How Muslims can halt extremism

By Junaid Afeef

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014 | 2 a.m.

Very little was done in the organized Muslim community in northern Illinois after the FBI arrested Adel Daoud in September 2012. As his criminal case returns to the headlines because of his trial being postponed from next month until next summer, more local Muslim youths continue to make headlines for their thwarted efforts to join terrorist operations abroad. One local newspaper ran a frightening front-page headline “ISIS in Chicago.”

I am more concerned about the future of Muslims in America than I have ever been before. What will it take to wake up the Muslim leadership of our mosques to the reality that our young people are vulnerable to extremist ideologies? What will it take for our community leaders to take control of this nightmare?

I have served in various leadership roles in the organized Muslim communities for 20 years, and I know the lay of the land as far as mosques and their leaders are concerned. I remain in the leadership communication network where community leaders debate issues impacting Muslims locally and abroad, and I served as the executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago several years ago. Based on my experience and my insight into the Muslim community locally, I am deeply concerned that this urgent issue will continue to be ignored.

We Muslims — and particularly our mosque leaders — need to be self-critical. It is a part of our Islamic ethos to stand for justice even when that means taking a stand against ourselves. That is the challenge we are faced with right now.

In our community there are young people who are lost and confused. They see the carnage in Gaza and in Syria, and they see the suffering of Muslims in Burma. These are but a few of the places where Muslims abroad are being persecuted, and they feel that the West does not care.

All they hear is hollow rhetoric about America’s commitment to democracy, and it is indeed hollow rhetoric because these young people see America’s alliance with the repressive and repulsive regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In the face of these stresses, and without any effort to meaningfully address them in our mosques, and without an alternate plan of action to address these injustices, it is no surprise to me that some members of the Muslim community are being radicalized.

Our government has proposed plans for countering violent extremism at home. The programs call for collaboration between law enforcement, federal prosecutors and the communities where there are fears of radicalization. These are empty words unless more is done and done right. So far very little has been done, and what has been done to date seems flawed.

We know that the New York City model of spying on Muslims is counterproductive. (It makes those of us in the majority who advocate for using the system to address our concerns look naive.) There has to be a genuine partnership between law enforcement and the Muslim community. This can only happen if law enforcement is committed to diverting those who are at risk of radicalization as the first option.

Just as we have crisis-intervention protocols for law enforcement to deal with individuals with mental-health issues, we need similar protocols for individuals identified as being at risk for radicalization.

If the end goal is only criminal prosecution, then it will be hard to bring the Muslim community onboard.

Law enforcement needs partners in the community. The traditional leadership infrastructure of mosques cannot play this role. Muslims who know the community, who have established credentials as community leaders, who can appreciate the constitutional implications of law enforcement working within a faith community to investigate and thwart violent criminal activity, and who are concerned about losing our children to radicalization and about the public safety risks that creates must organize and be resources for law enforcement and the Muslim community.

Internally, Muslims need to put our beliefs into action, and we need to address our shortcomings. I have said this before and received a lot of criticism for saying it: We need to shut down the anti-Americanism in our community. We are all in this together. There is no conflict between a devout Muslim life and American democracy. It is the freedom we have here that allows us to live as we do.

We must broaden our concerns to include the suffering that Muslims cause to others.

Whether it is Boko Haram, the Islamic State, al-Qaida or apostasy laws in Muslim majority nations, we must preach against these groups and against these ideas. The message must come from positions of authority within our community. The conspiracy theories floating around the Muslim community to explain away the evil done by other Muslims must stop. They are contributing to the radicalization problem. Not every evil act committed by a Muslim abroad is a false flag operation by Mossad or the CIA.

Muslims need to commit to the common good with other like-minded Americans. This includes supporting the men and women in our military, supporting policies that promote national security, and using our voices and our resources to find solutions for domestic maladies even when they may not directly impact the Muslim community.

Muslims in America cannot be a special-interest group. We must be a contributor to the conscience of our nation.

Junaid Afeef is the former executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. He wrote this for the Chicago Tribune.