Newsletter No. 1345
News-Analysis
April 19, 2009

 

CALIFORNIA MUSLIMS CONTINUE MANZANAR PILGRIMAGES IN POST-BUSH ERA

Muhammad Yusuf (Shingetsu Member No. 142) of The Gulf Today newspaper in Sharjah continues to forward to us materials from the Los Angeles-based Council on American-Muslim Relations (CAIR). We have noted these activities previously in Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 601 and 955. It would seem that the end of the Bush era did not bring an end to the partnership between California’s Japanese-American and Muslim-American social organizations.

Again next week, the California chapter of CAIR, in cooperation with the Japanese-American Citizens League (JACL) and the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR) will take a group of Muslims to attend the 40th Annual Pilgrimage to the former Manzanar War Relocation Center. The keynote address at the event will be delivered by Ron Wakabayashi, regional director for the US Department of Justice Community Relations Service. It will be followed by an interfaith prayer service involving Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and other faiths. In the evening, the “Manzanar at Dusk Program” will feature small group discussions with former internees and a screening of the Ken Burns film Manzanar: Never Again.

CAIR-California President Masoud Nassimi comments, “The Japanese-American internment was a particularly dark moment in our nation’s history and is a reminder of what can happen if we don’t speak out and assert our civil liberties.”

A similar program has been held for several years now. Last April, more than one hundred Muslim-Americans from across California joined Japanese-Americans on the annual pilgrimage.

At that time, Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, stated, “There may not be a physical internment, but many Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian people are in a psychological internment, fearful of what will happen next.”

Greg Marutani, board member of the San Francisco Japanese American Citizens League, added, “they’ve been going through this longer than we were in World War II. Six and a half years of psychological trauma, never knowing the next time that doorbell rings if it’s the government come to get you.”

Nineteen-year-old university student Fatima Elkabti explained, “I went to Manzanar because it embodied my fears. As a Muslim living in a post-9.11 world, I have too often heard Muslim Americans whispering their worries that we too would be numbered and carted off into a wholesale prison… Japanese-Americans were among the first to contact my mosque post-9.11 to promise us safety and to fight with us against blanket accusations. The solidarity of the Japanese-American community with the Muslim-American community is comforting and optimism-inspiring.”

Youth Program

Earlier this year, about forty high school students participated in a program introducing Japanese and Islamic cultures through topics such as ethnic identity, religion, civil rights activism, and minority experiences following Pearl Harbor and the 9.11 attacks. The participants came from the cities of Claremont, Walnut, Corona, Rancho Palos Verdes, Yorba Linda, and Anaheim.

One of the organizers, CAIR’s Affad Shaikh, commented, “It’s important for Muslim and Japanese youth to learn from each other’s struggles in efforts to advance the cause of civil rights in our nation.”