 America & Islam
By Rami Khouri,
Arab Media Watch adviser,
director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of
Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star,
and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
3 March 2010
Americans tend to
obsess about certain issues, when
the national imagination is either sparked or confounded, and in recent
years that issue seems to be Islam and Muslims. The strengths and
weaknesses of this American focus on Islam was captured in several
events in the past few weeks, including: President Barack Obama
appointed a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference;
the Chicago Council on Global Affairs issued the results of a
two-year-long study on the role of religion in American foreign policy;
and the latest poll on religious perceptions in America by the respected
Gallup Poll/Muslim West Facts Project was released.
The best and
worst in American attitudes towards things religious and international
were clearly visible. The negatives on display include: how serious the
engrained negative perceptions and ignorance of Islam and Muslims are
among the American population; how simplistic and blind the government
can be when addressing the interplay between religion and foreign
policy; and, how persistently resistant the American political and
cultural elite are to acknowledging that US foreign policy - and
actions by its ally Israel and friendly Arab and Asian autocrats -
play a major role in triggering defiant and often violent responses from
Arabs and Asians, who often have no means other than religion to
express themselves.
The positives are that all quarters of
American society continue to study and explore the tensions between many
Americans and Muslim-majority countries; and, the government continues
to make sincere efforts that it believes will make a difference in
improving relations with ordinary Muslims and Arabs, regardless of
whether this objective is actually achieved or not.
The extent of
the stressed relations was captured by the Gallup report entitled "Religious Perceptions in America - with an in-depth analysis of US
attitudes towards Muslims and Islam," based on a nationwide poll. It
revealed that a slight majority of Americans say their view of Islam is "not too favorable" or "not favorable at all" (much more negative than
Americans' views of Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity, with respondents
more than twice as likely to express negative views of Islam than of
the other three faiths). A large majority of Americans (63 percent) say
they have very little or no knowledge at all of Islam. A higher
percentage is ignorant of Buddhism - but the negative feelings towards
Muslims are not matched by similar perceptions of Buddhists.
Most
intriguing to me was the study's revelation that Americans view Islam
more negatively than they view Muslims - because this almost exactly
mirrors the situation in the Arab world where many people are critical
of the United States and its foreign policy, but interact happily with
individual Americans.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs study
argued that religion's "opportunities and challenges" should be
factored into US foreign policy-making, and that President Obama's
speech to the Islamic world in Cairo last June needs to be followed up
with practical steps that acknowledge the major role that religion plays
in societies throughout the world. The study usefully points out "six
principal patterns that reflect religion's increasing importance in
international affairs," including the impact on politics, resistance of
globalization, and filling gaps in government services or legitimacy.
Yet
the study is significantly weakened by one glaring omission: It does
not sufficiently or clearly acknowledge that people in the developing
world often turn to, and politicize or even militarize, their religions
as a desperate last resort for change that they cannot achieve through
secular institutions of governance. It does not trace how and why
religion has emerged as a major force in recent decades (as it also has
in the United States).
The Chicago report is an important sign of
how sensible Americans continue to seek a more complete understanding
of the world they live in, and try to forge better policies to navigate
that world. But the process reflects the weaknesses in American
government policies as a whole, in that it exaggerates the role of
religion as a distinct independent actor or force, and does not factor
into the resurgence of religiosity the stimulus provided by American
policies in the Arab-Asian region (and Israeli policies in the Middle
East).
So it is similarly heart-warming to see President Obama
name the young Rashad Hussain as US special envoy to the Islamic states,
because this confirms the president cares about improving that
relationship. The prospects of real change through such moves, however,
are zero, if US policy in the Arab-Asian region remains the same.
Religion
matters and is worth studying, but far more important for promoting
normal and friendly ties between Americans and the citizens of
Muslim-majority countries would be an assessment of the nature and
impact of US and Israeli policies in those areas, as well as the
policies of autocratic Arab-Asian regimes. Policy, not faith, is the
issue and the problem.
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