Say It Ain't So, Hakeem!

[Correction and Clarification Below]

In 1919, the Chicago Black Sox scandal, in which the White Sox threw the World Series, gave American English a phrase that has been used by sports fans and others surprised by betrayal ever since: "Say it ain't so, Joe!" Today, on my perusal of the Sunday Houston Chronicle, I think I have an idea of how the young boy who is supposed to have first uttered that phrase to his hero, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, must have felt.

It seems that Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwon, greatly-admired local sports figure, hero of the back-to-back NBA championships of the Houston Rockets, and a major local investor and entrepreneur, has, at best, shown a careless disregard for fellow citizens of his adopted country. According to the Chronicle, Olajuwon once spoke at a conference whose sponsor was later linked to the terrorist organization Hamas, and is also under scrutiny for donations made by his mosque to organizations suspected of having terrorist links. He also, unsurprisingly, has been actively seeking converts to the "religion of peace" from among his wealthy NBA acquaintances.

Olajuwon has never made a secret of his devotion to Islam. In fact, this faith was often noted as a strong positive in accounts by sports writers clearly relieved at not having to report on boorish behavior on the part of yet another sports figure. Compared to most, Hakeem looked like a role model. And, given the fact that sports writers frequently hold religious faith in high regard, it is hardly surprising that Olajuwon got a free pass for years.

But let's look at what this fine man of faith has said and might have done. According to the Chronicle:

... Olajuwon told an audience at a 1995 conference in Houston sponsored by a group later linked to a terrorist organization that America was near morally bankrupt and Islam was the only solution.

... The former Houston Rockets basketball star told a crowd of mostly young people, "America needs Islam, Islam is the only solution and the only way of life." He added, "The morality of America is almost bankrupt. There is no morals [sic]."

And what passes for morality? I've already covered this at length. Do you think a devout Moslem is going to be unaware of this? Certainly, one can point out that many "devout" Christians seem unaware of certain passages of their own scriptures that exhort believers to slay the unfaithful. However, not only are Moslems, as a rule, much more familiar with the Koran (and likely to accept it literally), the Koran is rife with passages that damn the unbeliever and advocate his destruction. I don't think Olajuwon was ignorant of this. So, "Islam is the only solution," eh? It sounds like a pretty final one to me. Thanks, Hakeem!

The Chronicle article is, predictably, easy on Olajuwon. Nevertheless even it notes that, in the words of a former FBI official, Olajuwon's words and stature could be used to recruit new enemy combatants for the religious war.

"There is a big leap between 'America is morally corrupt' to 'Let's blow up the World Trade Center.' " But, he said, "It is step one in convincing people America is the enemy. It could be that the people who invited him to speak coached him to say that."

While this is true, it is also treating the matter at hand pretty charitably. When are we going to hold people accountable for what they devoutly believe? Olajuwon had no problem saying this. When is he going to go out and publicly renounce terrorism? I don't know, but he may be too busy funding it. [See asterisked note below.]

Olajuwon has been a devout Muslim, and has observed that religion's requirements to give to the needy and share the faith.

But some of his efforts have become questionable in the post-9/11 world.

Tax records of the Islamic Da'Wah Institute, which Olajuwon founded in Houston show donations in 2000 and 2002 to two groups that have had their assets frozen and that have been charged with funding Islamic terrorism.

A small amount went to the Holy Land Foundation, now under indictment. Federal agents in October raided what the government described as the U.S. headquarters of the group in Columbia, Mo.

Most of Olajuwon's questionable donations went to the Islamic African Relief Agency's U.S. affiliate, which was "providing direct financial support to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, Hamas and other terrorist groups," according to Treasury Secretary John Snow, when that group had its assets frozen.

Has Olajuwon apologized? Not as far as I can tell. Instead, he's screaming "Discrimination!" Quoth the Chron: "In a telephone conversation with several reporters last week, Olajuwon said he was being unfairly linked to questionable groups, perhaps as part of a larger bigotry toward Islam."

I am bitterly disappointed by this news. I want to say, "Say it ain't so, Hakeem!" But as I pointed out last week, his religion makes lying a virtue when used "in defense" of Islam, so what would anything he says be worth now? After all, the Islamofascists seem to think that the best defense is offense, else why all the killing?

September 11, 2001 was a day that started out beautifully for me, with sunshine, blue skies, and crisp air. I went in to work as usual that day, only to be greeted by our affable vivarian. He told me that planes had hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. We usually would swap pleasantries or jokes, so I naturally thought he was kidding at first. He wasn't, though, and to this day, similar, pleasant weather reminds me of that horrible day, at least for a moment. Now, I can chalk up another pleasant memory tainted by Hakeem's "beautiful" religion: the festive horn-honking that went on all night after the Rockets won their first championship. In a way, it would have been better had Olajuwon followed in Shoeless Joe's footsteps and thrown the bloody thing.

-- CAV

Correction and Clarification

* Reader Adrian Hester points out correctly that Hakeem Olajuwon admitted that his donations were a mistake. On that count, I dropped the ball and there's nothing to do but 'fess up. Absent a finding by investigators to the contrary, there really is no reason to be as disappointed in Olajuwon as I was. Having said that, there are other issues that readers Adrian Hester and Curtis Weeks bring up that I think bear addressing.

(1) On the matter of fighting a war: The use of force is not, per se, immoral. It is the initiation of the use of force that is. The various governments of the Moslem world that have made it possible for terrorists to threaten our nation are guilty of acts of war. As the victim of the initiation of force on the part of these enemy combatants, the United States is free to do whatever is necessary militarily to ensure that this does not happen again. What, exactly, this entails has provoked lots of debate, but the essential point to remember is this: innocents who die in this war have been killed by the terrorists and their accomplice state governments in the Middle East. Why? Because the terrorists made it necessary for our country to defend itself. This would include anyone killed by our use of nuclear weapons, were that necessary for us to defend our country.

Furthermore, on the government's investigation of Olajuwon and his finances: we're at war with Moslem militants. Our government is doing part of what it should here and I still find Olajuwon's comments about "discrimination" to be puzzling. Perhaps there's an element of frustration there. Nevertheless, if I were Moslem, some of my money ended up in terrorist hands, and I weren't being investigated, I'd wonder what the hell was going on.

(2) On the fact that some Moslems regard suicide bombing as heretical: This is a good point as is the one about Christians who fund Irish terrorism. Both cases demonstrate some of the dangers inherent in ideologies "grounded" in faith. When scriptures call for murder of nonbelievers, as the Bible and the Koran do, on what basis can someone who holds these books as revealed truth say this is heretical? Either on the basis of a contradictory portion of the same scripture or by selectively ignoring said passages. Both are really the same thing. We have people, who merely oppose murder, but why? It's usually because of other cultural influences common to members of that religion, and these may or may not be the case for a given individual. But the important point is this: such opposition is not something that springs logically from their faith, but from a selective rejection thereof. So the followers of two major religions spare our lives mainly by not following these religions too closely.

But there is a greater problem inherent in faith as an epistemology: it eliminates rational persuasion as a means of dealing with other human beings. Peter Schwartz puts this better than I can:

But if faith--i.e., the embrace of beliefs contrary to reason--is one's ruling principle, there is no peaceful way to resolve conflicts. There can be no appeal to facts, no logic, no rational arguments--there can be only the insistence that some non-provable belief be accepted. And what could back up that insistence other than fists or guns--or airplanes smashing into buildings?

This is at the root of terrorism. And this is why it is not unique to Islam.

(3) On taqiyya: I first learned about taqiyya from posts at Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch. I decided to go to a third source for its definition and this is what I got: "Taqiyya is the dissimulation of one’s religious beliefs to non-Muslims." The article goes on to state that the practice is acknowledged by Sunni Moslems as well as by Shiites and mentions its use. It is ostensibly used to avoid persecution, though the article says that interpretations of this practice vary from group to group. Given the supremacist nature of Islam, and how the religion pervades every aspect of life, I can't very easily give this a pass. What you or I might not regard as persecution might well be considered such by a Moslem.

At a minimum, the fact that this practice exists and seems to be widely interpreted (including it use by terrorists to avoid the "persecution" of someone disagreeing with them) can make it difficult to know whether one is being told the truth by a Moslem.

(4) On judging others: No. The fact that one professes to be a Moslem does not automatically make him evil any more than I would take someone's pronouncement that he's an Objectivist at face value to mean he's good. Having said that, I see nothing wrong in being more wary of Moslems than followers of many other religions. Why? Because that religion preaches that I should convert or die, and its unusual concept of jihad has caused many to assign this teaching a higher value than their own lives. Being more wary of someone initially, however, is not the same thing as pronouncing an irrevocable judgment.

Updates

2-21-05: Added correction and clarification.