In today’s Telegraph, there is a story about Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, all about how very strange and mysterious and unfair it was for him to be refused entry into the USA.
A spokesman for the US Department for Homeland Security said that Islam had been placed on a “watch list”, compiled to combat terrorism, “because of his recent activities” – he was only allowed to board the plane to Washington because of a misspelling of his name at Heathrow.
Yes, I guess that “Yusuf” bit might be slightly confusing.
It was not his first brush with immigration: he was deported from Israel in 2000 after claims that he had given money to the Palestinian group Hamas 12 years earlier, though he has always vehemently denied the claim: “I have never knowingly supported any terrorist group, past, present or future,” he stated.
But in yesterday’s Sunday Times, there was a piece at the front of the News Review section by Sarah Baxter, called I’m a Democrat for Bush. Ms. Baxter now lives in the USA and used to work for the New Statesman. In her piece, she mentions Yusuf(Cat) Islam(Stevens) in passing (page 3), and what she says throws a somewhat different light on the matter of the US Government not wanting him in the USA. Timesonline stuff does not last for non-Brits, so I quote at some length:
I also had a formative experience in 1989. I was a cub reporter at the London magazine Time Out when I covered the campaign by Yusuf Islam – Cat Stevens – to gain state funding for his Islamia school in Brent, north London. I was ambitious to seek out foreign stories as a freelance and had heard that an obscure group called Hamas was becoming a force to be reckoned with in the occupied territories.
I was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and wanted to know more about these upstart challengers to Israel and the PLO. But how could I possibly gain access to Hamas? I rang my contacts at the Islamia school and bingo! I was immediately put in touch with their leaders in Gaza, whom Cat Stevens was flying off to see that very month.
I took two weeks’ holiday from Time Out and set off for the occupied territories with a black chiffon scarf over my head. On arrival in Gaza I was disturbed that the Hamas leaders I met would never look me in the eye. To them, it was indecent even to glance at a member of the inferior sex. All their answers were directed at my boyfriend, who was taking pictures. But they were co-operative and eager for publicity.
We were taken upstairs in a mosque and, to my shock, were introduced to a dozen or more would-be suicide bombers in their mid-teens, who declared their fervent wish to martyr themselves for their cause.
At the time, there had been no suicide bombs in Israel. Some Hezbollah members in Lebanon had blown themselves up, but they were Shi’ite Muslims: Palestinian Sunnis were not supposed to go in for that sort of thing. Yet here I was, looking at a bunch of boys with kaffirs masking their faces, brandishing knives and practising karate in a place of worship. These weren’t boy scouts in a church hall; they were being trained to become fanatical killers by their religious elders.
When I heard the other week that Cat Stevens had been refused entry to America, I thought good riddance.
In short, if Ysuf Islam did not know who and what he was dealing with back then, he was a very, very stupid and very, very unobservant person.
I suppose it all depends on exactly how much “support” he gave to all this stuff. He met Hamas, but how much did he help them? And if he helped them at first, but then decided to stop helping them, was that so very wicked? Should he now be shunned from polite society because of what he once did and said and supported? Surely what matters is what he is now doing and now saying and now supporting.
The trouble is, it is now damnably hard to distinguish between Good Islam and Bad Islam. If you teach impeccably Good Islam, as Yusuf protests that he has been doing for years and is doing now, but if there is a distinct tendency for excitable and impressionable adolescents to reach Bad Islam conclusions from Good Islam, as there definitely seems to be these days, then does spreading Good Islam among impressionable adolescents amount to support for Bad Islam? It surely increases the likelihood of Bad Islam erupting, especially if you do not teach them much else.
Ever since 9/11, I have found that whenever I read sixteenth and seventeenth century English history, as I like to from time to time, I do it with a whole new level of understanding. This priest, for instance. Turbulent, yes, but how turbulent exactly? In those days, they took religion seriously, and agonised about what would be the political and terroristic consequences of it being taught, this way or that way. Bizarre. And now, again, so do we.
All of which is quite beside the point about whether, in claiming now to be spreading and supporting only Good Islam, Yusuf Islam is telling the truth.
Just what, I wonder, were those “recent activities” that the US Department of Homeland Security says are the reason for his exclusion from the USA.
‘with kaffirs masking their faces’
Times editors on the ball, I see – unless their faces were covered with kaffirs [infidels], rather than keffiyehs [scarves].
Interesting story.
Like everyone else I’ve no idea if Cat Stevens was merely naive in his youth, or if he’s a terrorist supporter. Presumably the US immigration authorities think he’s the latter.
I suppose we have to get used to a world where you can’t assume freedom to travel. In much the same way I’ve been refused credit due to a faulty algorithm*, in the future perhaps I’ll be refused entry to countries for the same reason. I want to go trekking in both Jordan and Morocco in the next few years, but seriously wonder if it will affect my travel credit rating.
My Dad (US citizen, born in US, lives in US, white, agnostic) was detained for 3 hours getting off an internal US flight recently. No reason was given for the detention. They made him sit in a room for 3 hours then gave him his passport back and said he was free to go. That’s just weird.
*At the time, the credit rating of the previous occupant of your rented accomodation had an effect on your credit rating. Nice.
At the risk of being too relativist, nothing breaks down into black or white, good or bad. An association is merely the sum total of the individuals who make it up. Cat may truly believe he is above it all, and is Holy in his causes, it blinds him to the nature of other individuals within the circles he frequents. He’s free to associate with whomever he chooses, and will bear the consequences if others choose not to associate with him. Passport and customs perhaps is another debate – whether there should be open borders etc etc. As it is, he shouldn’t be too surprised to be barred entry considering his prior choices.
J,
Since when does a US citizen need a passport to take an internal flight.
I suggest you are telling fibs….
So what is your point? trying to make out that Homeland Security is impingeing on your civil liberties? you will have to do a lot better than that to make your point…
Try taking an internal flight in the US before opening your mouth and making a fool of yourself. I have … the experience gives new meaning to the term “Orwellian”.
You need to show picture ID to get your boarding pass, and if your name ( or a name similar to yours ) is on the no fly list, god help you.
Brian, I think you’re not looking close enough. Cat says: “I have never knowingly supported any terrorist group, past, present or future.
We define Hamas as a terrorist group. But does he?
Ernest Young – well, what if you were on an internal connecting flight from an international flight. What if you were changing planes from CdG to JFK to go on to Scottsdale, say?
kbarrett et al,
I live and travel regularly in the US, and I am an alien, but I have never been asked for my passport when travelling on an internal flight, nor have I heard of anyone being detained for three hours, and without explanantion when on an internal flight, particularly a US citizen.
Sounds more like one of those ‘urban legends’, so popular amongst the more juvenile and impressionable.
Given that many US citizens do not have passports, and are not required to own one for internal travel, makes J’s story seem like a fairy tale.
Photo ID is a different matter, and a drivers licence is usually good enough, even a credit card with a photo is accepted.
To call the check-in ‘Orwellian’ says more about your perception of life than being an accurate description of reality. You seem to suffer from the same ‘exaggerati grande’ that J suffers with.
When the UK first had to deal with terrorist hijackings, in the 80’s, the disorganisation and queues (lines) were horrendous, a six hour wait in line being very commonb at Heathrow and Gatwick. The check in procedure in the US – while being perceived as largely superfluous and misdirected, is a cakewalk in comparison.
In closing – have you ever been to the US?
Ernest Young:
Good point. I’m pretty sure it was an internal flight, so I guess they just detained him and, err who knows. Actually the mind boggles – what _were_ they doing? I’ll ask him.
“So what is your point? trying to make out that Homeland Security is impingeing on your civil liberties?”
It’s hard to say. I don’t count air travel, and certainly not international air travel as a civil liberty. Therefore, if it becomes very much harder to do, that would be a pity but hardly an infringement of civil liberties.
I think travel within your own country may be a civil libery issue. I noticed that a US court ruled it unconsititutional to require protesters at an army base to pass through metal detectors. The simple inconvenience and time delay of the security screening effectively prevented them from protesting.
Finally, there’s a question of whether anyone should be allowed to detain anyone for 3 hours without saying why. Certainly, the police would need to charge someone or release them, so it’s unclear why customs/immigration get to just do it for.. for who knows what reason?
If someone had said ‘sorry, we ran your ticket through a computer and you were randomly selected for 3 hours worth of detailed background checking’ that would be fine (apart from the inconvenience). It’s the attitude that worries.
ernest young:
OK, I was completely wrong. It was an international flight (return from London), he was detained for about 30 minutes, rather than 3 hours, while his password was (we assume) checked more closely than is possible at the usual checkpoints. Nonethless, he was given no reason for the delay and no choice in the matter.
Searchable email archives are great.
In other news, I find the new fingerprint / iris fun at the US airports deeply annoying, and must remember to renew my US passport so I can avoid them. Grrr.
I’ll just add that the National Post(Cdn.) had an article about oh 3 or so weeks back when this was all hot and whatnot about how Cat was at a Hamas fund raiser as the main speaker up here in Canada, Now up until 2 or so years ago, in Canada Hamas was a “Legal” organization.
I do have respect for the Post here as it’s the only paper that will call “terroists”, terrorists.
Meh…I’m sure it’s in their archives but as I’m not a paid subscriber I can’t post a link to the article. I’m pretty sure that some of the things he said were not all that good either, this guy is far from harmless and if he isn’t a supporter he’s a sympathizer.
If I can find a copy if it I’ll post a URL in a bit. I hate trying to rely on my memory it’s not the best at times, but sometimes things do stick out.
J,
Thank you!. It takes a big man to admit an error – especially in public. Good for you….
kbarrett.
Take your spoon and find another pot to stir!
The curious thing about the Cat Stevens detainment is that he was in the country just a few months earlier. I assume he wasn’t allowed in because of the same alleged spelling error, but we can’t be sure. All I am sure of is that if he was another Hanni Hanjour (or any of eighteen other possible imitators) having the plane land in Maine might not have been an option.
The system is still broken. It’s also curiously capricious. I am not brimming with confidence.
Mr. Islam has also publically supported killing British citizen Salman Rushdie. Who hasn’t, really though? Maybe he’s taken that one back too.
I believe that this one was viewed as a mistake, though.
I wouldn’t exactly characterize his comments regarding Salman Rushdie and his Own Personal Fatwa as an endorsement. He only spoke of the religious rules and didn’t ever say that Rushdie should die. He didn’t say he shouldn’t die, but did say that the rules suggest that some would feel justified in killing him for The Satanic Verses.
In effect: not for, but not a vocal critic against. He later said he didn’t speak on the subject very clearly (really?) and that Rushdie shouldn’t be put to death, but by then the damage to his image (and that of many other Muslims) was done.
Cat Stevens has put himself in a position where it is up to him to prove he is NOT a threat to civilized people. It is only rational to make a man who has spent the night sleeping with dogs demonstrate that he is not infested with fleas before letting him back in the house.
Let’s not forget that we in the U.S. have a history of this sort of behavior. Charlie Chaplin thought he was going on a vacation, and found out he couldn’t come back, and John Lennon also had long, drawn out problems with U.S. Immigration. In their cases, I believe they were deemed “communists” or “socialists”.
Cat Stevens is a hard-core Islamist who believes in forcing Islamic sharia law on everyone, including his “fellow” Britains. He is surrounded by hardcore members of the Salafist movement (an offshoot of Wahabbism that is probably even worse than Wahabbism.) I can’t tell you how I know that, but I do know it.
I would take all his protestations of being a so-called “moderate” Muslim with a grain of salt. The fact is, he is an extremely conservative Orthodox Muslim who is married to a Saudi lady, and who lived in Saudi Arabia for a number of years. As such, he is likely to hold a number of opinions that most residents of secular, liberal demoracies like Great Britain would find extremely troubling. In the past he has supported the death fatwa on Salman Rushdie and stoning people to death for the non-violent “crime” of committing adultery.
This is in reality what Cat “Peace Train” Stevens now represents. British people, please be warned.
This is Good.Up you keep it.MUGUMAN OFF