Islam and US
If ever there was a need for interfaith and intercultural dialogue, it is now
While the furor over plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York continues, there comes yet another poll about Islam in the US. The latest suggests that Americans do not believe Islam encourages violence and that they think Muslims should have the right to build mosques wherever they want.
This could be taken as good news. But it is not. In fact, the findings are seriously bad news. Forty-two percent of Americans may think Islam is no more likely than other religions to encourage violence but 35 percent think it is. That is 107 million Americans with a completely twisted and jaundiced view of Islam — simply put, 107 million American Islamophobes. Moreover, while 62 percent think that Muslims should build mosques where they want, 51 percent do not want one near Ground Zero. Talk about double standards and inconsistency!
It is little comfort that the number of Americans who view Islam as promoting violence has come down from 38 percent last year and 45 percent three years ago. The fact is that, overall, American views on Islam have worsened over the past five years.
There are two possible reactions to those findings. The easy one is to be angry — to rage about the US and demand that Americans change their views. The more difficult one, but the positive one, is to do something about it. In any event, Americans — and the many Europeans who likewise have similar ignorant and bigoted views about Islam — are not going to change them simply because Muslims demand it. (We have every right to say “ignorant”, because polls in the US have regularly shown that the majority of Americans know next to nothing about Islam. Yet they fear it. We can point too to the 18 percent of Americans who believe President Barack Obama to be a Muslim.)
If ever there was a need for interfaith and intercultural dialogue, it is now. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has made dialogue a central plank of Saudi policy but, as these polls and the New York mosque row show, it is a painful and uphill struggle. Even greater effort has to be put into explaining to Americans that Islam is a religion of peace and that it and Al-Qaeda are no more the same thing than Christianity and the Lord’s Resistance Army that is currently terrorizing parts of East Africa. This is precisely what the New York mosque and cultural center intends to do and why it is such a great idea.
It is a necessary idea. It is not in the Middle East or Afghanistan that the struggle for hearts and minds needs to be won, it is in the US and Europe. There is a real danger of Islamophobia becoming mainstream in US, as is happening in Europe. Islam is being used by the right in the US as the midterm elections approach to frighten voters into line. Obviously, this is shocking, but Muslims must not vent their anger at Americans about it. That only plays into the hands of those who want to vilify Islam and who want excuses for military intervention in the Middle East. We must remember, too, that there are many Americans who are not ignorant or bigoted. With them we need to work.
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MICHAEL
Aug 27, 2010 07:36
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Aug 27, 2010 07:36
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Aug 27, 2010 07:37
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Aug 27, 2010 07:39
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Aug 27, 2010 15:11
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