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The hearings will take place over several weeks and will address multiple facets of Muslim extremism. The first session of hearings, held on March 10, was titled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response."
Prevention or scapegoat?
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Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) was the first Muslim elected to Congress and spoke out strongly against the hearings. |
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Rep. King, who represents Long Island and lost dozens of constituents in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, says he is especially interested in how the hearings will influence young Muslims and their relationship with the religion.
"We look upon them to be outstanding American citizens in the future," he said. "And not allow al-Qaeda to pervert their religion and to radicalize people in their community."
But some lawmakers, such as Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress, were enraged at Rep. King’s decision to hold the hearings at all. In his highly emotional testimony, Rep. Ellison wept as he told a story about a Muslim first responder who died helping others at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Rep. Ellison said the entire Muslim community shouldn’t be used as a scapegoat for the acts of a few.
“It is true that specific individuals, including some who are Muslims, are violent extremists. However, these are individuals -- but not entire communities,” he said.
Hearings stem from concern about ‘homegrown terrorism’
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Faizal Shahzad is one of several alleged 'homegrown terrorists' who have tried to attack the U.S. in recent years. |
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Rep. King says he called the hearings to examine the roots of terrorist plots hatched on U.S. soil, often by U.S. citizens. Recent examples include Faisal Shahzad, a man who attempted to detonate a bomb in New York City’s Times Square in May 2010, and Nidal Hasan, a military psychiatrist who shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.
The hearings are also intended to address what Rep. King says is a failure of some Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement. However, Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca, who testified at the hearings on behalf of law enforcement, said that in his experience, Muslims are very cooperative with terrorism investigations.
“Reports indicate that American Muslims helped foil seven of the last ten plots propagated by al-Qaeda within the United States,” Baca testified.
Who is testifying?
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King's hearings included testimony from families whose children had become radicalized Muslims. |
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In addition to Rep. Ellison’s and Sheriff Baca’s testimony, the first round of hearings included testimony from families of Muslims who turned to extremist views, as well as a representative from a Muslim advocacy group.
One witness described how his son grew estranged from his family after converting to Islam and eventually attacked an army recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., killing one soldier and wounding another. Another witness testified about how his nephew left his Somali-American community in Minneapolis to fight and die with the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia.
M. Zuhdi Jasser, an Arizona doctor who founded the organization American Islamic Forum for Democracy, testified that many American mosques promote “political Islam” instead of “spiritual Islam,” a trend that could be leading to increased extremism.
Comparisons to McCarthyism
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Sen. Joseph McCarthy (left) held hearings to out supposed communist sympathizers during the Cold War. |
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Some critics of the hearings have compared them to the way Joseph McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin in the 1950s, conducted hearings on supposed communist sympathizers during the Cold War.
Sen. McCarthy vowed to track down all Americans with communist leanings and did so through aggressive hearings and interrogations that often involved false accusations and unjust imprisonment. Reckless accusations of disloyalty or treason are still dubbed “McCarthyism.”
Rep. King has denounced the comparison as a “hysterical” response. Historian Dan Berger, a fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, told NPR the comparison is apt in some ways.
"There are differences, of course, but they both have a backdrop of moral panic around something that's represented as having a fearsome or alien ideology," Berger said.
Rep. King said he plans to hold the remaining hearings in the coming weeks.
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Joplin was able to rise from the ashes because of help from everyone. And I am eternally grateful to anyone who made that possible.
