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A message AMV Founding Executive Director
AMV Foundation was created to fulfill an important need to link all communities together. We are proud to be American Muslims and would love to share our Islamic tenets with our fellow Americans in order for them to know us better. AMV members practice Islam not just in their homes and Mosques but also in their daily lives among their fellow Americans to provide the kind of firsthand knowledge about Muslims and Islam that only personal relationships can cultivate. We have a choice; either we can provide America with a chorus of peaceful voices of Islam that reflect the true nature of our faith or that void can continually be filled with the sensationalistic commentary and misinformation that only serves to divide American communities at a time when we need unity most. Our focus has been to foster friendships among all Americans by bridging cultural and religious gaps. In my humble opinion this is the best way we can serve our creator and Islam in the West.
9/11 has been the cause of condemnation and backlash towards Islam preempted by sensationalism in the mainstream media and exacerbated by the former administration. Muslim Americans and those that look like them are facing discrimination, hate crimes, violence and profiling. While we don’t control the obstacles life throws at us we always have a choice in how we face them. Our Islamic faith urges us to take the high road in difficult times and accordingly the burden is upon us to choose community building as a response to Islamophobia. We are committed to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a beloved community precisely because it mirrors the teachings of Islam and our beloved Prophet Mohammad. We have taken the interfaith dialog to the next step by forming close ties and lifelong friendships with our fellow Americans of various religious backgrounds. We have acknowledged the struggles of other minority groups, honored their accomplishments, learned from them and have been privileged with their guidance and support to fight injustice and erosion of civil liberties and constitutional rights of Muslims, Arabs and South Asians. Your commitment to social justice and friendship could provide comprehensive solution to such racial, religious, or ethnic targeting. This will give you a sense of the power and will encourage you to be involved locally to be a part of the solution.
The challenges we face today are too much for one person, one organization, one ethnic group, one religion or one nation to meet divided. We must weave our diversity into the most beautiful global network of support, a chorus of peace in solidarity with a promise to stand by one another – the very definition of community. The tremendous job at hand is our collective responsibility and we must begin to appreciate the severity of the situation. We are all emissaries of Islam and this requires the abandonment of our previous quietly anonymous lives or the beauty of our faith will forever be lost in the words of others who would choose to speak for us.
There are seven million Muslims and over a million Arabs in this country. Each and every one of us needs to realize the power and responsibility we share to ensure justice and liberty for ourselves and all of our fellow Americans. As Ben Franklin said before signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together or most certainly we shall all be hanged separately.” This is a simple truth evidenced by history and most currently the plight of Muslims and Arabs in the US. Our goal is that one day historians shall recount the will of the American Muslim community and our efforts to strengthen this nation by focusing on not what others can do for us but instead on what we can all do for each other.
Please join us and help yourself by being a visible Muslim and a patriotic American. Speak up, stand up, be part of a solution and work toward building an inclusive and beloved community that transcends race, religion, ethnicity, or any other characteristic which may be used to divide us. We can achieve our dream of a peaceful world simply by getting to know each other. Ignorance breeds fear, knowledge and social contact will erase these unfounded fears against us.
Please join our “Miracle Movement of Peace and Friendship” by forming new relationships with fellow Americans. Get to know someone you did not know before. By building new friendships you will be spreading goodwill towards humanity and leading the march by example towards peace and harmony.
This is an open invitation to all our fellow Americans. We welcome you to join AMV Foundation and adopt it as your own organization. Please don’t let our name mislead you. Our organization was founded by American Muslims to work for and with all Americans. You can be an ambassador of Islam and AMV Foundation at any age, on any income, with any cultural, religious, or ethnic heritage. Please support this critical work of improving our great nation in the name of peace and prosperity for all.
Samina Sundas
Founding Executive Director
American Muslim Voice Foundation
www.amuslimvoice.org
February, 4th 2010
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