“Oh God, please let it not be a Muslim.”
That is a prayer which is fairly common amongst Muslims in America every time yet another terror attack happens in the United States. With every such attack, as was seen earlier this month in Chattanooga, a little more of the image of Islam and Muslims goes under in the perception of American society.
Pundits and apologists can wax lyrical over “root causes” week after week after every such incident with profound -- and often unoriginal -- comments on how such is not the real Islam or how Muslims are unfairly targeted with a broader brush than others, or even how somehow such events are blowback for Middle Eastern tensions.
That kind of apologia is tiring, and has done less than nothing to change public perceptions for the better; if anything, it comes across as the typical set of canned excuses that fail the proverbial smell test. I have witnessed that sea change of American perception myself over the last quarter of a century, a change that has only accelerated, understandably so, in the aftermath of the 9/11 massacre.
If indeed one must harken back to discussing ephemeral root causes for such acts of terror, integrity would demand that the very concept of assimilation be scrutinised. While most Muslims coming to these shores assimilate seamlessly into greater American society over a period of decades or a couple of generations, too many don’t, as has been abundantly clear from the revealed profiles of multiple recent terror peddlers whose angst against their new homeland seemed partially based on its incompatibility with their religious mores.
Discussions on online forums, social media, and Friday sermons at too many mosques across America, taken together, form all too obvious evidence of the lack of such blending into mainstream society.
A fundamental sticking point in this process of assimilation is the incredible gulf between certain core civic values of American society and certain very deeply held Muslim beliefs about Islamic traditions. Two such core American values stand out starkly.
While, by and large Americans are an incredibly hospitable, tolerant, and diverse people who abhor causing offense to the beliefs of others, the constitution of the country puts a premium value on the almost unfettered right to the freedom of speech and publication, including the burning of books, making offensive cartoons, and insulting personalities that others may revere.
Thus, the idea that any government entity can censor, punish, or prevent Americans from using supposedly offensive expression is utterly at odds with a core civic value here and, therefore, incompatible for those Muslims who find it equally offensive that certain books be banned, certain insults to religious personalities severely punished, or some social media videos taken down by some government entity.
The other glaring incompatibility concerns gender equity. While the glass ceiling still exists in some parts of corporate America, a government entity cannot differentiate in law between a man and a woman; hence polygyny or gender-based statutory provisions for divorce and child custody are considered simply repugnant here. Far more important is that, increasingly, American society finds it utterly reprehensible that men should dictate what women should wear outside their homes or who they should marry or where they should work.
Again, this kind of a bedrock American civic value clashes fundamentally with many mainstream Muslim traditions that condone polygyny and a secondary status for women, notwithstanding the usual “but … but ... Islam gave rights to women a long time before ...” defensiveness to the contrary.
In fact, at its basic level, the “gave rights to” refrain is quite un-American because the American intellectual tradition, going back to the Founding Fathers, has held that individuals are born with certain “unalienable rights” that are not “given” by anyone.
Taken to its logical conclusion, as the United States Supreme Court did this summer, such notions of equity mean that same-sex marriage -- an anathema to Muslim beliefs -- is legal all over America now and supported by a vast majority of Americans.
For Muslims who would be temporary migrants or permanent immigrants to the US (and indeed to the rest of the liberal democratic world), some very tough questions need to be discussed thoroughly: Are they willing to abide by and accept wholeheartedly the laws, values, and civic obligations in their new homeland, even if these expectations run radically opposite to their religious belief systems?
If not, is the lure of opportunity worth the inevitable tension and stress that these incongruities will create for them and their families? Would new hubs of advancement like Malaysia or Dubai be better suited for them in providing a better blend of opportunity and religiosity?
The issue herein is not one of what value system is better … that is best left up to historical metrics of success. Rather, it is a practical matter of making informed decisions that are good in the long run for the individuals concerned and their families.
Isn’t it better to ask and answer these questions before taking a long leap across the oceans?