American Muslim Communities: Security Risk or Source of Hope?
continued
Khan regretted the response of American Muslims to 9/11, which he said consisted of 1) denial and 2) the urge to protect the Muslim world from the backlash of the U.S. government without concern for protecting themselves. Moreover, Khan insisted that the manner in which American Muslim organizations condemn terror is problematic; they condemn terrorism, he said, but not terrorists.
As a result of 9/11, Khan said, the U.S. was faced with a choice: to disengage with or become part of the Muslim world. The U.S. chose to embrace the Muslim world, but now must learn how to engage with it. American Muslims, according to Khan, have a role to play in this engagement through public diplomacy. There is a perception, he said, that the U.S. is waging war on Islam and American Muslims can offer a credible voice — perhaps the only credible voice — in countering this perception by demonstrating that Islam thrives in the U.S.
Khan urged American Muslims to explicitly acknowledge their stake in America's prosperity. He suggested that the Patriot Act forced American Muslims to consider their future in this country and most realized that they did not want to lose their citizenship, thus exploding the myth of return. American Muslims, he said, should worry about the welfare of their children here over that of their brothers at home.
In conclusion, Khan pointed to two challenges facing the American Muslim community - one historical and one political. The historical challenge, he said, is to demonstrate that Islam is compatible with modernity. The political challenge is to act as a bridge between the Islamic world and the West and to assume the intellectual leadership of Muslims in the West, which should not be left, he felt, in the hands of European Muslims.
Naheed Qureshi was the last panelist to speak, and she began by cautioning against generalization about Muslim communities in the U.S. as these communities are extremely diverse. She recounted the story of a Pakistani man who won the Green Card lottery1 in 2002 and moved to upstate New York to establish his life in the U.S. Despite being an upstanding, hard-working member of the community, he was jailed over fears that he was a terrorist for having his photograph taken in front of a water treatment facility. Although he was exonerated, he was eventually deported for having co-signed a lease with a man who was an illegal alien. Qureshi offered this as evidence of the climate of fear with which many Muslims must contend since 9/11.
While outreach and dialogue are important, Qureshi insisted, it must be recognized that the American public's attitude toward Muslims follow the lead of the U.S. government. She pointed to the humiliation and fear that many Muslim Americans have endured as a result of the ongoing FBI interviews to which they have been subjected since 9/11, even in the absence of suspicion about that particular individual. Although approximately 500,000 of these "voluntary" FBI interviews have taken place, she suggested that not one has produced any information relevant to 9/11, and no one is certain how the information collected has been or will be used. Many Arab and Muslim immigrants who did not comply with these interviews have been threatened with deportation, and she said that 13,000 Muslims are in deportation proceedings as a result.
Qureshi then expressed concern over the title of the panel discussion. She was troubled, she said, by the title's implication that it is possible that American Muslim communities could be a monolith and that acting together they are creating a security risk. By contrast, she said, such a title applied to any other minority group in this country would be perceived as racist. She concluded by asserting that the singling out of Muslim Americans is not only racial profiling, but it is not effective law enforcement. She regretted that the U.S. government has turned Muslim Americans into suspects, which in turn has contributed to public ill-will toward these communities.
The panelists' presentations were followed by a question and answer session moderated by Mustapha Tlili. Before fielding the first question, Tlili addressed the concern over the title of the panel, explaining that the title reflects a common misperception and was intended to spark debate.
1 The Green Card Lottery is an annual program through which 50,000 Green Cards — enabling immigrants and their families to live and work permanently in the United States — are made available via lottery to applicants from eligible countries.
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U.S.–Muslim Engagement Project Report Published: “Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World” September 24, 2008, at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.
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