Threats and opportunities for American Muslims

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Washington

The violent attacks on Sept.11 in New York and Washington have become an important stepping stone for the development and expansion of Islam in the United States.

The attacks marked the beginning of both new opportunities and challenges for the Muslim community in the U.S., allowing them to clarify the nature of their religion with the rest of the American population.

American Muslims, most of whom are of Arab descent, are largely recent migrants to the U.S., and being "the new kids on the block", they have become prone to discrimination and scapegoating for many unfortunate incidents.

Similar to the aftermath of Sept. 11, after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1993 the Muslim community become the first target of government profiling and racial harassment.

According to data from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in the four months following Sept.11, the council received 1,500 reports of discrimination against Muslims while they normally only receive 300 to 400 complaints in an entire year.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad told visiting Indonesian journalists recently that the cases ranged from verbal attacks to murder. A Sikh man in Arizona was beaten to death because he was thought to be a Muslim.

The American Muslim Council (AMC) says that while 310,000 people were detained for visa overstay violations after Sept. 11, the U.S. government concentrated on deporting 6,000 males of Arab descent.

Awad said there have been widespread misperceptions about Islamic teachings among U.S. citizens, who tend to think Islam is related to all kind of unlawful acts, that it ignores human rights and undermines the rights of women.

He stressed that this misperception had become the major reason why Westerners saw Islam as a political threat.

Moreover, in the past 10 years, Islam had become the fastest growing religion in the U.S. besides Christianity and Judaism. Of the current population of 245 million, around nine million are Muslims.

When the U.S. government declared Saudi-born Osama bin Laden the key suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks and it became known that he had called for a holy war or jihad against America, it seemed to further justify the perception that Islam equaled anarchy.

These developments initially provoked a negative reaction against the Muslim community across the U.S. and drove people to assault those with a Muslim appearance shortly after the attacks.

Awad further added that the Muslim community shared responsibility for the backlash attacks, because all these years they had failed to communicate their faith to the majority of Americans and tended to live in isolation.

A noted Muslim preacher (imam) in Washington, Yahya Hendi, also said many people perceived Islam in a negative way because it had been misused by people who used the religion to justify their acts of terror, a consequence of Muslims' failure to educate the wider community about Islam.

Assaults against people of "Muslim appearance" largely stopped following President George W. Bush's statement that Islam and Muslims as a whole should not be blamed for the attacks. He also stressed that the government would not tolerate any discriminatory actions against Muslims.

There is a growing curiosity about Islam. Many bookstores have run out of books on the subject and even the Koran.

"There is much positive media coverage and more genuine interest in Islam. Many Christians are opening their doors to Muslim neighbors and some Catholic churches even joined fasting with us on the last day of Ramadhan," Imam Hendi said.

In response to such positive reactions, Awad asked some 2,000 mosques in the U.S. to allow people from other faiths to come and interact with Muslims, and to learn more about the religion.

And for the first time Muslim leaders across the country were asked to join national prayers in ceremonies marking the Sept. 11 attacks and were interviewed on national television to provide an explanation of Islam.

Also in September, the U.S. postal service issued for the first time a stamp marking December's Idul Fitri celebration, which was sold out.

President Bush himself visited many Islamic centers across the U.S. as an expression of solidarity with the Muslim community.

"It is all up to us, we are at the crossroads, this is a chance for us to become more involved in many things and become part of the U.S. citizenry. We also have to fight extremism and show zero tolerance for anarchy," Awad said.

He said that it was about time the younger generation of American Muslims clearly stated that they were part of the country and that the Sept. 11 tragedy was a tragedy for all Americans, including the Muslim community.

Executive Director of AMC Aly R. Abuzaakouk said that Muslims in the U.S. still had a long way to go, as they were still under represented. Despite many positive gestures from the government, there are still some discriminatory regulations.

"The most important thing is that we have to continue our struggle through legal and constitutional channels as the U.S. does guarantee the freedom of its citizens," Abuzaakouk said.

The writer was recently invited along with several other Indonesian journalists to the U.S. by the U.S. State Department.