IFLC leader advises fellow Muslim Americans to continue work for a peaceful world
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 9:15AM IFLC board member Victor Begg shared this column with the Detroit Free Press on September 11, 2011:
When I landed at Kennedy Airport as a student en route to the University of Detroit Mercy in 1970, the world's tallest buildings were rising against the New York skyline. Thirty years later, men claiming to profess my faith destroyed those American icons, along with thousands of innocent lives.
Until that point, Muslims like me who came to America were quietly pursuing the American dream. I met my wife in school; we started a business upon graduation. Citizenship, a suburban home and kids soon followed. America became home.
I was appointed to the Michigan Community Service Commission, elected to our local school board, cofounded a mosque and became active in the Republican Party.
Sept. 11, 2001, became the first day of a new calendar: two wars, the passage of the Patriot Act, new terror threats followed by Homeland Security alerts, rampant profiling, and FBI counterterrorism investigations. The result: American Muslims viewed as a suspect community -- their constitutional rights violated with impunity.