September 27, 2010
The following article was originally published on the Front Page Magazine website and is reposted with permission.
In late spring, when the school year is coming to a close, a teacher’s thoughts turn to field trips. And Boston, the Cradle of Liberty, is abounding with possibilities. Students can explore what Thoreau called “the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature” at Walden Pond. Then at the nearby Old North Bridge, they can relive the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
In town, the Prudential Skywalk Observatory offers a panorama. Close up, Beacon Hill and the Back Bay provide striking examples of architecture, like the culturally-rich Vilna Shul, Boston’s last immigrant-era synagogue. Of course, teachers would be careful to assure parents that there would be no proselytism of any kind taking place. A visit to a Jewish synagogue would be for educational purposes only.
And what Boston field trip would be complete without seeing the Old North Church, the oldest standing church in Boston, and the location of the “fateful event” that “ignited the American Revolution”? Of course, since this historical gem is still a functioning congregation, teachers would once again be vigilant to ensure that no proselytism occurred. They would also, of course, prohibit students from participating in anything that might be construed as “worship.”
On May 25, 2010, educators in a Boston suburb chose to eschew all these field trip opportunities. Instead, they brought sixth graders from Wellesley Middle School to one of the most controversial mosques in America, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), a Boston-based human rights group, released a video of the excursion, with footage secretly filmed by a concerned mother acting as a chaperone on the social studies class field trip. The video demonstrates that in this case, teachers were not vigilant, proselytism did take place, and five of the sixth grade boys participated in Islamic worship.
The videographer/mom explained that Wellesley Middle School sent home a form, asking for parents’ permission to take her son’s social studies class to the mosque. “During our visit we will hear from Islam from members of the Cultural Center, learn about the architecture of a mosque, and observe a midday prayer service,” the permission slip informed.
The students, who looked well-behaved and attentive in the video, were told about Islam from an American women convert serving as a mosque volunteer. Maybe the volunteer should have read up a little more on Islam herself. She told the students that in the time of Mohammed, “women were allowed to express their opinions and vote” while in America, “women didn’t get that right until less than a hundred years ago.” Islam was “very advanced” in “recognizing women’s rights,” the mosque spokesperson declared. In his report for Big Peace, APT head Dr. Charles Jacobs said that the students were also told that the only meaning of Jihad was a “personal spiritual struggle” and “Jihad has historically had no relationship with holy war.”
Although the mother who filmed the mosque visit said that the encounter “sometimes came close to proselytizing,” the video points out that dawa (Islamic proselytism) is the duty of all Muslims. It cites the website DawaNet, which says that schools are “fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students.”
When the videographer and all of the other females present were moved to a room adjacent to the prayer room, she noticed that five of the Middle School boys had joined in the prayers to Allah, including one Jewish boy. The boys were following the accustomed prayer format of the Muslim men, prostrating themselves. According to the mother, the teachers did nothing to intervene. Perhaps they were not aware that it only takes the recitation of one prayer, the Shahada, to be considered converted to Islam. Jacobs writes that the parents of these children were not told that their sons had joined in the worship. But it is not just the Wellesley public school teachers or administrators who have ignored the threat.
APT has been “sounding the alarm about the radical leadership and Saudi funding of the Boston mega-mosque” for the past three years, says Jacobs. During mosque construction, APT also issued warnings about the sponsors, the Muslim American Society (MAS). Federal prosecutors have stated that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.” A number of Islamic leaders and supporters of the mosque project have been indicted on terrorism-connected charges. But in spite of this, some Massachusetts political and religious leaders have come to the defense of MASand the mosque, charging critics with bigotry.
At a meeting at the mosque sponsored by Islamic Relief, a group with close ties to Hamas and the Gaza flotilla, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who seems to think he is the mayor of Londonistan, declared, “Yours is a peaceful faith.” He further demonstrated his dhimmitude when at the same meeting he signed a list of seven actions that afford privileged treatment and status to Muslims in public and private workplaces, schools, and financial institutions. These actions include issuing “proclamations” urging the public and private sectors to accommodate Muslims’ “weekly religious obligation to attend Friday afternoon prayers,” and “decrying discrimination and racial profiling against Muslims.” Most worrisome was that Patrick accepted a check for $50,000 from the mosque, to fund “cultural sensitivity training” of law enforcement officials in the state.
Also helpful to MAS and indispensable in construction of the mosque, was Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. “Menino’s Mosque,” a 2008 article in the not-at-all conservative Boston Phoenix, told how the mayor gave city-owned land at “the bargain basement – and still controversial – price of $175,000 plus the promise of in-kind services, including upkeep of nearby parks.” The resulting outrage not only over the ridiculously low sale of the land, but also over the violation of theseparation of church and state, and because of the revelation that the Boston Redevelopment Authority was fully aware that the Islamists did not have adequate funds to build the mosque before they approved the final sale of the land. Just another accommodation by a helpful kaffir.
The naïve and unwise actions of Menino, Patrick, and those who promote visits to radical mosques by public school children are assisting in the Dawa, the propagation of Islam. If this were merely a church/state matter, that would be objection enough – especially in light of the preferential treatment of Islam. Dozens have reacted to the Wellesley Middle School video by pondering the reaction of school officials if the students had gone to a church or synagogue and participated in worship there. And yet supporters of the mosque never acknowledge their hypocrisy, their double standard. They only lash out at those who identify it and call them bigots and Islamophobes.
But this not merely a church/state matter. The appeasers of the radicals at MAS and of the Boston mega-mosque are assisting in the propagation of radical Islam and of the acceptance of Shariah in America. Americans need to truly understand this danger, to understand the true nature of Islamism in America, as represented by the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. They need to prevent the exposure of vulnerable, impressionable schoolchildren to Muslim extremists and to false ideas about both Islam and America.
And as for Wellesley Middle School? Next time, take a field trip to Walden Pond.
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