Rebuttal to Aman Ali

In these times of rampant Islamophobia, a cottage industry of 'House Muslims' has sprung up, willing to sell out their own community for a shot at fame, the chance to become the next Irshad Manji or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The best definition of this phenomenon I've found has come from Ikhras. As they define it, House Muslims are

Arab and Muslim “activists” and “representatives” that hijacked our identities and name for their own self-aggrandizement and in furtherance of personal ambitions unrelated to our communities’ agenda, interests, and well-being.
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Instead of condemning US crimes and warmongering abroad and embracing their natural role on the front-lines of the anti-War movement, these opportunistic, unprincipled Arabs and Muslims posing as representatives of their communities provide a veil of political legitimacy to the ruling class and foreign policy makers that victimize the people they claim to represent.

One up-and-coming young House Muslim by the name of Aman Ali recently took some cheap shots against the Irvine 11 in a blog for CNN. Rather than stand up for young activists who have been targeted and persecuted for being Muslim and speaking out, Ali used the opportunity to try to ingratiate himself to Islamophobes by accusing the Irvine 11 of "playing the victim card." I'd like to respond to his blog post here, piece by piece.

To begin, it looks like Ali did not even attempt to familiarize himself much with the Irvine 11 case; my guess is that he skimmed an article or two. Yet while he clearly hadn't studied the Orange County District Attorney's tactics, he managed to emulate them closely by depoliticizing the protest, just as the DA's prosecutor did in the courtroom. In describing the event, Ali writes "One by one, the students disrupted Oren’s speech and shouted at him over his support for Israel." This is only slightly different from the DA's claim that they "shut down a speech [just] because the speaker was Israeli." Oren wasn't interrupted for 'supporting' Israel but specifically for Israel's war crimes in Gaza that left over 1400 dead and thousands injured-- and as an ambassador for Israel and former IDF spokesman, he was personally complicit in the war crimes being protested. So let's not confuse the issue by making it seem like the Irvine 11 just wanted to interrupt the speech of any Israeli they could find.

Ali goes on to claim that "most Muslims will say we’re sick and tired of only talking about ourselves in a post-9/11 context as victims of oppression." This is classic House Muslim behavior, trying to speak for a broad and diverse community with one ridiculous statement. I don't claim to speak for all Muslims in the US, but most Muslims I know are sick and tired of being oppressed. Period.

He continues,

I feel like in a subconsciously sick and twisted way, we secretly enjoy playing the victim card.

I know I’m guilty of it.

Anytime I fly at the airport, in my mind there’s a part of me that wishes a TSA agent will grope me or take forever to search through my bags so I can call up one of my friends with an awesome story like “BRO! You’re not gonna believe what just happened!”

I could easily dismiss this discourse on victimhood (or "the victim card") as the same tired right-wing talking point used against women who were sexually harassed, or against people of color offended by racist portrayals of themselves in the media: "there's nothing wrong, you just want to be a victim!" Indeed, we have often heard the right use this garbage against Muslims, as well.

But I want to engage with this a little more seriously, because I feel like I understand where Ali is coming from-- not necessarily from the right per se, but from an equally misguided perspective that privileges his own experiences over those of others. I understand what Ali says about going through airport security because, to be painfully honest, I've felt like that too. Being an Iranian who frequently passes for white has left me with a lot of identity issues, and I can remember times I've almost been frustrated when I passed through TSA without a problem, thinking "can't you see I'm a brown man with a beard? Don't you want to question me about my foreign surname or scrutinize the pistachios in my backpack?"

I no longer feel like that, after having been interrogated by Homeland Security for several hours upon re-entering the US from Iran recently. But even when I did secretly long to be inspected, I understood clearly that this feeling comes from a place of privilege, and that it's unique to a few of us. I know that my father doesn't secretly want to get frisked so he can "play the victim card," because he would feel humiliated. The same is true of my grandparents. Let's not forget about the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of Muslims in the US who, unlike me, have thick accents or don't speak much English at all; who don't have US passports and may not even have a current visa; and for whom being patted down or questioned is not something to brag about but an embarrassing and scary ordeal, one that can end not with an "awesome story" but with torture in Guantanamo Bay or deportation.

Returning to Ali's diatribe against the Irvine 11, Ali claims that the 'Stand With the Eleven' is an example of "playing the victim card" as described above. While acknowledging that "it’s completely bogus for these students to face charges, let alone be found guilty, on protesting a speech. Even if it’s a misdemeanor charge. It’s a slap in the face to the First Amendment," Ali adds "I refuse to deem these students as some kind of political prisoners." The point I think he wants to make is that it's not a political case and does not have serious consequences, or as he says at the end of his blog post, "let’s calm down and not blow this case out of proportion." But he's admitted that he sees the serious implications this case will have for the First Amendment, contradicting his own argument somewhat. Besides that, what Ali fails to mention is the context of the prosecution: the selective punishment of the Irvine 11 but not other non-Muslim students who participated in similar disruptions, the DA's office referring to the Irvine 11 as the "UCI Muslim case," the vicious Islamophobia in Orange County, and so on.

Ali makes light of the situation with quips like "Dude, you got a misdemeanor and were sentenced to community service. You’re not Nelson Mandela." But the stakes here are much higher than that; this case has set precedent for curtailing free speech and protest in Orange County, and threatening the Muslim and pro-Palestinian community here with arrest and prosecution for activism. He also just gets some of it wrong, like this:

Even funnier, one of the 11 students took a plea deal to avoid a conviction. So technically we’re only talking about 10 students here. Irvine 11 is false advertising. I want my money back.

Actually, the DA agreed to drop the charges against one of the students in exchange for community service because the DA had made unauthorized use of privileged information in his charges against the student. Because of that, the charges would have been thrown out in court, so the DA backed off.

I could continue critiquing the end of Ali's blog post, but I feel that I've made my point. He ends by saying "let’s place it into perspective of all the racial and religious injustices that have happened around the country." My point is that this case is an example of racial and religious injustice, not some students playing victim. It has real consequences for Islamophobia as well as freedom of speech. I have written about that elsewhere on this blog, as have dozens of others across the blogosphere as well as in newspapers across the country. If Ali had paid attention to this case or done any research, he would be aware of that. He also would have realized that the Irvine 11 themselves, far from being the self-aggrandizing martyrs holding "victim cards" as he describes them, have been very humble in how they've characterized themselves and their case. In public statements, they have stated that while the verdict is a blow to liberty, they do not view themselves as heroes or martyrs, and insisted that their persecution is less than what others have had to deal with, especially the Palestinians under occupation on whose behalf they were protesting to begin with.

I would like to end this rebuttal with a note to Aman Ali, if he's reading this. My tone in this piece has been hostile, and "House Muslim" is a serious insult-- maybe an overblown one for you, maybe not. The reason for my anger is that it is very frustrating to have someone like yourself, who does not live in Orange County or study at UC Irvine, make light of the situation here when you will not have to deal with the consequences. You don't live here, so you don't know that this case is connected to a broader trend of political Islamophobia in Orange County, where local politicians join racist mobs in threatening Muslims with violence. You don't know that our District Attorney was using this case to whip up Islamophobia among his base of supporters so he can get himself re-elected. I am a student and activist at UC Irvine, where I'm now afraid that the next person to get arrested and prosecuted for exercising free speech could be me. But it probably won't be you, since you don't live here.

I've called you a House Muslim-- prove me wrong. Not by defending your attack on the Irvine 11, which was uncool, but by taking a step back and doing some more reading on this issue. Read my piece on the issue, read the Electronic Intifada's coverage, read the links on the Stand With the Elevent campaign page instead of just making fun of them. And do some more thinking about what it means for students to "stomp out the ambassador’s right to free speech," as you put it, when the students are young individuals who made 10-15 second statements each and the Israeli ambassador (who, by the way, is not a US citizen) has access to speaking tours, the media, millions of dollars, and the backing of an entire country. Do some thinking about who your audience at this CNN blog is and why they posted it. Here's a hint: read some of the comments, like "take your mosques and your Sharia and get the hell out of here" or "I am so sick of muslims" or "hey muslims shut the hell up, we dont care about your nonsense!!!" (All real comments from the article).

Actually, it's worth pointing out that as far as I can tell, the vast majority of the comments are either from Islamophobes writing about how much they hate Muslims, or from Muslims writing about how much they disagree with your article. Which side do you want to be on?