The Oakland Tribune has a soothing, go-back-to-sleep piece about the Lodi Islamic terrorist arrests (by staff writer Sajid Farooq), and amazingly, appallingly, they quote as an impartial, reliable source none other than UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian: Area Muslims say mosques should not engender fear. (Hat tip: Daniel.)

But despite suspicions and fears of backlash, several members of the Bay Area Muslim community said mosques — though sometimes isolated from the communities they are in — are not strange places to be feared.

Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in Near Eastern studies and ethnic studies with a specialty in Islamic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said there is no single way American mosques are run. Some are only used for five daily congressional prayers, while others double as community centers, and some run full-time schools in addition to religious services.

“For the most part, mosques are stand-alone organizations,” he said. “As such, each mosque would have a different structure.”

There are almost 90 mosques and prayer halls in Northern California, and most Bay Area mosques are recognized nonprofit organizations. Bazian said there are two main types of nonprofits mosques. The first is an Islamic center run by a predominantly immigrant community, and the second is run by indigenous American Muslims.

Often, the immigrant mosques are more internally focused and less known in the community because they are more concerned with preserving native languages and culture than working with interfaith groups, for example. But Bazian said there are affluent immigrant communities that do a better job of getting to know their neighbors, such as the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara, the Bay Area’s largest mosque.

“The immigrant mosque developed out of an attempt to preserve identity,” he said. “This is a normative of all immigrants of all ethnic and religious backgrounds, and it’s reflective of a form of support. People are looking for familiarity.”

Sounds reasonable and level-headed, right?

But this is mainstream media cluelessness at its ignorant, dangerous worst. The person they are calling on to soothe Oakland residents’ fears, Hatem Bazian, is the same person who, on April 10, 2004, told an “anti-war” rally that we need An Intifada in This Country:

“Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don’t have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream… giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every— They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”

Here’s more information on this creep: Hatem Bazian: His Record of Hatred for Jews and America.

UPDATE at 6/10/05 9:24:43 am:

Video of Bazian’s hateful anti-American speech is here, at zombietime: Movies of the April 10, 2004 Rally in San Francisco.

UPDATE at 6/10/05 10:06:18 am:

And the author of this Oakland Tribune piece, Sajid Farooq, is no disinterested, impartial reporter.

He is an Islamic activist: Hip-Hop Beats and Islamic Prayers Fuse in All-Day Muslim Youth Gathering.

While the room was not seated to capacity, it was full of more than 800 young Muslims, who bowed to the words of Mohammed and then raised the roof to 11:59, a Muslim rap group.

Wheeler’s lobby was transformed into a modern-day bazaar. Muslim rap albums were fanned out on display tables. Retailers hawked sweatshirts with the logo “Muslim Gear” hemmed on the front.

First held in Ottawa, Canada in the 1980s, the event was created to fend off stereotypes that Muslim youth were spiritually and politically apathetic, said organizer Sajid Farooq.