Drumpf’s Muslim Ban

I feel I couldn’t really remain silent on the subject of His Excellency King Drumpf’s recent executive order barring Muslims from entering the country, including U.S. Citizens originally born in predominantly Muslim countries, I saw this tweet:

It got me thinking about a man I knew once upon a while ago, Victor (real name Dharkur). He was Iraqi by birth, but when we invaded Iraq he defected to the U.S. And joined the U.S. Army as a translator and interpreter. He had taken a furlough of sorts into the Reserves to pursue his Engineering degree and he had gotten a job at the place I was working at the time.

He and I had several interesting conversations about Islam and it is thanks, in part, to him that when I wrote The Sultana’s Journey as part of my book Escort that I knew enough to make sense of how going on Hajj worked.

I never once felt unsafe with this man around, and considering we were in a law-enforcement type of setting I felt buoyed with him acting as my backup. As the senior officer I knew I could send him to do a task and he would accomplish it and that if I needed aid with something, Victor would be there for me.

We only worked for a few weeks together before a more permanent position became available for him at another location.

He had once lived in the south where he was engaged to a nice young white girl. Her family was Southern Baptist and at a gathering her father, uncles, and two brothers cordoned him off to the side and told him he had five minutes to leave or they were going to shoot him. His fiancée said, “No, they’re serious. I love you…so you should leave.”

As he was driving away he looked back to see the uncles coming out of the house carrying shotguns. That was how America thanked him for aiding us in battle. Keep in mind that neither of the five men about to shoot him had seen a day in the military and this was a career soldier they were about to murder. True patriotism there, I must say.

Now to be fair I only know a few dozen Muslims, but I’ve yet to meet one that made me feel unsafe. I, however, am intimately acquainted (and often times related) to violent Christians. People who regularly say things like, “We should just nuke the whole Middle East.”

Yes, because nothing proves you’re more peaceful than something like talking about murdering millions of innocent people because they pray the same god as you, but call him by a different name.

I feel much safer in a group with the Muslim acquaintances I have than the Christians I know. So if we really want to ban a hateful religion, Islam isn’t the one I’m afraid of.

~RCS

Shorty Shorts #13: Thanksmadan?

I was recently reading this article about how Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, an eight-day long Jewish religious celebration, had occurred simultaneously last year.  You see Thanksgiving occurred on the second day of Hannukah in 2013.

The article talked about the pros and cons of such an event.  The main cons are people doing Hanukkah celebrations the following week because their friends have Thanksgiving commitments, or it’s just too much holiday party in one day; those kinds of issues.

The good news is it won’t happen again for over 79,000 years.

But it made me really think about one poor group of people: American Muslims.

An issue, I assure you, more than just a handful of Americans face.

You see, the 9^th month of the Islamic calendar, Ramadan, requires all adult Muslims to fast, that is not eat or drink, from sunrise to sundown.  The Islamic calendar, or Hijiri, does not match day-for-day to our modern Gregorian Calendar, so Ramadan moves around our calendar from year to year.

What about poor American Muslims who have to deal with Ramadan, the same time as Thanksgiving?  Do they have to wait until sundown to start cooking the meal, or can they cook it during the day and just wait until sunset to eat?

The last time it occurred was 2002, and the next time it should occur would be at least 2034 as far as I understand.

Just something weird to think about.

~RCS