monitor” this minority.

The Council of American Islamic Relations released a statement condemning the attack, labeling it “heinous” and contrary to Muslim principles. An assault upon one’s own unarmed and unsuspecting comrades is unquestionably cowardly and immoral, but I suspect that no number of official statements will stave off questions of Muslim “loyalty” to the state or disrupt the almost magnetic attraction between conservatives and anti-Islamic rhetoric.

The greatest and most pressing questions of all, however, are whether incidents like this one mark a growing trend of radicalization, isolation, or anger among Muslims in the U.S.–and if so, why. A few years ago, it was commonplace to observe that Islamist terrorists were foreign-trained and foreign-born, but the Fort Hood attack was at least the fourth this year involving American-raised or American-born Muslims.

The status and station of American Muslims — who by and large have enjoyed prosperity and contribute to the country as doctors, scientists, and translators–is a living rejoinder to fantastic rhetoric about a clash of civilizations or religions. But it is not a relationship that can be taken for granted or neglected by either side.

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This article originally appeared on WireTap.

Levesque-Alam writes about America and Islam at his website, Crossing the Crescent, and for WireTap, where he is also the immigration blogger.

The changing face of the news media

The morning of September 11, 2001 I was in my Brooklyn apartment getting ready to go to class and then it happened. The need to be informed as events unfolded that day could not be greater. People turned to any and all available news media to get that information and journalists, reporters, and anchormen valiantly fulfilled their roles as informers.

It was a rare moment of an ideal news mediasphere realized. Sure, there were moments of blatant sentimental storytelling and sensationalism in the media at the time, but we can all recall the solemn, stoic voice of those personalities whom we chose to listen to narrating our collective thoughts and emotions as fellow eyewitnesses to a national tragedy.

With the recent passing of Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” a legend from the golden era of news media has passed. News anchors and journalists like Cronkite were synonymous with trust. It was a time when they stuck to the truth, asked the hard questions, and had no qualms with introducing their opinion when it mattered. Some would argue they were often more knowledgeable than even our own politicians in office. Newsmen like Cronkite weren’t interested in policy-making, however. They were more interested presenting accurate and balanced information on the big issues affecting the country.

Compared to the run-up to the Iraq War, the news media often acted more like a PR mouthpiece for the Bush administration than reporting accurate and balanced information. Of all the personalities in contemporary news media, only a small minority were actually questioning the rationale, morality, or legality of preemptive war. Most outlets were relying on polls that showed popular support for the war in 2003 in making a conscious decision to feed and feed upon popular opinion rather than to examine objectively what our leaders were getting us into and on what justifiable evidence.

In 2003, Cronkite, speaking at Drew University and guided by expert knowledge of the political atmosphere surrounding the Vietnam War, openly dissented against popular support for the Iraq War, against overconfident army generals, and an arrogant president. He was one of the few journalists who knew exactly how a government uses deception and manipulation to trump up support for war. The news media is no less a victim than the individual, however unlike the individual the news media has the ability to shift popular opinion and put pressure on our elected leaders to do what is right. In this respect, they failed.

Much of the country, including the news media, could only speak in the past tense when we finally said, “Wait a minute, what exactly did our leaders get us into? Why didn’t we listen to voices of reason?” By then it was too late. We were waist deep.

After all I’ve seen, heard, and read in the news media since 2001, I’ve become a more conscious and selective news consumer. I’ve realized a few things: One, there are no wrong or bad stories in the media as long as it appeals to someone’s intellect and moral or political values; two, most news is biased reflecting on news consumers’ own biases.

There are fundamental divisions in our country and the lines run deeper than ever before. The philosophy of accuracy, balance, and unbiased news was lost to the ideologues on both sides some time ago. The people have taken their sides and their rallying points are who they turn to for their own version of the truth.