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advertisements GA_googleFillSlot("left1"); GA_googleFillSlot("left2"); GA_googleFillSlot("left3"); GA_googleFillSlot("left4"); GA_googleFillSlot("left5"); Print|Email The American Muslim Success StoryOne thing that seems to be overlooked in this Manhattan mosque/activity center scuffle and the broader debate over integration and assimilation is just how well Muslim immigrants have done in the U.S. We don't have the Muslim ghettos, separatist movements, rioting, and the tense cultural clashes Europe has. There have been some arrests of alleged home-grown Islamic terrorists in America, but there are going to be extremist outliers in any ethnic, religious, or ideological group of 3 million people (the estimated number number of Muslims in the U.S.).
In contrast to many of the minority Muslim populations in Europe, American Muslims embrace modernity, are better educated, and earn more money than their non-Muslim fellow citizens. A 2007 Pew poll suggests American Muslims are also doing just fine when it comes to assimilating and viewing themselves as part of America. According to the poll, just 5 percent of American Muslims express any level of support for Al Qaeda, and strong majorities condemn suicide attacks for any reason (80+ percent), and have a generally positive image of America and its promise for Muslims.
According to the poll, the only subset of American Muslims where support for Al Qaeda and suicide attacks gets unccomfortably high is among native-born African-American converts, many of whom converted in prison. To the extent that this particular subset of American Muslims is more prone to radicalism and less optimistic about America, it has nothing to do with immigration/assimilation problems, and seems more likely to stem from lingering hostility about race. That is, it's an American problem, not a Muslim problem.
I'm not an immigration expert, so I'm not going to pretend I know everything that factored into it, but it's worth repeating that the story of Muslim immigrants in America over the last two generations is unquestionably a success story. There's the temptation to caution that all of the demagoguery and marginalization of Muslims over the Cordoba Center threatens that success, and could shake loose more potent factions of European-style Muslim radicalism in America. But the Pew poll suggests the overwhelming majority of American Muslims held to their sense of place in U.S. society even after September 11 and its immediate aftermath. It's worth condemning the "Ground Zero Mosque" demagoguery for the naked pandering to fear that it is. But the good news is that Muslim Americans appear to be confident enough with their position here that the escalating hysterics of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, & Co. aren't likely to budge their general optimism about America.
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← Reason.tv: Yankee Warhorse-Mary B. Townsend on… | Main | Hot For Teachers' Votes (By Giving… → See all 329 comments | Leave a comment James|8.17.10 @ 3:48PM|#Just an aside, but did you know that non-Muslims are barred from entering the cities of Mecca and Medina "” not merely barred from building synagogues or churches, but barred, period, because their infidel feet are deemed unfit to touch the ground. This is not an al-Qaeda principle. Nor is it an "Islamist" principle. It is Islam, pure and simple.
"Truly the pagans are unclean," instructs the Koran's Sura 9:28, "so let them not . . . approach the Sacred Mosque." This injunction "” and there are plenty of similar ones in Islam's scriptures "” is enforced vigorously not by jihadist terrorists but by the Saudi government. And it is enforced not because of some eccentric sense of Saudi nationalism. The only law of Saudi Arabia is sharia, the law of Islam.
reply to this Warty|8.17.10 @ 3:51PM|#Of course we know this. Everyone who knows anything about Islam knows this. Do you have a point that has something to do with the US, or do you just want to obliquely say that Muslims aren't fit to live here?
reply to this James|8.17.10 @ 4:09PM|#Just an aside.
reply to this //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == '|') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i]));} //]]> |8.17.10 @ 4:13PM|#Yeah, JUST an aside.
Disingenuous much?
reply to this //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == '|') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i]));} //]]> |8.17.10 @ 6:19PM|#I think what James is timidly suggesting is that we should look to how Islam behaves on its home turf, not how it behaves in a country where it's a very small minority. The exercise is instructive.
reply to this //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == '|') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i]));} //]]> |8.17.10 @ 6:32PM|#Instructive in what? That the Saudi government takes its role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (or whatever the fuck they term themselves) VERY, VERY seriously in a Wahhabist context?
reply to this //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == '|') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i]));} //]]> |8.17.10 @ 10:18PM|#No. Instructive in the mindset of Arab Muslims, you know, the ones who populate the middle east and some parts of the western world as well. Not saying they are all terrorists, but they are Muslims and they do embrace Sharia.
reply to this //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == '|') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i]));} //]]> |8.17.10 @ 10:25PM|#Have you asked non-Saudi Arabs what they think of the Saudi state doing what they're doing?
reply to this //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == '|') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i]));} //]]> |8.17.10 @ 10:43PM|#Yes, I have. Have you?
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