One in four Americans holds a negative stereotype of Muslims, and almost one-third respond with a negative image when they hear the word “Muslim,” according to a recent national poll commissioned by a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group.
Officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which sponsored the survey, called the findings alarming. Although the organization was aware that hate crimes and discrimination against Muslims had increased since the 2001 terrorist attacks, “We did not know [anti-Muslim sentiment] was that deep,” the council’s executive director, Nihad Awad, said as he announced the poll results.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has revoked a visa that was issued to Tariq Ramadan, a distinguished Swiss professor of Islamic Studies, days before his arrival into the U.S. as a visiting professor at Notre Dame University in Indiana. Ramadan is regarded among the most prominent and moderate Muslim experts in Europe and across the globe.
A few weeks ago, a plane carrying Yusuf Islam, formerly pop singer Cat Stevens, was diverted from its course to Washington, D.C., and forced to land in Maine after officials discovered that Islam was on board. He was detained for hours, interrogated and told that his name was on the “No-Fly” list before being deported to England. Islam is a convert to the Islamic faith.
Self-appointed Middle East expert Daniel Pipes and some supporters pushed to put a bill on the House of Representatives’ floor that, if passed, would discontinue federal funding for any Islamic, Middle Eastern and Arabic studies departments, as well as Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages. Pipes also runs a watchdog website that blacklists instructors who teach classes about Islam, Middle East and the Palestine-Israel conflict and discourages students from attending lectures lead by ones with opposing views.
It is perhaps the time of most dire need for the U.S. public and officials to understand Islam and the cultures of the Middle East, a need rightfully recognized by a prominent institution such as Notre Dame. As many in the United States like to announce being in the Middle of a “War of Civilizations” and a “Culture Clash” with nations that adopt the Islamic faith, the lack on knowledge and understanding of the appointed enemy and its culture is growing more evident.
This is a dangerous phenomenon. Hawkish elements in the Bush administration, known as the neocons, appear to be the mastermind of this diplomacy, or lack of diplomacy. They are the same elements behind the invasion of Iraq, the institution of the Patriot Act, the secret detention of Arab and Muslim Americans without being faced with charges. They are also the same team that applies “waiving the baton” diplomacy to the U.S. foreign policy, alienating many friends and creating more enemies. A National Geographic poll just before the invasion of Iraq indicated that among teenagers who supported the war, 78 percent could not locate Iraq on a map. They perhaps did not know, or at least take a moment to think, that Iraqis have homes, drive cars, go to work and school, just like Americans, and love their children too.
Placing a human face on people makes it that much harder to kill them. Blacks were regarded as subhuman to justify lynching them and discriminating against them, and massive propaganda campaigns were launched to sub-humanize the Japanese in the 1940s, Koreans in the 50s, and Vietnamese in the 60s. The crumbling of this image about Arabs and Muslims is what the war hawks fear. As they continue their crusade to launch war on Arabs and Muslims, they recognize the crusade’s most significant threat as that resulting from the public finding out that the victims are humans.
It is much easier to drop bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq and stand by doing nothing as Israel slaughters the Palestinian population if the image we have of all Arabs and Muslims is a rugged-looking, untidy, uneducated militant men running between caves. Knowing that the majority live normal lives, have families, work as teachers, bankers, factory workers and doctors makes killing them unjustifiable.
Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf Islam are dangerous in the eyes of some in the administration; they have the potential of opening the eyes of many people to reality. The former popular pop singer would have shared his new faith with others, and perhaps aroused their interest to pick up a book about it. Ramadan was dangerously close to having a forum at a prominent university to speak to students about the peaceful faith he studied and practiced for a long time.
Does it sound like someone is infringing on your personal freedom?
Fayyad Sbaihat ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in chemical engineering.
