``...And I fear that the left will be less successful at organizing a movment for social and economic justice and peace as the government will be at organizing for repressive legislation and war. But that is not a good reason to give up trying to stop an indiscriminate war while urging a UN-led police action to go after Obl and his pals...''
Chip Berlet
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Ah, but the two poles of this division are exactly related to each other. For example, it was the segregation laws (the repression) that made possible the civil rights movements---by organizing to violate the laws of repression. The same thing will likely work for US Muslims and middle eastern people caught up in the various security and immigration repressions coming down the pipe.
In the meantime, there are various integration-assimilation issues that need to be addressed at personal and organizational levels that easily fit within the context of organizing against future repressions---and future terrorism, at least from this source.
I am afraid this proposal will sound downright wimpy, liberal beyond the pale, just too bourgeois to bare---but this is an ideal time to develop and promote a whole swath of Islamic and middle eastern history and culture that has been uniformly ignored in the US---especially in education (arts, literatures, languages, music, architecture, food, customs, etc).
This is the reason I ordered a two volume copy of the Qur'an with selected commentaries, and something called A Manual of Hadith. Start with the basics. (The Living Talmud is also on the way).
These may not sound like anti-terrorism means, but they are, and I think they are far more effective than anything the US government is contemplating. If Islam and middle eastern history and culture were as integrated into the fabric of public consciousness as say some aspects of China and Mexico are here in SF Bay Area, then any of the extreme elements of that community in the US would stand out like isolated, and ugly blots---easy to see and then marginalized both by the local community and its larger multicultural context.
Chuck Grimes