AN INCONVIENT TRUTH BY ANJUM NIAZ

Once upon a time there stood a building that housed a cheap retail store going by
the name of ‘Burlington Coat Factory.’ It was near the World Trade Centre in New
York. Over time, the store closed down and the building fell vacant for anyone to
rent or own.

One beautiful September morning when the sky was unbelievably blue, the sunlight eerily
ethereal and the air mystically magic, two silver jetliners flew straight into the Twin Towers
killing everyone in them and destroying America‟s most prized edifice. Hellfire followed. It
took weeks, nay months to recover. The words „Taliban‟ and „Al-Qaeda‟ were introduced
overnight in American diction. The world at large too discovered the term Al-Qaeda which
before 9/11 was little known.

I remember Wolf Blitzer of CNN interviewing our then ambassador in Washington Maliha
Lodhi. He asked her what Al-Qaeda meant and drew a blank from her. (It means The Hub)
Dr Lodhi was in the dark, as were the whole of America and the rest of the world. Nor did
suicide bombers exist then. People didn‟t blow themselves up to kill others.

Sporadic cases of this kind of murder happened in Israel, but the rest of the universe
remained detached and unaware of this monster which was soon to rear its ugly face in
other parts of the globe. „War on terror‟ was yet another phrase, unheard of until President
Bush made it a household term and said he would “smoke” the terrorists out wherever they
be hiding.

Nineteen Arab hijackers who called themselves Muslims and attacked innocent people in the
name of Islam on September 11, 2001, have forever left a black mark on 23 per cent of the
world‟s population and the second largest religion on earth.

Nine years have gone by since 9/11, but the fires of hate, hostility and distrust among
Muslims, Jews and Christians remain. They simmer at times; rage at others, but never go
out. When one out of five Americans today firmly believes that President Barack Obama is a
Muslim and not a Christian because he‟s never seen attending church or carrying a Bible ala
his predecessors Bill Clinton and George Bush, what is one to say?

Let‟s get back to our Burlington Coat Factory building which got picked up by Imam Feisal
Abdul Rauf with Saudi funds. The plan is to convert it into an Islamic Centre on the lines of
a Muslim YMCA. But the right wing media led by Fox News is determined to whip up a mass
hysteria against the idea, determined to singe the plan. The bigots with loud mouths and
empty brains at the channel are churning hate and anger against Muslims. They are drawing
right wing conservatives in their fold willing to spread more hate and anger wherever their
voices can reach.

One man alone is taking up the cudgels for the embryonic Islamic Centre near the bombed
site. He is Jon Stewart. And he‟s skewering Fox News! The job that a Muslim in general and
a Saudi in particular should be doing is instead being done by a Jew! He‟s one of the few
who presents the true face of Islam as it should be to his Comedy Channel viewers here in
America via his Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It‟s perhaps the best watched late night show
going. It has no peers.

On “Fox & Friends” the Islamophobic anchors and their guests continue to smear the
reputation of Feisal Abdul Rauf, asking questions like, “Where is this money coming from?
This guy has questionable ties. The Kingdom Foundation, which has been a funder of Imam
Rauf in the past, is this Saudi organisation headed up by the guy who tried to give Rudy
Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back. He funds radical madrassas all over the
world.”

As it turns out that the “guy” is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal who is now hold your
breath; the largest shareholder after the Murdoch family, of News Corp, who in turn owns
Fox News!

“That's right. The guy Fox is painting as a sinister money force owns part of Fox News,” Jon
Stewart screamed. “We know that it's a terror mosque, because the money may be coming
from a bad guy, who definitely owns part of Fox News. Now we know that he's a bad guy,
because we just heard it on Fox News. And by hearing it on Fox News, watching Fox News,
I'm increasing their viewership and their advertising rates go up. Now part of that money
goes to the bad guy we learnt about on Fox, because he's their part-owner, Prince Al-
Waleed bin Talal, allowing him then to 'make it rain,' so to speak, on the terror mosque.”
Bravo Stewart.

Fox News tells Americans that the Saudi prince is funding Islamic radicalism; it doesn't want
Americans to know that the same „guy‟ is also funding Fox News! That‟s the inconvenient
truth.

www.anjumniaz.com