United American Committee Aims to Disunite Michigan Through Billboard

If anyone drove out of Detroit on southbound I-75 last winter and passed through Erie Township, they might have seen the bold-colored “SHARIA LAW THREATENS AMERICA” billboard that the United American Committee (UAC) funded at Exit 6 by Luna Pier Road.

Claiming to be “working for a better, safer tomorrow,” the UAC hoped to drive locals toward their website, which was noted at the bottom of the sign. Instead of logging on to a reputable and inspiring webpage, the organization’s web address morphs, and directs users to a low-budget, remedial-quality “antijihadresistance” chat forum. The “Jihad Chat Portal” conveniently contains an entire section on “CAIR/Anti-CAIR Issues,” and is dripping with misinformation on Islam. Like many individuals and groups who aim to discredit Muslims and/or Islamic institutions, the UAC chose the medium of a large-scale billboard, which they hoped would be effective in publicizing their “SHARIA” smear campaign.

The UAC’s YouTube.com channel states that the group is, “An educational, non-profit, grassroots organization of thousands of Americans against the threat of radical Islam.” An attempt at a firm connection between the religion of Islam and its legal system and anti-American radicalism is created in order to incite fear and hatred in the hearts and minds of Michiganders. Furthermore, the UAC is hoping to ride on the myths and misunderstandings surrounding Islamic law, such as the idea that non-Muslims would be subject to its jurisdiction in the case that it was the governing law of a land.

Uploaded on November 26, 2008, the channel provides an ABC Channel 13 Action Newscenter television broadcast covering the billboard “controversy,” where news reporter Zack Ottenstein states that the UAC chose that particular location on I-75 for the first billboard of their project “because of our significant Muslim population.” The location of the billboard further reflects UAC’s lack of funding and support. A billboard closer to Toledo, Ohio or Metro-Detroit would have enabled their message to reach a far greater breadth of Muslims and their neighbors.

The television news coverage further provides a note from the group stating, “We hope this message inspires the Muslims of America who came to this country to escape Sharia, to stand up against it.” Is the UAC really trying to inspire Muslims or attack their faith? Moreover, why is the UAC assuming that all Muslims in their audience “came to this country,” and were not in fact born in Michigan from families that have resided in the area for decades or even a hundred years? In research published by Gallup, Inc. in 2009 on Muslim Americans, for example, indigenous Americans were cited as making up at least thirty-six percent of the Muslim population in the United States.

As a fear-based perpetrator of hate, the ultimate objective of the group was clearly to disunite local residents of Michigan – to leave non-Muslims fearful of the presence of Muslims in their communities by utilizing an often misused media flag-word that is frequently entirely misunderstood, and to inherently reinforce the idea that Muslims are not American.

In light of the fact that many Metro-Detroiters never even noticed the “SHARIA billboards,” and gave minimal reaction to the ineffective propaganda, one of smearcasting.com’s own “Dirty Dozen,” David Horowitz, provided the little-known group with an additional platform to advertise their “Islam-o-phobic” views. Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine published an interview on December 22, 2008 with an individual who helped plan the billboard project who called CAIR an “Islamist” group that was scared to address the presence of the new billboard, and described prayer leaders of the Muslim communities as “theocratic thugs,” “two-bit religious leaders,” and “bullies.”

News Alert to the United American Committee: name-calling and insulting prayer leaders is not a shining American example of unifying behavior. Spreading hatred through fear and propaganda amongst your fellow countrymen and directing them towards a bigoted and misinformed chat room is not educational.