I have long wondered why, immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, there was not a vast outpouring of American Muslims into the streets, proclaiming their outrage at the atrocity committed in their name–a “Million Muslim March,” if you will, denouncing the terrorists, declaring American Muslims’ solidarity with the American homeland and pledging to root out any jihadists who seek to spread their poison through the Muslim communities and mosques of this country.
Alas no such outpouring ever occurred, though it would have gone a long way toward reassuring nervous Americans about the good intentions of the Muslims among us.
With a tiny handful of honorable exceptions, the voice of Muslim America has been raised since Sept. 11 only to grumble about alleged mistreatment by America (for which purpose Muslims have used a great deal of space in the Tribune).
Quite recently, a Muslim writer complained in your pages that America is in the grip of “Islamophobia,” as if fear of Islam were a shameful American pathology instead of a deeply human reaction to each day’s news of a fresh slaughter somewhere in the world in the name of Allah (Voice of the people, Sept. 5). So I was briefly encouraged when I saw the headline “Moderate Muslims need to raise their voices” (Perspective, Sept. 12). Alas the author, Javeed Akhter, was just singing the same old tune. Portraying himself as a moderate, Akhter asks his brothers to speak up but not against the ever-growing toll of Islamist massacres. No, he would have them speak out against the United States for its alleged “large scale” civil rights violations, stereotyping and hate speech.
Would that he could become equally aroused about cleaning up the terrorist wing of his own religion. But for those people he finds no words of censure. Referring to them as “militants” and their deeds as “violent actions,” his only criticism (if that’s what it is) is to say that their justifications are “meaningless to me.”
Although Muslims have generally been treated very well in America since Sept. 11 and repeatedly praised for their religion of peace by the president and others, Akhter may still have a long wait before the public at large gives him its full confidence and trust. Those will not be granted until people like him are seen actively and energetically working to uproot the poison tree that grows in their own garden. Endlessly hurling exaggerated accusations at Americans is certainly not the way to win increased tolerance.
