How a Youth Football Tournament Became National Headlines

When a group of local Muslim youths decided to organize a football tournament over New Year's weekend, they never expected that the tournament would make national headlines and become the latest victim of the Middle East conflict.

The kids' began with the normal enthusiasm in the hopes of setting up a competitive tournament of an American national past-time. Unfortunately, what started out as an innocent way to keep youth off the streets and away from drugs, alcohol, and violence, turned into national news when a reporter 'uncovered' that some of the handful of teams registered for the tournament had team names which included 'Intifada,' 'Mujahideen,' and 'Soldiers of Allah,' along with '4th and Goal', 'Playmakerz', and 'Fantizzle Fizzle'.

Working for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights group, we are not unfamiliar with religious sensitivity issues. Therefore, when we first received news of the issue, we talked to the youths to find out their intentions. Realizing the apprehension that some people have about anything Islamic these days, we knew that the choice of team names would face criticism.

The organizers said that the choice of names was totally innocent and intended only to show macho bravado for a small intra-Muslim tournament whose members all were aware of the accurate definitions of these terms. In linguistic and cultural context, the team names chosen carry Islamic meanings that are positive and mainstream in Muslim circles. More importantly, they do not, in any way, carry any inherent definitions of aggression towards anyone.

For example, 'Intifada' literally means "shaken off" and represents the independence movement of Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The term 'Mujahideen' means "those who strive for the good" and 'Soldiers of Allah' is a well-known phrase in Islamic circles for those who are dedicated servants of God.

While we found out that these kids - mainly young teenagers - are your typical All-American kids who just want to have fun playing football, we advised them to reconsider the names and pick more neutral ones. We are not nave; we are aware that a few of these terms are being tainted by the abominable actions of a few Muslims. And that is the reason we had advised them to change the names. And thankfully, they mostly agreed to do so.

And that should have been the end of the story. The Muslim community heard the concerns of our fellow Americans, saw the point, worked on the issue, and moved on. Sadly, those who saw this whole incident as an opportunity to further their anti-Muslim agenda did not let the issue end.

In an attempt to exploit the situation involving the youths, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the spokesperson for the Simon Wiesenthal Center's "Museum of Tolerance", in his Los Angeles Times and CNN interviews, accused the young organizers of "honoring" those involved in "targeting of innocent women and children." When it comes to Muslims, Simon Wiesenthal Center -- Museum of Tolerance  -- has often fueled hatred against Muslims and Arabs, by making comments which have only served to divide our country along religious lines and reinforce negative stereotypes.

Interestingly enough, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) joined the Museum of Tolerance's condemnation of the youth. The JDL issued an Action Alert calling on people to protest and according to their website, "Tell Arab terrorist sympathizers they don't belong on the grid iron!" This is the same JDL, whose leader Irv Rubin committed suicide while he and his accomplice were behind bars for plotting to blow up a California mosque and a Congressman's office. The Museum and JDL had no shame in fueling hatred against Muslims. Most Muslims and Christians and many Jews understand the 'Intifada' to be defined as the legitimate national struggle under international law, through social and political means, against the Israeli occupation of three million Palestinians. It includes the refusal to cooperate or pay taxes to the occupier; the defiance of Palestinian farmers to abandon their land to settlers and soldiers who confiscate it to build settlements or an apartheid wall; the throwing of stones by little kids at Israeli tanks which turned every Palestinian town and village into Bantustans reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.

It is unfortunate that the JDL and people such as Rabbi Cooper would see this opportunity to score a public relations point for Israel at the expense of youth playing in an innocent football tournament and who are also proud to be Americans and Muslims. With global issues the way that they are today, it is hard enough during these difficult times for many American Muslim youths to be proud of their identity with others defining the "true" definition of Islam. If Rabbi Cooper was truly concerned about teaching tolerance and fostering unity, he should have contacted and advised those kids before publicly blasting them as some sort of monsters. It was actually the youths who initiated the contact with him to assure him of no ill-intent on their part. In this situation, why is it that young children are teaching those older in age how to behave like civilized adults?

While lessons have been learned from both sides on this issue, some questions still remain. Shall Muslims be forced to drop such positive and ancient terms from their vocabularies because of their abuse by the few? What's next? Are we going to make Muslims change their names from Khalid, Omar or even Osama because others with such names have committed atrocities? That would be the moral equivalent of making it illegal to name your child Timothy after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Will America become safer if we track how many touchdowns the "Mujahideen" team makes over the "Fantizzle Fizzle"? Are we also forgetting that during the '80s we were cheering on the Mujahideen or Afghan freedom fighters against the Soviet Union?

We cherish our country's guarantee of freedom of speech to believe in and speak out on issues important to us. At the same time, we, as an American Muslim community, realize that now, more than ever, is the time to engage more of our fellow Americans in dialogue and outreach to correct the misperceptions about Islam and learn about other faiths. We were glad to be informed by the tournament organizers that this is indeed what they intend to do. Their next planned tournament will be called, "An Interfaith Tournament" in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians, as well as other faith groups would be invited to compete and get to know one another. Perhaps this is the silver lining in this whole situation.

Sabiha Khan is Communications Director of CAIR-Southern California.