Failure to understand Arab-Muslim issues exposes nation to attacks
By Ray Hanania
Ever since September 11, the issue of Mosques, Arabs
and Muslims has become an important topic not only of public discussion
but also of media scrutiny.
Most
Americans still seem to believe that it’s the Arab and Muslim community
that is not doing enough in the wake of Sept. 11, but the reality is the
other way around.
Americans haven’t done enough to understand the issue
in real terms, rather than relying on stereotypes and misinformation
promoted by an even less educated American media.
Americans are vulnerable to attack because of this
failure to properly understand the issues and distinguish between the
real sources of terrorism and a complex and little understood topics
involving Arabs and Muslims.
Here are some basic facts that might help:
Arabs and Muslims are not the same. There are about 7
million Muslims in America, but only 22 percent of them are Arab. There
are about 3 million Arabs in America and the majority, more than half,
are Christian, not Muslim.
The term Arab refers to a broad cultural and national
identity and disguises the extensive diversity that exists beneath that
public layer. Too often, the terms Arab and Muslim are used
interchangeably and that is wrong.
As a result, many well-intentioned American leaders
and media reach out to "Muslim" leaders to conduct dialogues and
discussions and end up able to use the term "Muslim" without achieving
any meaningful dialogue with the Arab community that is the source of
must disagreement.
There are as many Christian Arab churches as there are
Mosques in the United States. And Mosques come in three varieties:
Mosques that are mixed Arab and non-Arab; mosques that are predominantly
non-Arab and mosques that are predominantly Arab.
By Arab, I refer to the make-up of the governing
boards which determines the events at the mosque, and also members who
have other associations that oftentimes link to controversial
organizations including several identified as extremist or supportive of
alleged terrorist activity by the U.S. Government.
Failing to understand these important distinctions
results in poor intelligence and misleading stereotypes. And that means
poor security and a greater likelihood of terrorism exposure for
Americans.
It also exposes the moderate Arab and Muslim American
community to extremists who can easily hijack the community’s voices
because Americans can’t seem to tell the difference between Pakistanis
or Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims.
If the media can’t distinguish between moderate Arabs
and extremist Arabs (based on political views and support of terrorism),
how can Americans and defense agencies distinguish between thew two?
Failing to be able to distinguish puts a great burden
on moderates who are often victimized by the extremists in the
community. Moderates are isolated, marginalized and even physically
attacked and threatened. The extremists can get away with this because
it occurs below the threshold of American understanding.
Making things worse is the blatant bigotry that exists
among many television and radio talk show hosts who broadly pillory
Arabs and Muslims and fail to understand the distinctions between
moderates and extremists.
What Americans have done through their lack of
understanding of the Arab and Muslim community is to make it easier for
extremists to blend in and to ostracize moderate voices.
But so easily attacking moderate voices, the Arab and
Muslim extremists send clear signals to the majority of the community
who are moderate but who don’t speak out because they fear the same fate
of higher profile moderates.
Until this changes, this country is a definite target
for another major terrorist attack. And the widespread roundup of
suspects, good and bad, along with the failure of the media to
accurately cover the community only makes that likelihood a certainty.
(Ray Hanania is a Chicago-based Palestinian American
syndicated columnist and author of "Arabs of Chicagoland" to be
published in June by Arcadia Press and is managing editor of
TheArabStreet.com. His columns appear twice each month in the Arlington
Heights Daily Herald and he also writes a Chicago political and humor
column for the Southwest News-Herald. He can be reached at
www.hanania.com)