Al-Ahram Weekly has published an
interesting commentary by Geneive Abdo and Steven Simon called "The Muslim Ghetto"--about how American Muslims are being pushed into a virtual ghetto by the attitudes of their non-Muslim neighbors.
For example, a poll conducted by Cornell last year showed that 27 per cent of 1,000 respondents supported requiring all Muslim Americans to register their home addresses with the federal government, and nearly half believed the US government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans.
More after the fold.
The same forces that produced a Muhammad Atta in Europe seem to be at work in our country:
The failure of many Americans to distinguish terrorists from their law-abiding Muslim neighbours is driving some Muslims to adopt an unwholesome form of the identity politics that has already eroded the melting pot ideal of the post- war period.
Younger Muslims in particular are increasingly choosing not to assimilate into American society. Young women are deciding to wear headscarves even if their mothers did not. Muslim Students' Associations on college campuses are growing rapidly as a barrier for Muslims who prefer not to interact socially with non-Muslims.
So what's so unhealthy about identity politics? As a member of a religious minority, I see some value in it. However:
These initiatives resemble those taken by other religious and ethnic groups in the United States since the 19th century. But the American Muslims' plight differs in that they perceive their nation's foreign and domestic policy agenda as being at war against their faith.
The societal danger arises when defensive behaviour by Muslims intended to promote acceptance and assimilation is transformed into a separatist impulse fuelled by discrimination. This creates the potential for political violence, fanned by the readily available radical ideology on the Internet that emphasises the irreconcilability of Muslims and non-Muslims.
Take Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, add the Bushies' cavalier attitude toward civil rights, then throw in the spectacle of a general saying that Allah is "an idol" and similar sentiments from assorted Christian clergy, and you have a fine recipe to inspire home-grown terrorists.
The thrust of the article is that suspicion of American Muslims can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the fact that this has not happened already is a tribute to (a) the enduring promise of America that everybody ultimately will be accepted as American (God, I love this country, in spite of everything the right has done to screw it up!) and (b) the untruth of the belief of 44% of those surveyed that "Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions."