*EPF316 05/08/2002
Younger Generation of U.S. Muslims More Inclined to Political Activism
(September 11 destroyed "myth of return" belief held by older immigrants) (1060)

By Stephen Kaufman
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - The ascendancy of a younger generation of U.S.-born Muslims provides a new social and political potential for the American Muslim community, according to speakers at an April 23 conference at Georgetown University in Washington entitled "American Muslims: Community at a Crossroads."

More acculturated to U.S. society than their parents, this rising group of Muslim Americans is much less intimidated and more familiar with mainstream American society than their parents, said Hampton University professor Mumtaz Ahmad.

Speaking out with an American accent, the younger generation is proud of their citizenship and understands the freedoms granted to them under the U.S. Constitution. They have "no inhibitions in asserting their rights as Americans," said Ahmad.

Professor Sulayman Nyang, a co-principal investigator of Project MAPS (Muslims in the American Public Square), contrasted the willingness of U.S.-born Muslims to engage with other Americans to the immigrant community, who felt more isolated from mainstream U.S. society due to the unfamiliarity of the culture and language, plus a feeling of instability after pulling up roots from their native countries.

A prevailing idea among the older generation of immigrant Muslims was, as Nyang characterized it, the "myth of return," in which the idea of someday returning to their home country kept them from engaging politically in American society. An unintended result of the September 11, he said, was the immediate destruction of this state of denial.

"Any American Muslim who is an immigrant who lives in America now, no longer entertains the myth of going back home. Because if you go back home, you carry an American passport, so you are in the same boat as all the other Americans," said Nyang.

Sherman Jackson of the University of Michigan stated that all American Muslims, whether African-American or tied to the immigrant community identify with the United States as home. The identification is so secure with some that they did not feel pressured by the September 11 attacks to express their patriotism any more overtly than their non-Muslim neighbors.

"There is no notion of being alien or somehow an implant in America, and that's really the basis of their identification with America, and that is why they don't feel any sort of obligation to all of a sudden stand up and prove that they belong here. Where else do they belong?" asked Jackson.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University pointed out the importance of American Muslims to their co-religionists worldwide, and to the efforts of the United States government to bridge the political and cultural differences between U.S. society and the Islamic world.

A paradox of the American Muslim community, said Nasr, is that despite its population being only a small fraction of the one billion Muslims worldwide, it plays the most significant role in contemporary geopolitics.

U.S. economic, military and political power "influences the life of almost every Muslim person on earth," said Nasr. "Every decision that is made in this city [Washington] affects the lives of millions of Muslims throughout the world, and we all know that fully well."

This realization presents a "unique opportunity and tremendous responsibility on the shoulders of American Muslim community," he said, arguing for greater political involvement to bring issues of concern to the Islamic world to the attention of U.S. government officials.

Nasr said the community's responsibility also extends in the opposite direction, and that American Muslims can be an important line of contact between their country and their co-religionists.

"Never has there been a situation in which the United States of America wants to be friends with a vast world of over a billion people at the same time it is threatened by extremist forces from within that world, and it has within its own borders a large minority competent in every way to act as a bridge between America and the rest of the Islamic world," he said.

The conference at Georgetown University marked the culmination of a two-year research study by Project MAPS to survey Muslim political views, voting habits, social attitudes and religious practices in the United States.

The research by Project MAPS revealed that no other country in the world has as diverse a community of Muslims as the United States.

The collected data covers Muslims with ethnic ties to communities from the all over the world plus the indigenous African-American Muslim community, with a combined total of over six million practicing and non-practicing Muslims living throughout the United States.

"Now we can talk more intelligently about who the Muslims are, where they are, etcetera, and our way of talking about Islam is more sophisticated," said Georgetown University professor John Esposito.

The data fills a gap in knowledge of the American Muslim presence and experience, according to Professor Nyang.

For sociological and ethnic studies, "you will now see the Muslims taking a place intellectually in the libraries of America," said Nyang.

"Project MAPS makes it very clear to Muslims that they should be known, because when people as a minority are invisible, the only way they can really fight back against bigotry is for them to be visible, and intellectual visibility is the highest form of being recognized," he said.

Luis Lugo of the Pew Charitable Trust, which provides the funding for Project MAPS, likewise said it was essential to have reputable research done on American Muslims to help the wider society reject negative stereotypes and become more inclusive.

"It's tough for a society to adjust to change and to become more inclusive in the way it understands itself as a body politic, but at the end, if you look at our history, to the extent we have lived up to those highest principles of religious liberty ... we have become a stronger democracy," said Lugo.

As part of the research, a poll was conducted in December 2001 by Zogby International, which revealed five characteristics of Muslims in the United States. Zahid Bukhari, the director of Project MAPS, said the data revealed that the community is diverse, affluent, activist, religiously observant, and politically savvy.

Details of the poll and other research by Project MAPS can be found at the organization's website (www.projectmaps.com).

(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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