There is no simple way for American Muslims to move forward.
Images of violence overseas in the name of Islam have come to define the faith for many non-Muslims at home. The U.S. remains at war in Afghanistan, and although America has formally declared an end to its combat operations in Iraq, U.S. troops there continue to fight alongside Iraqi forces.
Within the U.S., domestic terror has become a greater threat, while ignorance about what Islam teaches is widespread. More than half of respondents in a recent poll by the Pew Forum for Religion & Public Life said they knew little or nothing about the Muslim faith.
Some U.S. Muslims say their national organizations share the blame, for answering intricate questions about Islam with platitudes, and failing to fully examine the potential for extremism within their communities. Muslim leaders often respond when terrorists strike by saying Islam is a “religion of peace” that has no role in the violence instead of confronting the legitimate concerns of other Americans, these Muslim critics say.
[blockquote]Historians, and several Muslim leaders, see similarities to the prejudice Roman Catholics and Jews experienced as newcomers to America starting in the 19th century.[/blockquote]
I keep hearing this and it is a touchstone for why the historians and Muslim leaders don’t understand the sentiments they are experiencing in the US. There is NO comparison between what Muslims in the US are experiencing and the prejudice Roman Catholics and Jews experienced as newcomers to America starting in the 19th century. None. Islamic extremists attacked and murdered thousands of US citizens, broadcast live on TV for the world to see, and Muslims around the world broke out into spontaneous celebrations, again, shown around the world via video links. Roman Catholics and Jewish folks NEVER did anything like that. The fact that historians and Muslim leaders do not grasp that is telling.
The closest historic parallel for the current situation of Islam in America would be akin to the “indian wars” of the 19th Century. Those Muslims that truly are peaceful are not seen as being from a different “tribe” as those that are murdering scum. With each televised beheading done by a Muslim or suicide bombing, it gets more and more difficult to tell the “good” Muslims from the bad.
If the “good” Muslims want to distance themselves, they need to put on an ad campaign (not build a Mosque at ground zero) highlighting Muslim soldiers fighting on the side of America. They need to have street demonstrations protesting an act of terrorism as soon as it occurrs. They need to buy billboards with the face of an Imam and a caption saying, “I’m a Muslim, and I love my Christian and Jewish fellow Americans. We are all in this together.”
They need to paint neon lines between themselves and the extremists. If they don’t, they have only themselves to blame for the perception that all Muslims are murdering terrorists at heart.
Hezbollah terrorists are Shiite Muslims and they believe that Jihad is physical conflict. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a Sunni terrorist group and they also believe that Jihad is physical conflict. So, when Islamic defenders try to compare the differences between the various Muslim sects to the different Christian sects, the comparison does nothing to alay the concerns people have that perhaps ALL Muslims have murder in their hearts. Just repeating over and over again that Islam is a religion of peace will not work. In fact, it just makes it look like all Muslims are the same, and they are all supporting the terrorism…which I know is not true. Yet the platitudes about Islam being a religion of peace, right on the heals of yet another murderous act, take on the characteristics of absurdity.
I would be interested in having friendly relations with an American Muslim (I had an Iranian friend in High School that was Sunni)…but just the other day, a “very spiritual” Muslim woman killed several of her co-workers in Philidelphia. So, why would I want to have anything to to with Muslims? I can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys when it comes to Muslims and they aren’t doing a very good job pointing out the differences. Silence is seen as tacit support.
Sick and Tired: Just curious. . . . you say, “In fact, it just makes it look like all Muslims are the same, and they are all supporting the terrorism…which I know is not true.”
At this point, how do you know it’s not true?
I say that because there are Muslim soldiers in uniform, deployed in harm’s way, acting in our defense. Sadly, even some of them have fallen into disrepute or have turned traitor, but there are still some valiant soldiers of the Muslim faith that serve our nation’s interests.
That is a good point, well taken. Unless they are “sleepers.” Sorry – – I really am not some kind of right-wing wingnut; it is just that examples of Muslim American patriots are very hard for me to see right now. I sometimes think, even hope, that the reason that those “moderate” Muslims out there, IF they are out there, do not speak up is because they are more scared of the extremists than other Americans are. Don’t know. . . . but thanks for the response.
I found this article biased and historically fuzzy in general. For instance, Jews and Catholics were in America earlier than the 19th century. Did this writer ever hear of “Maryland?” Its worst flaw, however, is to fail to analyze the rise of American Muslims participating in jihadi and terrorist acts. We had the Ft. Hood shootings, the attempted Times Square bombing, the various arrests for bombing plots in New York and elsewhere, jihadis who were American converts arrested in rural North Carolina. It is these sorts of things which make non-Muslim Americans unsure of which Muslim groups are pro-American and which are possibly spawning violence. Clarifying this and building widespread trust will take more than repeating “This has nothing to do with Islam.”
What has been said above is actually rather obvious. And yet, as the article makes clear, it is quite possible to be oblivious to the obvious. But why?
I had earlier spoken of the Florida pastor’s threat as a Luther moment, for the response far exceeds the cause, and this response is far from done now. I wonder therefore if this is not a watershed period, so hard to see when it is being undergone. The pastor’s threat is simply the proximate cause of this conflagration.
Consider the antagonisms that are joined here: The states have refused to accept ssm and yet, the war is intensifying and may they may yet lose; the public majority widely sees Arizona’s immigration response as appropriate, but the government and the Cultural Elite undertake to crush this position; Obama has failed to end the depression but has created disastrous financial conditions, and the gap between rich and poor has expanded substantially; The Tea Party, for all its irrationality, has gained enormous ground; the art world, overtaken by an astonishing degree of coarseness and visual confrontation that have little to do with art, reflects the chasm between between the Cultural Elite and the Commons, while this coarsening is widely reflected in public taste and behavior.
What holds this together? These are identity issues which appear as a bifurcation, altogether vertiginous, between the establlshment and the commons, between the ruling elite and the commons, between federal governance and states’ right. Most of us watched the beginnings of this alienation as we watched the Baby Boomers and the 60’s overturn the long established American identity. The pressure to destroy the bonds with the past was as great as it was successful. And having thrown away what we had, we have replaced it with nothing of equal value.
And so, the provocation of the Muslim center and the counter provocation of the pastor call the question, to use the Robert’s Rules phrase. Now we must vote; the debate has been cut off. To be sure, if fact, it has not, for cultural issues never die, but in symbolism and perception and the swelling resentment of the commons, the time to vote has come. But what is the motion? Resolved, in the past, America’s identity has been the creation of its majority; it will no longer allow its identity to be shaped by powerful minorities. Am I wrong about this? Is this not a struggle for the reassertion of the legitimate power of the majority? Larry
It seems to me that the historian and educators interviewed here have something in common with those who lead TEC, which is that they rely too heavily on their own analogies and often equate analogies with reality.
Analogies equivocate but realities like the 9/11 attack impose real meaning.
Larry, I hope you are right. I pray that you are right. Will we, as a people, walk as cattle or as free men? New Hampshire has a slogan that I think fits our times…”Live free or die!”
Islam and democratic America just don’t jive. America’s foundations are Christian, although the cultural elite doesn’t want to recognize that. Islam’s cultural and social heart is in the tribalism of west and south Asia – a nexus of patriarchy, tribe and blood lines.
I suppose I should have added that we are watching the American equivalent of the continuing warfare between the House of Commons and House of Lords. Will the Commons take back its own, lost now as wealth and power have been transferred to an Intellectual/educated elite? When all power has fallen into the hands of the wealthy/powerful who are precisely that because they are well educated, can the Commons ever reclaim its own without actual revolution? One thinks of Cromwell and Charles I.
The issue of Moslem identity and Ground Zero is a powerful presenting symptom (and life threatening symptom all by itself) but it is part of a much larger issue.
I don’t know about you, but i am tired, worn out, by confrontation, aggressive hostile agendas, endless unproductive debate, intransigent polarized and polarizing advertising and failed political leadership. Alas that we live interesting times. But I tell you, I am sure I am not alone, and we will see the continued rise of irrational outbreaks of violence as the demand for action is met with the impossibility of determining how one should act. There is only one outlet for such frustration. This fall’s election will change the faces of the combatants, but not the causas belli. Larry
One of the great blessings of going to church is to hear all the voices fall silent, just for a little while. Larry