*EPF304 05/01/2002
American Muslims at a Crossroads After September 11
(Conference in Washington urges political participation) (1050)

By Stephen Kaufman
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- American Muslims face a critical challenge of how to respond to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, according to participants in a conference of American Muslims held at Georgetown University in Washington April 23.

"This is the Muslim moment in America. And the real question for Muslims is: how are they going to use their fifteen minutes?" asked Agha Saeed of the University of California at Berkeley. The expression, "fifteen minutes," refers to the brief time in people's lives when they have publicity or recognition.

Saeed described actions by the Bush Administration such as quickly speaking out against anti-Muslim bigotry and the prominent inclusion of Muslim clergy at a national prayer service after September 11 as "a moment of dignity in the face of adversity."

But at the same time, he said that the activities of federal law enforcement authorities against Muslims and Muslim organizations -- the seizing of assets, questioning and detention of Muslim men and the employment of secret evidence against them -- fueled fears that American Muslim civil rights were in jeopardy.

The day-long conference, attended by approximately 150 Muslim and non-Muslim members of the academic, political and local community, was aptly entitled "American Muslims: Community at a Crossroads."

The conference was originally scheduled to mark the culmination of two years of statistical academic research on the Muslim community in the United States by Project MAPS (Muslims in the American Public Square). Most of the speakers directed their comments to the critical situation faced by the American Muslim community in the wake of the attacks in Washington and New York.

The post-September 11 American Muslim community is indeed at a "critical point," said John Esposito of Georgetown University, and needs to mobilize itself more dramatically if it wishes to play a greater role in U.S. society and counter anti-Muslim attitudes.

"No longer are we living in the world in which we all lived in before, a world in which we had goals, we could talk about achieving them, but there really wasn't a super rush, there wasn't a real urgency. Some people may have felt that urgency but not like the urgency that we have today," he said.

He also called upon the American Muslim community to have the confidence to be self-critical, pointing out that a significant number of Muslims he communicated with on the Internet still deny that Arabs or Muslims were involved in the attacks.

"One has to move beyond that kind of denial. One has to move beyond simply saying 'Well it's all American foreign policy.' ... I continue to be critical of American foreign policy, but we also have to talk about what's going on in the Muslim World. What are the regimes like? How are they contributing? What kind of Islam is being exported to America and Europe? And, if that's happening, how much is the community responding to that, reacting to it," asked Esposito.

From his experience as a Muslim student leader at Washington's Howard University, Altaf Husain said that the main reaction of the school's Muslim students to September 11 was "sincere sorrow" over what had happened and a heightened sense of U.S. patriotism, coupled with a renewed religious identity.

"We said that America had been attacked and that we as Americans felt the pain of our country being attacked," said Husain.

Sulayman Nyang of Project MAPS commented "those who wanted to perpetrate violence against the United States wanted not only to inflict collective pain on American society, but they also wanted to drive a wedge between the American Muslims and the rest of society." The latter objective failed, he said.

Yet, the general consensus of the conference speakers was that the community still feels estranged from the American political system. The remedy, argued Esposito, was mobilization and funding on massive levels.

In order for Muslims to counter such affronts as FBI raids on mosques and charity organizations, they need to mobilize politically. "Why aren't there a million Muslims marching on Washington," he asked.

"If Muslims are concerned about their civil liberties in a serious way, and if more broadly, Arabs and Muslims ... really want attention, those of us who have lived in America long enough know, it's big numbers," said Esposito.

Hampton University professor Mumtaz Ahmad made reference to protest rallies and marches held in Washington April 20 which mobilized at least 70,000 Muslims and non-Muslims on behalf of the Palestinian cause, saying that a younger generation of Muslims was "discovering the relationship between foreign policy and domestic politics."

The active participation of American Muslims in their country's political system could yield tremendous benefits for the society as a whole, argued Louay Safi of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.

The post-September 11 climate has prompted some Americans to advocate the creation of a more secure 'Leviathan' state, to use Thomas Hobbes' image, even at the risk of giving up long-held freedoms associated with American democracy, commented Safi. Muslims, he said, can help liberate American civil society by participating in it, since many policies now endangering American democracy are perceived to be targeted against their community.

Another troubling political trend, Safi said, was the "decoupling of morality from political practices." Many of the moral values in American secularism actually come from religion, he argued, and Muslims as a religious community can resist the tactics of those who evaluate domestic and foreign policies based solely on their effectiveness, results, and a "Machiavellian analysis of action," he said.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University urged Muslim political activists to expand their areas of concern beyond civil rights and disagreements with U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and South Asia.

Islam, he said, is focused upon creating a just society. Therefore, Muslims should speak out against social injustice in general, such as war and consumerism, and embrace environmental and social welfare issues, he said.

"If we do not speak up to what is the Islamic idea of a moral life and we are cowed into always being on the defensive just to prove that we are merely human, it's no use talking in the name of Islam," said Nasr.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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