August 30, 2005

What Muslims Can Learn from Japanese-Americans of WWII

Today is the 60th anniversary of the formal fall of the Japanese Empire to the Allies. The event reminds me of a novel I read as a child.

The novel was about a Japanese-American living in a rural area outside the 'exclusion zone'--the only Japanese kid in town. After the start of the war, the other kids began to spy on him out of suspicion that maybe he was an agent of the enemy. But how did the Japanese family react to the hostility of their fellow Americans? By putting up more American flags than any one else.

The father, born in Japan but raised in America, was too old for the draft. His business collapsed as the townspeople stopped buying his products. What was his reaction? He volunteered and was eventually killed in the European theater.

That story has stuck with me through the years. I know it was just a story, but it is one based in the realities of America during WWII. Americans did mistreat Japanese-Americans, and the response of Japanese-Americans was to prove their loyalty to the nation by volunteering to fight for it.

A few facts come to mind:

In January of 1942 Japanese Americans serving in the military were segregated out of their units. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066 which led to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans. How did Japanese-Americans react? Four days later the all-Nisei Varsity Victory Volunteers (Triple V) is formed in Hawaii as part of the 34th Combat Engineers Regiment. The unit would later be disbanded so that its members could become part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

By June of 1942--at a time when the U.S. was forcibly removing Japanese-Americans from the West Coast--1432 members of the Hawai'i Provisional Infantry Battalion are moved from Honolulu to San Francisco and activated as the segregated 100th Infantry Battalion.

3,600 Japanese-Americans volunteered for service in the U.S. military from their internment camp prisons. 22,000 others volunteered from areas outside the exclusion zone. Between the two units there were 18,000 individual decorations, including one wartime Medal of Honor, 53 Distinguished Service Crosses, 9,486 Purple Hearts and seven Presidential Unit Citations. 21 of these Distinguished Service Crosses were upgraded to Medals of Honor in 2000 and 11 more Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded posthumously.

Were Japanese-Americans mistreated in WWII? Yes. And while some in the Japanese community reacted to this mistreatment by renouncing their U.S. citizenship, the vast majority of Americans of Japanese decent set out on a course to prove that they were loyal. The bravery of the more than 25,000 young men on the field of battle dispelled the nation's misgivings.

Two days ago we brought you a story of Lodi Muslims' reaction to the deportation of several from their community that had expressed sympathies to al Qaeda in the past. Rather than rallying to remove this anti-American element from their midsts, their reaction was to blame a government mole. Today, Jay Tea at Wizbang noted that:

The greatest enemies the United States faces right now are Muslim extremists. This puts American Muslims (of the non-extremist bent) in a conflict -- whose side will have their sympathies? Their fellow countrymen, or those who are dishonoring and besmirching their faith?

And every time another American Muslim chooses the latter, the more they lose that presumption of patriotism. And that is not any kind of penalty or discrimination, but a simple consequence of their choice.

But at every turn alleged misjustices are not met with renewed commitment to our country and its values by leaders in the Islamic community, rather it is met with scorn, contempt, and fingerpointing. Muslim leaders condemn U.S. military actions as part of a greater war against Islam. Instead of uniquivocally condemning acts of terrorism, they condemn all sides that use violence. Instead of criticizing our enemies in Iraq, they criticizes our own troops. They vocalized their worries about how prisoners are treated in Guantanamo Bay more than about how those prisoners plot to kill their fellow-citizens.

And while the U.S. military scrambles to find competent Arabic and Pashtun translators and are forced to hire locals with unknown loyalties, Muslim-Americans with these language skills do little to alleviate our nation's need by volunteering in great numbers.

I do not wish to succomb to prejudice and make the presumption that Muslim-Americans are not loyal to this country. As of this writing, I presume that there is a silent majority of Muslims in this country who are uniquivocally pro-American. But if they are out there, their silence is doing nothing to alleviate these fears. The occasional small protest against terrorism in general does nothing to signal that Muslim Americans are particularly worried about terrorism against our country any more than they are worried about terrorism against another coutnry. Groups such as Muslims Against Terrorism, from what I have seen, have little support.

At some point an irrational prejudice turns into a rational one. When meeting a Southerner, for instance, during the Civil War it would have been perfectly rational to make the presumption that they were rooting for the South to win. In fact, it would be an irrational prejudice to assume anything other than that. Assuming loyalty is a form of prejudice in itself.

If Muslim-Americans wish to receive the benefit of the doubt than they must begin to do much more than they are doing today. They may argue, rightfully, that requiring them to do more than what is expected of other Americans adds a higher duty of citizenship to them and is a form or unequal treatment.

They are right. It is a form of unequal treatment. But so what? Muslims are in a unique position to be our first line of defense against terrorism. They are the vanguard of our defense. Terrorists do not congregate in the Polish communities of Chicago, do not use Orthodox churches as places to meet up with other extremists, and do not call upon the help of a relative or mutual friend from Mongolia. Muslim-Americans have been given the gift of being able to aid our country in ways that others cannot. They can translate for us. They can infiltrate our enemies more easily than the rest of us. They can watch in ways nearly impossible for the rest of us.

With greater gifts come greater responsibilities.

The time is now to step up to the plate of citizenship and root out terrorist supporters among the various Muslim communities in the U.S. Those that turn in potential terrorists should be celebrated as patriots and heroes. Muslim youth with language skills ought to be encouraged by community leaders to join the FBI, CIA, and U.S. military. If they aren't, then Muslim-Americans reveal where their loyalties are. And the next time an act of terrorism takes place on our soil, the collective eye of the nation will be turned on our own citizens for failing to act when given the opportunity to do so. Then, what was once an irrational act of prejudice becomes a rational act of prejudice.