Progressive Democrat Issue 123: MUSLIM AMERICANS: Getting Some Perspective

Right wing Republicans have nothing to offer us but fear and corruption. I will deal with the corruption issue a bit below. But for now, let's look at how the right wing turns what is really an encouraging poll into something from a horror movie.

Pew released a poll recently that, depending on your perspective, indicates that American Muslims are either hard-working, well-integrated believers in the American Dream or are rabid terrorists that threaten our way of life. Same poll...different spin. The way the right wing wants to spin it is that there is a terror threat from within and we all have to eye our Muslim neighbors with extreme fear.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has an excellent analysis of how this Pew poll has driven right wing American nuts into a frenzied hysteria about the Islamic threat from within. Seen through the eyes of those who already feel that Islam is evil, the Pew poll "confirms" their prejudices. Focusing on things like 26% of American Muslims under 30 believe suicide bombings are sometimes justified, the right wing fools on some sites cry out "Holy Shit" and are trying to portray American Muslims as deserving of the prejudice and illegal detentions that some are subject to. Right wing America is SCARED SHITLESS of the Muslims among us.

Today I saw a copy of the New York Daily News (a paper one cut above the really abyssmal New York Post) with a headline screaming how American Muslims want to bomb America...the same hysteria over this poll.

But the odd thing is, taken from a different perspective, American Muslims appear far more comfortably integrated into American society than Muslims are in any European nation. Looking at the Pew poll of American Muslims from a British perspective, the headline reads: "Muslims 'well integrated' in US." Here are some excerpts from the poll that right wingers in America call "hair-raising" and use to justify their own bigotry: (quotes from the BBC article)

The study by the Pew Research Center says US Muslims - most of whom are immigrants - believe in the American work ethic and reject extremism.

Their income and education levels mirror those of the general US public, according to the survey.

However, most respondents say life has become more difficult for US Muslims since the 11 September attacks...

So while American right wingers scream about American Muslims being extremists, Brits look at the same poll and admire how well American Muslims are INTEGRATED into American society...other than those right wingers bothering them and threatening them with Guantanamo Bay all the time.

Moreover, 71% of Muslim Americans agreed that people could get ahead in the US by working hard - the figure for the general public was 64%.

So, American Muslims believe EVEN MORE in the American Dream than the general public.

"The life situations and attitudes of Muslim Americans stand in contrast with those of Muslim minorities of Western Europe."

Pew Global Attitudes surveys last year in the UK, France, Germany and Spain found that most Muslims there suffered unemployment and felt marginalised.

Living in NYC I, of course, am surrounded by people of pretty much all ethnicities and creeds. I rub shoulders with Orthodox Jews and Muslims daily. We are all pretty much New Yorkers and get along about as well as you can when packed so tightly in a big city. So to us New Yorkers none of this is too surprising. But if you are a right wing idiot, fear is your life-blood. How else can you justify torture and illegal detention if you don't play on extreme fear?

America should be proud that DESPITE the paranoia and right wing rhetoric since 9/11, American Muslims still feel integrated and largely accepted in American society...far more than Muslims in Europe do. So let's hope that the hysterical and irrational paranoia of right wing "pundits" doesn't cloud the overall positive Pew poll that shows our Muslim neighbors as being pretty much like us...except maybe a bit harder working.


Click here to go back to THOUGHTS section and Table of Contents for this issue.