For Muslim Americans, A Retrospective Look

By: Cihan Kaan

It’s easy to conflate the absurd hearings on “The Radicalization of American Muslims” with the internment camps Japanese-Americans were subjected to.  However, in doing so we run the risk of forgetting about our own “Muslim internment” past, the previous episodes in history when the results of similar types of fear-mongering lead to terrible episodes of displacement, unfair treatment and execution.

May 18, 1944 is a date no Muslim should forget.  Known as “The Purging” or the “The Surgun” in Tatar, an entire population of Muslim Crimean-Tatars were given 15 minutes to leave their homes.  It took 15 minutes to happen.  Russian soldiers descended on towns and villages in the dead of night giving families 15 minutes notice to pack up and vacate Crimea, their homeland for centuries.  Many perished on the freight cars that revolved on a path to nowhere for weeks.  Others, who refused, were killed execution style, drown en masse on ships sent to sink in the Black sea.  Some of us escaped.

All for what?  It had come to the attention of Stalin that they “might” have collaborated with German troops.  Similarly, there were hate-filled hearings filled with hearsay witnesses and months of rumors.  No evidence was ever brought to the table (The Soviet Union later apologized and gave Crimean Tatars back 5% of unusable land) but that didn’t matter. 

There’s an old saying, “If you forget about your past you run the risk of repeating the same mistakes.” It makes sense, doesn’t it?  Yet now I look at Peter Kings hearings with a very cautious eye as it seems some people have learned nothing from the past. What in fact should be put on trial are the people behind the causes for Muslim vilification.  We should analyze those spreaders of lies and misinformation with a fine tooth comb and call them to account not the other way around.  We should call to account the bookstores that sell essentially manuals of hate lodged in between the Qur’an and Bible in the religious section.  We should be in court bringing these people to account for their slander.  The Surgun took 15 minutes to happen but took years to build up.  Let’s educate ourselves and take action so it doesn’t happen again.

For more information on Cihan Kaan’s renown work Halal Pork & Other Stories visit here: http://www.cihankaan.com/halal-pork.php