Thoughts of an East-Coast Muslim activist

Below is an email from Br. Mauri Saalakhan sent on Nov 13th with his perspective on the LAPD mapping project:

Assalaamu Alaikum
(Greetings of Peace)

I've received a request from one of the Muslim community's mainstream leaders out on the west coast, to share some information on the LAPD Mapping proposal with the members of our online network. I have no problem honoring this request, but not without comment.

The LAPD profiling initiative - and the Muslim community's response, thus far, to this ill-conceived initiative - underscores one of the major problems that threatens the overall health, as well as the short and long-term viability of this potentially great, but deeply disturbed nation, called America. (Not to mention the health and well being of individual Muslims and Muslim communities throughout America.)

The LAPD Mapping proposal DID NOT take place in a vacuum! It is nothing more than the natural outgrowth of the NYPD's Special Report on the Homegrown Terrorist Threat in America that was released earlier this year (summer 2007).

The LAPD and NYPD (two of the largest police departments in two of America's major cities), while on opposite coasts, are nevertheless on the same page vis-a-vis the alleged Muslim threat in America. It is the Muslims (generally speaking) who are fearful, divided and weak - causing the community to be susceptible, and enabling some of our "leaders" to be complicit, with such nefarious intrigues!

From what I've been reading, some of the community's leaders who thought themselves to be insiders (privileged members of the Muslim community on a first name basis with the powers-that-be in their respective jurisdictions) have discovered how nebulous such insider status can be, when the proposal was publicized without any prior notice or "consultation."

Those who are truly sincere will admit (at least to themselves) their mistake, and work to openly oppose this disastrous campaign before the dye is set. While those who covet their delusional status (more than they value their sense of responsibility to community) will look for a way to spin the LAPD/NYPD/AMERIKKKAN agenda to suit their own self-serving ends.

A final thought, for the record. When the NYPD report came to our attention back in August, we immediately sent out a release (part of an analytical commentary) wherein we warned that if the report was not effectively CHALLENGED, it would be on the road to becoming policy throughout America. Well now, the chickens are starting to come home to roost; as time is the best tester of men and ideas.


El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
Director of Operations
The Peace And Justice Foundation

"That man can have nothing but what he strives for;
That the fruit of his striving will soon come in sight."
- An-Najm (Surah 53; 39-40)


p.s. IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO RESPOND WITH EFFECTIVE PUSHBACK. (But time is of the essence.)Please go to the following website for additional information on the LAPD Mapping proposal from a Muslim source: www.shuracouncil.org