WHAT IS THE FIA.
IDE ORGANIZATION COMPOSED OF THE FEDERATED MUSLIM
COMMUNITIES IN NORTH AMERICA . IT WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1952 AT CEDAR RAPID , IOWA.
MOST OF ITS MEMBERS WERE BORN AND RAISED IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA . THEZ
ORGANIZED IN THE NAME OF ISLAM TO PROMOTE THE SPIRIT, ETHICS , PHILOSOPHY AND
CULTURE OF THEIR HERITAGE. THEY HAVE FORMED LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS TO WORK
TOGETHER SO THEY CAN KEEP THEIR FAITH AND CULTURE IN AN ENVIRONMENT OF THEIR OWN
CHOOSING AND IN THE SAME TIME , TO ESTABLISH CLOSE CONTACTS WITH ALL PARTS OF THE
MUSLIM WORLD.
OTHER OBJECTIVES ARE TO HAVE FELLOW MUSLIM, THROUGH PUBLICATIONS , EXPOUND THE
TEACHINGS OF ISLAM AND TO CLARIFY ITS IDEALS AND SPIRIT . IT URGES THE MUSLIM
COMMUNITIES IN THE US AND CANADA TO ORGANIZE THEMSELVES INTO LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS
TO LEARN AND OBSERVE THE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAM AND ADMINISTER TO THE RELIGIOUS
NEEDS OF THE MEMBERS OF THEIR COMMUNITY. IT OLSO URGED THE MUSLIM COMMUNITIES TO
PROVIDE MEDIA FOR RELIGIOUS , INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL NEEDS OF THEIR MEMBERS AND
TENDER THEM WITH MORAL , LEGAL AND FINANCIAL COMFORT.
ADDITIONAL OBJECTIVES ARE TO MAKE ISLAM BETTER UNDERSTOOD BY MUSLIMS AND
NON-MUSLIM BY ANSWERING AND CORRECTING ANY MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ISLAM AND BY
DISTRIBUTING ISLAMIC LITERATURE TO SCHOOLS , UNIVERSITIES AND LIBRARIES. ALSO TO
PROMOTE FRIENDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND NON- MUSLIMS IN THIS CONTINENT.
AND TO PRESENT THE ISLAMIC WAY OF LIFE AS DEFINED BY THE QURAN AND SUNNAH (THE
MESSAGE OF GOD AND THE EXAMPLE OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD, PEACE BE UPON HIM). AS
THE MOST APPROPRIATE WAY OF LIFE THAT RESPECTS ALL GOD SEND MESSAGES AND
HUMANITARIAN VALUES, WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION OF RACE , COLOR OR CREED.
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ISSUED IN JAN. 15TH. 1980
TO REFLECT THE NEED OF THE TIME.
THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
[DECIDED TO ACCEPT THE FOLLOWING FIA BICENTENIAL]
[AS ONE OF ITS DOCUMENTS ON THE HUMAIN RIGHTS OF THE AMERICAN] [AND CANADIAN MUSLIMS.]
THIS IS THE FIA SALUTE.
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SALUTE AND A REMINDER
IN ITS BICENTENIAL YEAR COMMEMORATING ITS LIBERATION
REVOLUTION OF 1776.
AND THE
SILVER JUBILEE OF THE FEDERATIONOF ISLAMIC ASSOCIATIONS
IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA.
1976
200 years have elapsed since our forefathers revolted against the English colonization of our land and our
people, and the draining of our resources under the tyranny of the British military rule that left our country
heavily taxed and without representation. The spark of our 1776 revolution was - no representation '. no
taxation. In honor and in memory of our liberation martyrs and dead, an honest and candid look is called to
examine our conduct since they gave us the liberty of this land inherent in its great Declaration of
Independence; we are proud to have exuded tremendous amounts of toil, sweat and pain to build our country
into the most powerful and advanced country in the world. We even reached the moon and landed our men
there. We can be justifiably proud of our promulgation of an inspiring democracy here where mankind can live
without discrimination due to skin color, religious belief, and ethnic origin.
We must recognize, also, those areas where we missed goals and values of our glorious revolution. In many
instances, we followed in the foot-steps of our first colonizer, and mislead our people.
At the behest and for covert benefit of special interests, we deviated from the goals and valuesof our
revolution.When we denied to many peaples of the earth the right to revolt against their colonizer or invader,
we, perforce, denied them freedom in their land.We even imposed and supported their tyrants and dictators
and, in this most regrettable process, we jeopardized the lives of thousands, killed and missing in action
everywhere. We supported Chiang Kai Chek with all of our resources and money, only to find after 30 years
that a good relationship with mainland China was in our best interest. We replaced the French colonization in
Vietnam where 55,000 of our men were killed along with millions of Vietnamese people, caused barren wastes in
that fertile land, and poured untold tonnage of explosives indiscriminately on civilian and military alike. We
even lead our economy into the last recession in order to sustain a few hundred corrupt black marketers, and
the fleeing military Vietnamese who then followed the trail of our returning ships. Van Thieu and Kaw Kai are
living now in luxury on our tax money, funneled over the years into Vietnam.
We are supplying the military junta ruling in Ethiopia with Phantom its and napalm bombs to be dropped on the
Eretrian Muslim people and their villages . . . whose only crime is seeking to liberate themselves from Ethiopia.
And we still support a dictator like Marcos, in the Philippines,whose hands are stained with the blood of the
hundred thousands of Muslim Filipino martyrs who have died in their fight for freedom and the equal rights of
people to practice their faith in a free society. We took sides in Angola and we plunged ourselves into its
internal affairs; and we were on the verge of giving the racist regime of South Africa an atomc reactor and the
capability to make atomic bombs, without even asking that regime to sign the non-proliferation treaty that
prevents a participating signatory from using the atom for military purposes.
All of this has come at a time when (U.S. Secretary of State) Kissinger is talking of our good intentions towards
the African people, and their right to live as equals with their supremacist white minority. The atomic bomb
cannot extend the racist South African regime's life or the life of any other regime, when history dictates the
events and their courses, but the atomic capability of such a regime supplied by our country, or France, our
close ally, may drag us vis-a-vis a potential atomic confrontation.
Our atomic conduct and aid is, in fact, questionable while we supply Israel directly and indirectly, and close our
eyes while the hawkish Israelis are manufacturing the atomic bomb and refusing to sign the atomic
non-proliferation treaty. The Israeli atomic capability is our own responsibility, and if the atom is unleashed
against the Arab people by the irresponsible, expansionist, racist state of Israel, at that time an atomic
confrontation connote be dismissed for the whole world will be standing on the precipice of a third world war.
It was our biggest mistake when we supported a recist, religious, Zionist regime in Palestine, which we helped
with our billions of dollars, resources and the unlimited arms that exhausted our stock piles to help the Irgun
and the Hagana outlaw bands to become the Israeli state on the Arab land of Palestine.
Unquestionably, it was through our support and massive help that enabled those gangs to become a state, and
we did it because a descendant of our former British colonizer whom we fought in 1776, Lord Balfour, gave the
Palestinian people's land, of Christian and Muslim, to the new colonialist terrorists coming from everywhere to
martyrize the Palestinian Arabs for thirty years and drain Arab countries' resources and to establish an
unprecedented military might solely supplied by us to the Israelis.
Our presidents and politicians under the pressure and seduction, the vote and money of Zionist. organizations,
supported that historic inhuman political crime. It became clear to thinking people everywhere that the Jewish
people, mistreated by the Nazis, had themselves Surpassed the Nazis in cruelty, bloodthirsty acts and the
wanton killing of children and aged men and women, and locking towns and quarters behind huge steel barriers
and walls built in the streets and roads of the martyrized Arab cities in occupied Palestine.
The question that our people ask now about "democratic Israel" - why are Muslims and Christians and Oriental
Jews who are Israeli citizens being persecuted every day and are 3rd and 4th class citizens??
The fact is that we Americans have supported long enough a racist, Zionist regime that has been denounced
by most of the nations in the world. We Americans are deeply concerned about the aggressive Zionist Israeli
expansion policy, especially the future events and explosions in the /Middle East, and what could drag us into
another Vietnam and a super power confrontation and the loss of the confidence and hopes of the Arab
peoples.
The Arab people could finally come to believe that the Soviets are better friends and open their doors wide
again to the Soviet Union; in such a case, no regime or monarch, whatsoever, could stop that course of events
unless we Americans act, and act fast, towards implementing a Middle East solution based on justice through
United Nations resolutions that give the full right of the Palestinian people, their homeland or compensation,
and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Sinai, the Golan Heights and the West Bank.
We, as five million American Muslims from every ethnic group and from every corner of the Muslim world,
represented in the Federation of Islamic Associations, salute our '76 revolution, and reaffirm its great liberation
and the most valuable human values and traditions of our nation, those values which we want clearly etched in
the minds of our people, as our great forefathers wrote them in the Declaration of Independence, as follows:
I -We support the right of all people of the earth in their sacred right to liberation and
self. determination from all kinds of colonization, occupation and exploitation.
2-Since the American revolution was sparked by meddling in our internal affairs, we are
opposed to, any form of intervention, military., political, and economic, especially, to
impose, support and perpetuate leaders and sovereigns who do not have the support of
their people.
3-Our values are based on the full equality and respect for all mankind, regardless of
their religion, color, or ethnic origins; therefore, we are against all regimes, practices,
behavior, which deny those sacred rights.
4-Our people, realizing the mass destruction a new atomic war could wreak on mankind,
call for the limitation of production of those weapons and in the near future, their
complete prohibition.
We are against the depletion of human resources towards production of weaponry at a
time when famine and poverty are claiming millions of lives. We need all our resources
for building our lives, towns, and our whole country, especially to end the recession with
its raging unemployment, inflation and social problems.
5-We are for the brotherhood, love and peaceful co-existence between all religions and
beliefs and we have a high regard and respect for the Jewish religion which we
differentiate from the Zionist political movement. We are against the exodus of Soviet
Jews and the trap they have found in Israel where they are being used for more
expansion and wars.
6-We are for a free press and media that are not manipulated and owned by groups with
questionable or double loyalty, especially the Jewish lobby in Washington, D.C. with its
connections with the Israeli alien elements and its drainage of our resources and tax
monies.
7-We are against the use of Veto power in the United Nations when it is used to defend,
support and perpetuate Israeli crimes, aggression and occupation, perpetrated against
the majority of the world community, and which has accrued in alienation of our country in
that respected world forum.
8-We fully support the UN organization and world body and we endorse its
just resolutions. We believe that the UN provides a way and a means to deal
with world problems.
9-We are against making the Panama Canal an issue and reject any hawkish
attitude that challenges the sovereignty of the Panamanians on their land; we
pay a rental for it, and what we rent doesn't belong to, us. We are for
negotiations, not confrontation, for the best interest of our two countries,
realizing the fact Panama Canal is one hundred-percent vulnerable and
useless without a just and fair treaty.
10-We support a democratic regime system in Lebanon, and we are for the
full social reforms which will bring peace and love to that war-torn country.
The United Nations and the Arab league,- are the only, acceptable mediators
in the future of Lebanon. We call for the immediate and complete withdrawal
of Syrian occupation forces in Lebanon.
1 1 -We deeply deplore and regret the resolution passed by the Democratic
Party which demands that Jerusalem become the capital of Israel, at a time
when Arab men, women and children are killed crying for the liberation of
occupied Palestine and the West Bank. Such actions stain the Democratic
Party, and prove how the Jewish Israeli influence is manipulating the policy
of our country.
May God Almighty bless America and its people. May God the Merciful make
Americans the defender of liberty, human values and rights of the earth's inhabitants.
- BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada
THE FOURTH OF JULY 1976
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