American Muslims
Are Americans.
Let's Act Like It.
BY TAREK E. MASOUD
Friday, September 14, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
There's a famous photo of a Japanese-owned grocery store in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor with these words emblazoned across the front: "I AM AN AMERICAN." It accurately encapsulates the way many of us in the Islamic and Arab community feel at this hour. As it becomes ever more apparent that our co-religionists have visited slaughter upon our compatriots, so many of us want to declare from the rooftops our allegiance to this great nation, to show our solidarity with our fellow citizens, and to join the fight against our common enemy.
Despite their demonstrations of patriotism after Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans were thrown into internment camps. This is not likely to happen to us. President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sen. Ted Kennedy and countless pundits have bent over backward to make sure that Americans know that all Arabs are not to blame, and to explain that Islam and Islamic fundamentalism are not the same thing. They are correct, of course, and it is good to hear them say it. Because even I need to be reminded sometimes.
In fact, I wonder, when I hear these words of ecumenical brotherhood, whether Islam and Muslims are not getting a bit of a pass on this one. When I read Muslims posting messages of joy on Internet newsgroups, declaring, Malcolm X style, that the chickens have come home to roost, I wonder where these people come from. Are they the people I pray with at the mosque? Are they the New York cabbies I greet with a hearty "salam alaikum" and who in my mind have always been models of hard work and the American way? Could it be that Islam is not the religion of peace that I've been telling everybody it is, but instead a faith of bloodthirsty fatwas that exalts murder and suicide? Is it conceivable that Muslims are not the noble people I believe them with all my heart to be, but rather the kind of monsters who celebrate death and destruction?
No. It cannot be. But if I--a man born and raised into the faith, of Arab parents and with a deep love for the culture of the Arab world--can ask these questions, what questions must my Protestant and Jewish and Catholic friends be asking? And how can I, as a Muslim, give them an answer? I certainly cannot look to the national leadership of the Islamic community in America for guidance. The American Muslim Council tells us to be careful, to be on the lookout for suspicious and anti-Muslim behavior, presumably by other Americans seeking revenge. The Council on American Islamic Relations even sent out an e-mail with a handy form for reporting hate crimes against Muslims. I wonder if these groups are oblivious to the fact that it is Muslims, with names like Mohammed and Abdullah and, yes, Tarek, who have committed the greatest hate crime in American history?
Instead of trying to think of ways to help the victims, the leadership of the Muslim community would rather wrap itself in the mantle of victimhood. Actually, that's not quite right: It is wrapping itself in the mantle of potential victimhood. The feared hate crimes have not materialized. No one is taking to the streets and shouting "Death to Muslims." No mosques have been burned to the ground.
And so every day, as the nation mourns, as foreign countries pledge support and offer condolences, American Muslims are strangely absent from this tragedy, save the occasional press release. As a result, the only Muslims that America sees are Osama bin Laden and the mug shots of Tuesday's suicide bombers.
Already we can hear rumblings in the Muslim community about the need to keep fighting against profiling, the practice of singling out Arabs and Muslims for increased scrutiny at airports. They had been making headway with this cause--both presidential candidates denounced profiling during the 2000 campaign--and now they fear public sentiment will slide in the other direction.
But Tuesday's events should have demonstrated the folly of their position. How many thousands of lives would have been saved if people like me had been inconvenienced with having our bags searched and being made to answer questions? People say profiling makes them feel like criminals. It does--I know this firsthand. But would that I had been made to feel like a criminal a thousand times than to live to see the grisly handiwork of real criminals in New York and Washington.
I can hear my co-religionists now, arguing that the Muslims bear no special responsibility for these attacks, that a community of six million law-abiding Americans should not apologize just because a few of them committed a crime. Perhaps they are right. But looking at the images of shattered buildings and dead bodies, of people jumping to their deaths and of planes wielded as instruments of death, how can we not apologize, knowing that these images were brought to us by people who claim to act in the name of the faith we call our own? It seems to me that an apology would be very little to ask. Instead of jealously protesting our innocence and girding against repercussions, we should be asking, "What else can we do to help?"
Like the New Yorkers who even now are volunteering in greater numbers than relief workers can make use of, it is time for American Muslims to start acting like Americans.
Mr. Masoud is a graduate student at Yale.