US Muslims Face Isolation, Radical Threat: Study
CHICAGO - Muslim Americans must meld into U.S. society before suspicion and mistrust lingering since the attacks on New York and Washington isolates them and sparks radicalism in their ranks, a study said on Tuesday.
“There is an urgent national need for Muslims and non-Muslims to work together to create full and equal opportunities for civic and political participation of Muslim Americans,” the report said. 
For the first time since World War Two when the U.S. government rounded up and interred Japanese, many are questioning the loyalty “of a largely unfamiliar and largely immigrant American community,” said the report written by a task force of 32 individuals from business, government and academia.
Six years after the September 11 attacks focused attention on them, Muslim Americans remain “largely outside the U.S. mainstream,” the report said, even though they are an often well-educated and diverse group with the potential to make important contributions to civic life.
“The Muslim American community lacks strong institutions and recognizable public or political voices to gain regular access to government and media circles,” the report’s executive summary said.
“Some existing Muslim American institutions have avoided foreign policy issues for fear of drawing unfavorable scrutiny,” it added.
While independent studies found little evidence of widespread extremist activity with links to al Qaeda or similar organizations, efforts to counter perceptions to the contrary have not been effective, it said.
THREATEN TO MARGINALIZE MUSLIMS
“Many Americans perceive Muslim Americans as not having fully and readily acknowledged the potential for radicalism within their community,” added the report prepared after a year’s study under the sponsorship by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Washington’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“The climate of suspicion and mistrust and the lack of engagement threaten to marginalize and alienate some elements among Muslim Americans to the point that the danger of radicalization becomes a real possibility,” it concluded.
Farooq Kathwari, co-chair of the task force, said in an interview that a radical response is always possible, “especially among the young. They are hot blooded and they don’t want to be alienated.”
“Fortunately in America there is more chance to be integrated,” he said, but “a pro-active engagement makes a lot of sense. We need to be extra careful that we don’t create a situation that is a self-fulfilling prophecy…”
The Kashmir-born, Brooklyn-raised Kathwari is the president and chief executive officer of furniture maker Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. Others on the task force included former congressman Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Iraq Study Group, and former labor secretary Lynn Martin.
Kathwari said the historic pattern of assimilation for immigrants that sees later generations woven into the fabric of society was disrupted for Muslim Americans by September 11.
“This process of integration has to be accelerated,” he told Reuters, to counteract both the perception that Muslims are one monolithic force and to ease fears among Muslims, some of whom have become targets of violence.
A recent Pew Research Center poll estimated there are 2.35 million Muslims living in the United States, a tiny fraction of the U.S. population of more than 300 million. Other estimates range as high as 7 million.
That same survey, based on a sample of 1,050 Muslims and released in May, drew a contrasting picture of U.S. Muslims, saying they were largely assimilated, happy with their lives and more moderate than Muslims in other countries.
But the Pew survey did find that 26 percent of younger Muslims believed suicide bombings are often, sometimes or rarely justified.
© Reuters 2007.
Assimilation, even in post-colonial times, still has a horrible history. Integration is not the same thing as assimilation.
Maybe a real issue isn’t Muslims “assimilating”, maybe there is a need to create a social environment in the US that isn’t reinforcing the alienation of “Others.” Now what about that southern bounder?
Well said !
This article is terrible! Blaming the victims of racism ignorance and intolerance for the racism, ignorance and intolerance directed at them.
In most NE cities, Jews all congregate in one or two neighborhoods and in their synagogues. What if this article said that Jews need to “assimilate” more and be less clannish.
Horribly Islamophobic study! Outrageous. I agree with the above commentators.
The muslim community is being terrorized by the war Machine more then the rest of us in the USA because there is no justice here.
Here is my letter I just sent to Sami Al Arian who is being held as a terrorist when he was found not guilty because the US had no evidence….none.
“Hi Sami,
We were both at Peace rallies in Tampa and I was that Folk singer leading “We shall free Sami” out side the Jail House …Man that was a big House.
As a fellow freedom fighter and as a Jew who has been through many tests where I survived also, I think you are aware that you really have won.
Your whole family and even all the world has shared your torture by this war criminal George Bush.
You and your great family have not only survived but you are triumphant and will be victims no longer. I think like our shared forefather Abraham, Your family will be champions and leaders for a new hope of peace and justice in the world.
I think the good folks of Egypt will see your wisdom and suffering as new opportunity for our little planet.
I hope we can keep in touch because you are really free now….We have won and our tormentor who has tormented our little planet will have to account some day.
God is Great!
Hope we can meet some day and I’ll pay for the drinks…
Jim
PS. we saw the movie US VS Sami Al Arian and it blew us away.
Best wishes, Jim Glover
*************************
IF you wish you can wirte also to
Sami Al-Arian (#19638)
Northern Neck Regional Jail
P.O. Box 1060
Warsaw, VA 22572
The Muslim community is being terrorized by the war Machine more then the rest of us in the USA because there is no justice here.
Here is my letter I just sent to Sami Al Arian who is being held as a terrorist when he was found not guilty because the US had no evidence….none.
“Hi Sami,
We were both at Peace rallies in Tampa and I was that Folk singer leading “We shall free Sami” out side the Jail House …Man that was a big House.
As a fellow freedom fighter and as a Jew who has been through many tests where I survived also, I think you are aware that you really have won.
Your whole family and even all the world has shared your torture by this war criminal George Bush.
You and your great family have not only survived but you are triumphant and will be victims no longer. I think like our shared forefather Abraham, Your family will be champions and leaders for a new hope of peace and justice in the world.
I think the good folks of Egypt will see your wisdom and suffering as new opportunity for our little planet.
I hope we can keep in touch because you are really free now….We have won and our tormentor who has tormented our little planet will have to account some day.
God is Great!
Hope we can meet some day and I’ll pay for the drinks…
Jim
PS. we saw the movie US VS Sami Al Arian and it blew us away.
Best wishes, Jim Glover
*************************
IF you wish you can write also to
Dr. Sami Al-Arian (#19638)
Northern Neck Regional Jail
P.O. Box 1060
Warsaw, VA 22572