Muslim Americans: Debating the Notions of American and Un-American 113869925X, 9781138699250

Citation preview

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‘A welcome addition to the growing corpus of original studies on American Muslims. Provides a wealth of new insights on the diverse Muslim identities being constructed by Muslim citizens in diaspora relishing the promise of religious freedom and experiencing the onslaught of intensifying Islamophobia in the United States.’ Yvonne Haddad, Professor of the History of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Georgetown University, USA

‘Nahid Kabir provides a well-documented portrait of the attitudes of young Muslim Americans. Her focus on how they define and comprehend the concepts of “American” and “un-American” adds a significant dimension to understanding their self-identification and their integration within American society. Kabir’s analysis is presented within a clearly defined methodology and conceptual framework. This book should be of great help to anyone interested in the broader issues of diverse groups within multicultural American society.’ John Voll, Professor Emeritus of Islamic History, Georgetown University, USA

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Muslim Americans

With Islamophobia on the rise in the US since 9/11, Muslims remain the most misunderstood people in American society. Taking as its point of departure the question of the compatibility of Islam and democracy, this book examines Muslims’ sense of belonging in American society. Based on extensive interview data across seven states in the US, the author explores the question of what it means to be American or un-American amongst Muslims, offering insights into common views of community, culture, and wider society. Through a combination of interviewees’ responses and discourse analysis of print media, Muslim Americans also raises the question of whether media coverage of the issue might itself be considered ‘un-American’. An empirically grounded study of race and faith-based relations, this book undertakes a rigorous questioning of what it means to be American in the contemporary US. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and political science with interests in race, ethnicity, religion, and national identity.

Nahid Afrose Kabir is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Education, University of South Australia, Australia. She is also a Visiting Researcher at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, USA. Nahid A. Kabir was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, USA in 2009–2011. She is the author of Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History; Young British Muslims: Identity, Culture, Politics and the Media; and Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity.

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Muslim Americans

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Debating the notions of American and un-American Nahid Afrose Kabir

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Nahid Afrose Kabir

The right of Nahid Afrose Kabir to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Kabir, Nahid Afrose, author. Title: Muslim Americans : debating the notions of American and unAmerican / Nahid Afrose Kabir. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | “Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada”--Title page verso. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016010637| ISBN 9781138699250 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315517254 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Muslims--United States--Social conditions. | Muslims-United States--Ethnic identity. | Muslims--Cultural assimilation--United States. | National characteristics, American--Social aspects. | Muslims--United States--Interviews. | United States--Ethnic relations. | Ethnicity--Social aspects--United States. | Ethnicity--Political aspects--United States. | Islam--Social aspects--United States. | Islam and politics--United States. Classification: LCC E184.M88 K325 2017 | DDC 305.6/970973--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016010637

ISBN: 978-1-138-69925-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-51725-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Fish Books Ltd.

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In Memory of Boro Bhaiya Ayman Saiful Matin 1953–1986

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Contents

1

2

3

4

5 6

List of tables List of figures List of abbreviations Acknowledgements

Introduction: The ‘Muslim question’ continues

What does it means to be an American or un-American? Culture matters

Is the media ‘un-American’? Modern-day McCarthyism

Conclusion: Comprehending the present and looking into the future

Glossary Select bibliography Index Plates

x xi xii xiii

1

14

66

119

155 204

217 219 225

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Tables

1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2

2009–2011: Total number of participants in six states, 379 participants 2014: Total number of participants in two states: 21 participants An understanding of the word ‘American’, 379 participants An understanding of the word ‘un-American’, 379 participants

9

10 17 18

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Figures

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 5:4 5.5 5.6 5.7

Illegals Anti-immigrant Law Racial Profiling European Islamophobia A Bangladeshi family in New York during Eid celebration, 2015 Henna on a woman’s hand before Eid celebration Homegrown Terror Drone City The Islamic Threat? Congressional Islamophobia Terry Jones Followers Islamophobia for Office Who do we obliterate? NYPD Terror A Palestinian’s dream of a homeland Guantanamo Bay and Liberty

21 43 44 46 70 71 125 133 144 160 170 171 176 179 190 192

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Abbreviations

ACLU CAIR CAP CDA CIA D DFW DAESH FBI FISA GITMO GOP ICNA ISBCC ISBR ISIL ISIS LET MARC MTA NBC NASA NSA NYPD NYCLU PBUH SFBA SUV R TTP UK US USA USCMO USF

American Civil Liberties Union Council of American-Islamic Relations Center for American Progress Critical Discourse Analysis Central Intelligence Agency Democrat Dallas-Fort Worth Al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham (ISIL) Federal Bureau of Investigation Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Guantanamo Bay Grand Old Party The Islamic Circle of North America Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center Islamic Society of Basking Ridge Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams Lashkar-e-Taiba Multi Agency Resource Center Metropolitan Transport Authority National Broadcasting Company The National Aeronautics and Space Administration New York Security Agency New York Police Department New York Civil Liberties Union Peace Be Upon Him San Francisco Bay Area Sport Utility Vehicle Republican Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan United Kingdom United States United States of America US Council of Muslim Organizations University of South Florida

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Acknowledgements

I express my sincere gratitude to Professor Jocelyne Cesari, Director of the Islam and the West Program at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, USA for inviting me to conduct this research. This research has led to the publication of two books focusing on young American Muslims with different themes. In the USA, for the information contained in this book I am extremely grateful to the participants in seven states – Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia – who most generously agreed to be interviewed. I express my thanks to all people who supported my research including Imam Shamsi Ali, Imam Achmat Salie, Dr Mohammad Ali Chaudry, Dawood Waleed, Muhammed Malik, Harun al Rasheed, Ahmed Hamid, Sadyia Khalique, Barbara Puleo, Daisy Khan, Khadija Enayet, Humayun and Rehana Khan. My brother Maimun Faizul Matin and his wife Moriem Matin, also deserve a special mention here. Since my first trip to the USA in 1981, our cordial friends Dwight and Wilma Schwartz, Daniel and Joan Davis, and Sheila Vance have made us feel very welcome in America. In recent years, our friends Michael Burcik and his wife Shannon and their family deserve a special mention here. They took us to their hearts, which moved us deeply. The contribution of political cartoons from the cartoonists Alan Moir in Australia and Khalil Bendib in America is very much appreciated. Their sketches have added tremendously to my arguments. My sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers of my book manuscript for considering the merit of this book. I express my thanks to the publishing team at Routledge, who worked hard on producing and marketing this book. Thank you Dr Neil Jordan for assisting me in the publication process. My American friend Gina Soos living in Australia always told me that my research on young American Muslims was important. I am grateful to Kate Leeson for copyediting the manuscript. A special thanks to Emeritus Professor Bruce Johnson, Professor Lelia Green and Associate Professor Panizza Allmark for their continuous support. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to my family members, my husband Dr Mohammad Ismat Kabir and our three sons Sakhawat, Naoshad, and Mahtab,

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xiv

Acknowledgements

and daughter-in-law Serena for their sincere support and encouragement on this journey. Thank you, Sakhawat, for contributing an image of your painting to this book. Thank you, Naoshad and Mahtab, for accompanying me during my field research in the US. Naoshad, the long trip from Boston to Florida in a Greyhound bus in 2010 would not have been enjoyable without you. Thanks Mahtab for accompanying me during my field research in New York and New Jersey in 2014. In Bangladesh, special thanks to my brother Erphan Shehabul Matin and his wife Nahid Sultana Matin, my brother-in-law Ulfat Kabir and his wife Roxana Kabir for always wishing me well in my educational endeavours. Finally, as always, my mother Dil Afrose Matin has been my inspiration.

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1

Introduction

The ‘Muslim question’ continues

When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad, or fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid is called names, that doesn’t make us safer … it’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country. President Obama’s 2016 State of the Union Address, 12 January 20161

In his effort to free Americans from British colonisation, Thomas Jefferson pointed out the difference between an American citizen and a British subject. The difference therefore marked who was American and who was un-American. Since then within the United States the term ‘un-American’ has become increasingly popular. During the McCarthy era in the Cold War there was a hunt for those who were ‘un-American’. During the Bush administration’s ‘War on Terror’, ‘unAmerican’ became a marker for Americans who opposed US foreign policy. In December 2015 the Republican presidential leading contender Donald Trump called for a temporary block for all Muslims from entering the United States. The debate again resumed about whether Trump’s comments should be considered ‘unAmerican’. President Obama in his State of the Union Address on 12 January 2016, asked Americans for moderation and religious inclusion thus opposing Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric. Though the term, ‘Un-American’ has political connotations, in this study I engaged with the term in dialogue with young American Muslims, which set its interpretation upon historical, cultural, sociological and political foundations. Political analysts and human rights activists in America have observed that Islamophobia (fear of the Muslim Other) has been on the rise since 9/11. The US military engagement in the Middle East, the negative portrayal of Muslims in the media and the funding of anti-Islamic think tanks has increased hate crime against some Muslims in the US as well as a general lack of understanding of the religion.2 Incidents involving Muslims have dominated recent news headlines. These include international incidents such as followers of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) beheading captives in 2014; the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and the coordinated ISIL attacks in France in 2015; and the lone wolf attacks in Canada, Australia and California, USA.

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2

Introduction

With every terrorist attack, or news of war and destruction, the ‘Muslim question’ appears time and again in Western societies such as America, Britain and Australia. It raises questions such as, who are these people (Muslims), what do they want, why don’t they integrate, what the Quran teaches, and will they blow us up? In the United States the ‘Muslim question’ has frequently surfaced in the public domain, prompted by a number of different issues. For example, some people who are visibly Muslim have been verbally, and in some cases physically, assaulted. Sometimes Sikhs have been mistaken for Muslims due to their beards and turbans and they have also been assaulted. The construction of some Muslim places of worship such as the Ground Zero Mosque has met with resistance. Rumours have circulated about politicians with Muslim-sounding names. For example, President Barack Hussein Obama’s middle name ‘Hussein’ created doubt in some Americans’ minds about whether he was a Muslim disguised as a Christian.3 The ‘Muslim question’ has generated debate in academia where some academics have questioned the compatibility of Islam, Muslims and democracy. Stuart Hall argues that when he uses the term ‘the West and the rest’, by the term ‘the West’ he means an historical, not a geographic, construct.4 Though Hall does not specifically mention the placement of Muslims in his classification of the ‘West and the rest’, he critically points to the entity of the West as a unified one in spite of the cultural differences among the Western nations. ‘The West’ is presented as enlightened, modern, developed, moral and desirable, while the ‘non-West’ is construed as underdeveloped, flawed and undesirable. In contemporary times, the dichotomy between the ‘West and the rest’, or between the enlightened West and the Oriental Other, has focused strongly on Muslims and Islam existing in close proximity and interacting increasingly closely with the West. This has thrown the differences into even sharper relief. Academics such as Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis have promoted pessimistic views on Islam and Muslims.5 For example, Bernard Lewis observed that when the European cities were going through the dark ages, the best scientific and philosophical works were produced by Muslim thinkers; for example, algebra was given to the world by the Muslims. But now he believes that Muslims have lost their past glory since Islam never made the separation between church and state. He claimed that Islamists envy the West and are enraged by modernity and its creation of a civil society governed by secular laws. That is why, he said, Islamists attempt to retaliate against the West through terrorism.6 Lewis also observed that Muslim individuals or nations are ready to accept communism rather than the democratic alternative of the West. Lewis stated, ‘the Ulama of Islam are very different from the Communist Party. Nevertheless, on closer examination, we find certain uncomfortable resemblances.’7 He observed that both groups profess a totalitarian doctrine and profess that they are always right ‘as against an outer world of unbelievers, who are always wrong’.8 And both groups aim for a ‘historically inevitable victory of the true faith over the infidel evil-doers’.9 Lewis observed that the Islamic world view divides the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, ‘two necessarily opposed groups, of

Introduction 3

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which the first has the collective obligation of perpetual struggle against the second, [which] also has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs’.10 Lewis further observed, ‘The content of [their] belief is utterly different but the aggressive fanaticism of the believers is the same’.11 Lewis (and Churchill), however, separated Turkey from his generalisations about the Muslim world. He considered Turkish democracy to be compatible with ‘Western-style parliamentary democracy’.12 Later, speaking of Islamists such as Al-Qaeda, Lewis noted: The basic reason is that America is now perceived as the leader of what is variously designated as the West, Christendom, or more generally the ‘Lands of the Unbelievers’ … Today as in the past, this world of Christian unbelievers is seen as the only serious force rivalling and obstructing the divinely ordained spread of Islam, resisting and delaying but not preventing its final, inevitable, universal triumph.13

Like Lewis, Huntington upheld Western superiority over other civilisations when he said, ‘Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free market, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox cultures’.14 Huntington observed that the ‘universal civilisation’ is a Western concept, and ideas concerning democracy, human rights and modern democratic government originated in the West. He noted that ‘When it developed in non-Western societies it has usually been the product of Western colonialism or imposition’.15 In other words, non-Western people have been the ‘white man’s burden’. Huntington refers to the conflict between Islam and the West as the ‘clash of civilisations’ over power and believes it is deep rooted and deadly. Huntington does not see that the West’s (and many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq) conflict is only with militant Islam. He fears that the ‘Islamic resurgence’ that is taking place in the Muslim world will eventually topple the nonMuslim world, envisaging that in the twenty-first century a large number of young Muslims will become more committed to Islam, leading to ‘militancy, militarism and migration’, and thereby a ‘clash’ with the West.16 Both Lewis and Huntington’s arguments that divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’, the ‘West and the rest’ are deeply flawed. Lewis has combined the ideologies of Islam and communism as one in contrast to the democratic values of the West. During the Cold War period, America became an ally of Pakistan. And during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, the United States supported the predominantly Muslim West Pakistan (now known as Pakistan) against the predominantly Muslim East Pakistan (later became Bangladesh).17 The United States has been an ally of socalled autocratic states such as Saudi Arabia for a long time. During the 1990–1991 Gulf War, many Muslim countries joined the United States against Saddam Hussain of Iraq. Similarly, in the ongoing war on terror, many Muslim countries have joined the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ (the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia). Similarly, Huntington’s thesis of the clash of civilisations has been criticised by

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4

Introduction

some scholars. For example, Ajami observed that Huntington’s dismissal of India’s secularism was unfounded. India’s secular spirit has been in existence for more than 5,000 years and India has had both Hindu and Muslim rulers. Similarly, Huntington’s observations on the ‘young urban poor, half-educated in the cities of the Arab world’ do not justify labelling the Islamic world. Ajami dismissed Huntington’s views that ‘The next world war, if there is one, will be a war between civilizations’.18 Parekh, a critic of Huntington’s thesis of the incompatibility of Islam and democracy, stated that Huntington’s thesis assumes that Western civilisation is largely a product of Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman traditions, and it ignores the profound historical influence of Arab, Islamic, Chinese, Indian and other cultures on Western civilisation.19 On the compatibility of Islam and democracy, Khan noted that about 750 million Muslims live in democratic societies including Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Europe, North America, and Israel. One exception has been Iran since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the other is the Taliban in Afghanistan. Since the advent of Islam, for the preceding 1,500 years, secular political elites have controlled political power.20 Khan stated that Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) set a precedent that demonstrates Islamic practices are compatible with an Islamic state, for example, the compact of Medina, referred to as Dustur al-Madina (the Constitution of Medina). After Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) migrated from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 CE, he established the first Islamic state. For ten years he was the political head of Medina. During his rule a tripartite compact was signed by the Muslim immigrants from Mecca, the indigenous Muslims of Medina, and the Jews of Medina. The constitution of Medina provided consent and cooperation for governance. According to this compact, Muslims and non-Muslims were equal citizens of the Islamic state with same rights and duties. Different religions enjoyed autonomy.21 Khan noted: The constitution of Medina established a pluralistic state – community of communities. The principles of equality, consensual governance, and pluralism were central to the compact of Medina … it is amazing to see how Muhammad’s interpretation of the Quran was so democratic, tolerant, and compassionate, while some contemporary interpretations, like that of the Taliban, are so harsh, authoritarian and intolerant.22

Edward Said’s views on Orientalism are well known. Said believes the West has developed the Orientalist discourse in order to position itself as civilised and superior and with this to justify its colonisation of the Orient (‘the rest’).23 In other words, Orientalist discourse which is used to define the Other is an ideological exercise of power. Thus classifying Muslims and Islam as ‘Oriental’, in Said’s mind, amounts to an exercise of power by which the subjugation of the defective Other is rationalised. Demeaning Oriental Otherness is an integral part of the ‘us and them’ style of debate and represents a kind of intellectual assault. In Covering Islam, Said observes that there have been many troubling incidents involving the Muslim world, such as the killing of 240 American marines by a

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Introduction 5

Muslim group in Lebanon in 1983, the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 109 in 1988, Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, and many others.24 When the Western mass media report on these events it is under the generalising rubric of ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslims’, used either as explanation or outright condemnation, and this is part of the ideological attack on the Islamic world.25 Such generalisations shore up the notion of a profound opposition – almost of a Huntingtonian or Lewisian kind – between the Islamic world and the West. Kurzman observed that the majority of Muslims living in Western, non-Muslim countries are placed between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they are perceived as terrorists, on the other, terrorists are blaming them for not rising against the West. As Kurzman noted, Islamist terrorists are not happy with the majority of Muslims who are not rising against the West. They ask, ‘Why aren’t more Muslims resisting the onslaught of the West? What more provocations do they need before they heed the calls to arms?’26 In 2011 Kurzman noted that ‘fewer than 100,000 Muslims have been involved in the Islamist terrorist organisations over the past quarter century, less than one-15,000th of the world’s Muslim population’.27 In the American context, Haddad noted that the ‘Muslim question’ is complex. It can be affected by US foreign and domestic policies. For example, when the US government puts pressure on the Israeli government to cease constructing settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan, otherwise it will cut off aid to Israel, then the Israeli lobby urges the American government to identify Arabs and Muslims as terrorists, and several Islamic countries as ‘rogue states’.28 Whenever the US government takes the initiative to include Muslims in the political process or in American society such as appointing a Muslim chaplain in the armed forces, the broader language in some sections of American society suggests that Muslims are terrorists and a threat to the United States. Haddad noted that the ‘Islamophobes such as Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes, and Bernard Lewis became the goad that spurred Muslims to respond and challenge the veracity of their charges’.29 After September 11, 2001, being an American Muslim became far more challenging. For example, pro-Israel journalists such as Martin Peretz referred to Muslims in the United States as a ‘fifth column’.30

Rationale of this book

Against the backdrop of the observations made by some academics such as Lewis and Huntington, politicians and conservative media commentators, that Islam and Muslims cannot be reconciled with the ‘West’ and American society, this book aims to delve into Muslim Americans’ lives to see whether the claims made by Lewis and Huntington are credible. Through the participants’ views on my main research question, ‘What does it mean to be American and un-American?’, I examine their insights about their host country, community, culture and the wider society. World dynamics are constantly shifting in the Middle East and other parts of the world and so are the policies of the American government to maintain peace and

6

Introduction

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security at home and abroad. This book will contribute to increase awareness of who American Muslims are and how they think. It will highlight the diversity and complexity of young American Muslims. It will show how young American Muslims support equality, and lots of them are responsible and caring. And all of these will increase understanding and therefore tolerance and acceptance. This book will build cross-cultural understanding.

Aims of this book

At a time when Muslims in the United States are viewed as a ‘fifth column’, the main aim of this study was to determine how the participants positioned themselves in American society through the following research questions: • • • •

How do they define their identity and sense of belonging? How do they feel about being an American and an American Muslim? What do they believe it means to be American or un-American? Can the participants in this study be regarded as loyal Americans?

The research methodology

For this study, I have applied three methods, first, grounded theory and a constructivist method of interpretation, second, content analysis through critical discourse analysis of the print media, and finally, the visual sociology method. First, grounded theory is a type of qualitative method.31 It is a non-statistical methodological approach that is about ‘letting the data speak’ and not imposing pre-formed hypotheses. The goal of this research was to gain a better understanding of the participants through their life stories, hopes and aspirations. Most importantly, it was designed to allow respondents to speak about issues important to them. I have employed the constructivist method of interpretation.32 Constructivism emphasises the researcher’s unique ability to make their own meaning out of information (interviews) rather than measuring causal relations according to preconceived variables. The main data gathering method in this study was face-toface via semi-structured interview questions and a form of narrative analysis, whereby interview responses were regarded as a story about each interviewee’s life. Each narrative contains unique elements, but some patterns could be detected in the participants’ lives that enabled the identification of themes and low-order generalisations. I realise that my interpretation of the data could be biased. By reporting on patterns and frequencies and by displaying my analysis of samples of interview responses, I endeavour to demonstrate to the reader that I have dealt with the data in a fair and reasonable manner. Grounded theory that is based on a constructivist/interpretative approach to analysing data is wide-ranging, and includes socialisation theories as well as cultural studies and critical theory. It incorporates several multi-disciplinary themes. The real art of this approach is to analyse data in a thematic matter that can incorporate all dynamics of the participants’ lives – within their private (family

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Introduction 7

and community) and public (wider society, educational institutions, sports, etc.) spheres. As Crotty observed, we all interpret data as if it has a meaning that is shared between communities and individuals to situate ourselves within history and within culture.33 To recruit people for my sample I used snowballing and representative sampling techniques. The snowballing technique involves referrals from the initial participants to generate additional participants. Whereas this technique can be effective in building up the number of willing participants, it comes at the risk of the sample being unrepresentative. To counteract this, I used the representative sample technique of commencing with diverse groups of participants from an entire population of possible participants. For example, I deliberately selected different schools, colleges and youth centres from a wide range of educational institutions in different states. From 2009–2011, most interviews were digitally audio recorded. Only five participants wanted their views to be written down rather than digitally recorded. In the interviews, I asked the participants (aged 15–17 years) about their lives including: parents’ work status, identity/national identity, sporting activities, music, entertainment and cultural interests, contemporary events, together with their hopes, ambitions and dreams. Similarly, I chose Muslim leaders and community workers from different states because they had different personalities, regional and global views. And for the Muslim leaders and other Muslim Americans (aged 30 years and over), there were further specific questions on Muslim settlement in America, young Muslims’ issues and whether there was enough dialogue between young people and Muslim leaders. In 2014, I gathered more data through meeting with some Muslim leaders and community workers in New York and New Jersey. I have written down their information. For anonymity, the participants are given fictitious names. For this book, I have also applied content and critical discourse analysis to study newspaper representations of the concepts of American and un-American. I have researched both the hard copy and the online editions of newspapers and magazines, which included the Atlantic Journal-Constitution, TIME (Magazine), Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, The Washington Post, Daily News, New York Post, Washington Times and The Christian Science Monitor. In the hard copies, I looked at the images, headlines, news contents and letters to the editor that used the labels ‘American’, ‘UnAmerican’ and ‘Muslim’. Then I downloaded news items from the database available via Newsbank Inc. Access World News through the University of South Australia library. I inserted the search terms ‘American’, ‘Un-American’, ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ then downloaded the relevant news items. I included the terms ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam’ because some participants in this study considered that the media singles out Muslims or their religion, Islam, as ‘terrorist’ or the ‘Other’ and they believed that this practice was ‘un-American’. To validate participants’ views, I needed to do extensive newspaper research. Richardson observed that content analysis assumes that if a word is used 20 times in one newspaper and only twice in a different newspaper this is of significance.34 In the context of representation of Islam where negative references such as

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8

Introduction

violence, threats and terrorism are included more frequently in articles that cite Islam as influential compared to other articles, then it reveals media bias against Islam or Muslims. Content analysis can also highlight that in some articles Muslims are represented as victims of violence, and in others as the perpetrators of violence. Alrebh noted that content analysis is a method of analysing written, verbal or visual communication messages. Through content analysis, a researcher can discover how some news is selectively included in the press to serve a particular agenda. For example, Israeli-Palestinian news may not discuss Israeli measures which are in violation of international law and UN resolutions.35 Machin and Mayr observed that critical discourse analysis (CDA) views language as a means of social construction: language both shapes and is shaped by society. CDA is not so much interested in language in itself, but in the linguistic character of social and cultural processes and structures.36 Young found content analysis was more appropriate for editorials because for the most part they follow the same thematic rules as articles and features, while CDA is useful for looking into the language of letters to the editor.37 Through the content analysis method, I checked how newspapers represented Muslim news through their headlines, whether the news item was placed on the front page, whether it was placed on the top of the page, and how negative and positive Muslim news was conveyed to the readers. I also tried to make sense of the news reporting language through the headlines and images. For example, I examined whether the newspapers were simply trying to convey the message that the Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad who attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square in Manhattan, New York on 1 May 2010, was an imminent threat to Americans (including Muslims), or whether they included implications about ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ incorporating some media’s ‘un-American’ practice. The content analysis method also assisted me not only to find the similarities and differences between the newspapers but also to identify nuances in their respective languages. The critical discourse analysis of the letters to the editors assisted me in understanding the impact of the news content on the readers. I wanted to find out through the language used in the letters page if the tone of some readers was also ‘unAmerican’. Finally, in this study I have applied visual sociology or critical visual methodology to enhance the participants’ definitions of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’. As a researcher, I can also enhance my observations and arguments on the terms ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ through a visual method by adding relevant images. Harper observed that the context of certain arguments can be captured through images.38 Sociologists aim to engage with images through active intellectual looking and thinking. Rose noted the significance of critical visual methodology and held that images should be interpreted in terms of cultural significance, social practices and power relations. Rose argued that to develop a critical approach to the interpretation of visual images the viewer needs to take each image seriously, think about the social conditions of the time and interpret the images accordingly.39 Bohnsack observed, ‘To speak of an understanding through pictures means that our world, our social reality, is not only represented by, but also constituted or

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Introduction 9

produced by pictures and images’.40 Images make a lasting impression. Emmison and Smith argued that visual representations can highlight the importance of theoretical arguments.41 In this book, I have included photographs, and political cartoons relevant to my arguments. Swain observed that political cartoons generally endorse contemporary attitudes, humour, power to persuade public opinion, and the appeal of the newspapers but they can also trigger social protest.42 Yet the cartoons I have added in this book generally described the themes or order of the day, the theme of power, the exclusion of minority groups, and the Islamophobic stance of some media and some politicians. Insider and outsider status

I was born in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). I have spent many years in Pakistan (then West Pakistan), the Middle East, and the United States. I am an Australian citizen. I also hold a US Permanent Resident Visa and Green Card. My ethnicity is Bengali and my religion is Islam. Over the years, my cultural interactions with diverse groups of people have helped me in my research. In my family space, my husband is a Bangladeshi Muslim and we are parents of three adult children. On the one hand, as a Muslim studying Muslims I was somewhat of an insider; on the other hand, my theoretical and critical interest as a researcher put me in the realm of being an outsider. Being a Harvard Fellow during the time of this study also put me in an advantaged position because the participants were impressed that I was affiliated with the most prestigious university in the world. Total number of participants in 2009–2011, and 2014: 400

From 2009–2011, the total number of interviews was 379 and they were conducted in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and Michigan (Table 1.1). The numbers of institutions that participated in this study are as follows: schools: 12; youth organisations: 4; Muslim organisations: 6; mosques: 6. The numbers of participants in the six states are shown in Table 1.1. In 2014, I interviewed 21 Muslims (6 male and 15 women, over 18 years) in New York and New Jersey (mostly Muslims involved in Muslim organisations Table 1.1 2009–2011: Total number of participants in six states: 379 (male 167; female 212) States

Massachusetts New York Virginia Maryland Florida Michigan Total

Male (15–30 yrs) 13 28 7 15 45 38 146

Female (15–30 yrs) 11 46 16 15 44 60 192

Male (over 30 yrs) 8 2 0 0 6 5 21

Female (over 30 yrs) 4 4 3 5 1 3 20

Total 36 80 26 35 96 106 379

10

Introduction

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such as mosques, women’s organisations and Islamic advocacy groups, Table 1.2). The interview questions mainly revolved around the rise of Islamophobia, mosque and Muslim women’s issues. All interviewees participated voluntarily. I respected their self-identity as ‘Muslims’ and did not delve into their degree of religious practice. Many respondents (particularly women) were visibly Muslim insofar as they wore the hijab (even in state schools and colleges).

Limitations

I interviewed mostly Muslims from South Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds, and they were mostly Sunnis. In this study, just 18 participants explicitly mentioned that they were Shia Muslims. In America Shi‘ites form a minority within the broader Islamic community. In 2015, in the United States, 65 per cent of Muslims identified as Sunnis and 11 per cent as Shias (with the rest identified with neither group, including some said they are ‘just a Muslim’).43 There were few African-American Muslim participants. South Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims may not be as Othered as African Americans. African-American Muslims are doubly disadvantaged because of the issues of ‘slavery’, colour and religion. The discussion on this group is limited in my book. The study was conducted in the East Coast and Mid-West (Michigan) so this raises the question of whether the sample is representative in terms of socio-cultural dimensions, geographic location and other factors. For example, some states in the Mid-West, such as Arizona, could have been included but funding constraints prohibited me from extending this study any further. Similarly, the West Coast (and Los Angeles in particular) could not be incorporated in this study because of lack of funding. The semi-structured digitally audio recorded interviews were conducted when I was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, USA from 2009 to 2011. The field research was approved by Harvard University’s ethics committee. I visited the United States (New York, New Jersey, Texas and Pennsylvania) again in 2014. I conducted further research in New York and New Jersey. However, I could not conduct any recorded interviews of Muslim Americans after 2011 because I was not covered by ethics clearance. So I have written down participants’ information and views. Overall, I gathered a rich set of responses on the topic of the concepts of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ and this enabled me to present themes that I believe are representative and informative. Ultimately, of course, the reader will judge the credibility of my work. Table 1.2 2014: Total number of participants in two states: 21 (male: 6; female: 15) State

New York New Jersey

Male (18 years and over) 4 2

Female (18 years and over) 13 2

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Organisation of the book

Introduction 11

In this brief introduction, Chapter 1, I have discussed the rationale of my study and my research methodology. In Chapter 2, I briefly discuss the history of Muslims in America. I then discuss the notions of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ as perceived by the participants in this study. As I analyse their definitions, I examine the context of their opinions. This discussion gradually reveals America’s historical and contemporary race relations history. In Chapter 3, I analyse the definitions of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ and try to understand how the participants place themselves within these concepts and in their cultural context. I examine the diverse cultures that have an impact on the participants – Islamic, ethnic and mainstream American cultures – and how the young Muslims are placed between various cultures as well as in a diasporic setting. In Chapter 4 I examine how some American print media has represented Muslim news. I apply the content and critical discourse analysis in this chapter. I discuss both academic observations of the media and the participants’ observations on the media. I consider whether certain media should be considered ‘un-American’. In Chapter 5, within the framework of the ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ debate, I evaluate the modern-day McCarthyism or Islamophobia prevailing in some conservative think tanks, politicians and law enforcement agencies. In Chapter 6, the conclusion, I briefly discuss my observations and experience in America, the contemporary Muslim minority situation in America such as the rise of Islamophobia and mosque issues. I also discuss the positive things concerning Muslims happening in America. Finally, I suggest what more the American Muslims, the civil society and the government should do to turn America into a more cohesive society.

Notes 1

2 3

4 5

6

‘Transcript of Obama’s 2016 State of the Union’, New York Times, 12 January 2016, Address www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/us/politics/obama-2016-sotu-transcript.html? _r=0 (accessed 15 February 2015). Melissa Sim, ‘Taking on Battle against Islamophobia in America’, Straits Times (Singapore), 17 October 2015 (newsbank data). Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 20–23, 89–90, 158–159. See also, Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012), pp. 41, 169, 178; Christopher Bail, Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 97–99. Stuart Hall, ‘The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power’, in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds), Development: A Cultural Studies Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 57–58. E.g. Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Bernard Lewis, ‘What Went Wrong?’, Atlantic Monthly, January 2002, www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/01/ lewis.htm (accessed 15 February 2016).

12 7

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8 9 10 11 12

13 14

15 16 17

18

19

20

21 22 23 24

25 26

27 28

29 30 31

32 33

34 35 36

Introduction

Bernard Lewis, ‘Communism and Islam’, International Affairs, 30/1 (1954): 1–12, see pp. 3, 9. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid. Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill, Islam: The Religion and the People (Philadelphia: Wharton School Publishing, 2009), p. 89. Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 160. Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72/3 (1993), 22–49. Ibid., p. 41. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, pp. 109–121. Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013). Fouad Ajami, ‘The Summoning: But They Said, We Will Not Hearken’, Foreign Affairs, 72/4 (1993): 2–9, see p. 3. Bhikhu Parekh, A New Politics of Identity: Political Principles for an Independent World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 159. See United States Institute of Peace, Islam and Democracy (Special Report 93, 2002), p. 3. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid. Edward Said, ‘Orientalism’, in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds), Development: A Cultural Studies Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), pp. 51–52; see also Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 1995). Edward Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, revised edn (New York: Penguin, 1997). Ibid, pp. ix–xvi. Charles Kurzman, The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 7. Ibid., p. 27. Yvonne Y. Haddad, Becoming American? The Forging of Arab and Muslim Identity in Pluralist America (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), pp. 70–71. Ibid., p. 71. I will discuss this further in Chapter 5. Ibid., p. 84. B. Glaser and A. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago: Aldine, 1967). Kathy Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis (London: Sage, 2006). Michael Crotty, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process (London: Sage, 1998), p. 91. John E. Richardson, Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 18. Abdullah F. Alrebh, ‘The Public Presentation of Authority in Saudi Arabia During the 20th Century: A Discursive Analysis of The London Times and The New York Times’ (PhD thesis, Michigan State University, 2014), p. 78. David Machin and Andrea Mayr, How to do Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction (London: Sage, 2012), p. 4.

37 38

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39

40

41 42

43

Introduction 13

Nathan Young, ‘Working the Fringes: The Role of Letters to the Editor in Advancing Non-standard Media Narratives about Climate Change’, Public Understanding of Science, 22/4 (2013): 443–459, see p. 456. Douglas Harper, ‘What’s New Visually?’, in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonne S. Lincoln (eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edn (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 747–762. Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials (London: Sage, 2001). Ralf Bohnsack, ‘The Interpretation of Pictures and the Documentary Method’, Forum Qualitative Social Research, 9/3 (2008), online open access journal. Michael Emmison and Philip D. Smith, Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry, Introducing Qualitative Method Series (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000). Elizabeth Swain, ‘Analysing Evaluation in Political Cartoons’, Discourse, Context & Media, 1 (2012): 82–94. Michael Lipka, ‘Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the U.S. and Around the World’ (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 7 December 2015), www.pewresearch.org/ fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-theworld/ (accessed 15 January 2016).

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2

What does it mean to be American or un-American?

An American is if you receive the values of why America was built on. It was built because there was lack of respect by the British administration at the time … there was independent thinking. Americans are naturally more independent thinkers than anywhere in the world. (Fawad, interview, Michigan, 2010)

Fawad (age 30, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: Bangladeshi American)1 described Americans from a historical perspective, while Aaqib (age 15, male, US-born, identity: American-Bangladeshi) commented from a contemporary standpoint:

I think to be an American is basically to keep the Bill of Rights and all of the Constitution in your mind all the time. You can’t be racist or indifferent to different kind of people. You have to keep in mind that everyone’s the same… You know in their own Amendment in the United States Constitution it says you have the right for freedom of speech, religion. (interview, New York, 2010)

Mitt Romney observed that at the beginning of the American Revolution, the founding fathers (or the original European settlers) set forth the legal foundation of the United States by adopting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution ‘preserves the principle that is fundamental to the American experience: The individual is sovereign, not the rulers’.2 Romney said, ‘Respect for the law will continue as part of our culture so long as it extends to the entire Constitution.’3 Contemporary America, however, has emerged from a history of colonisation, slavery, racial divide and a restrictive immigration policy. Research has found that Islamophobia has been on the rise since 9/11.4 Under these circumstances, in this chapter I try to comprehend the ‘American Muslim question’ through the debate on the concepts of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’. First, I briefly discuss American immigration and race relations history (including the historical experiences of American Muslims). Second, I present the themes that emerge from the participants’ definitions of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’, as seen in Tables 2.1 and 2.2.

American or un-American?

15

Third, I analyse some of the themes presented in Tables 2.1 and 2.2. Finally, I draw conclusions from the arguments presented in this chapter.

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American immigration and race relations history

America is a nation of immigrants with a history of colonisation. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and the American Revolution (1765–1783), Native Americans encountered ruthless violence from the European colonisers over access to land and resources. In the mid-seventeenth century, Europeans needed labour for their plantations in the American colonies, and slaves from Africa appeared to be the most suitable and cost-effective means of resolving their labour supply problems. Once Native American land was expropriated by 1890, they were viewed as unsuitable as a source of labour.5 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries slavery was practised throughout the American colonies, and by the nineteenth century racial distinctions were firmly established in the United States as social norms, and ‘government court decisions designated blacks as subhuman and protected the rights of whites to own black slaves’.6 The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought over the rights of the slave owners and after the victory of the North, slavery was abolished. The Reconstruction Era resulted in important reforms but progress was short lived. By 1877, blacks were subjected to disenfranchisement.7 By the 1940s, due to the decline of southern agriculture, blacks migrated to the north to work in the industrial boom. They still led a segregated life and formed ghettos.8 During the 1960s Americans enacted laws prohibiting racial discrimination. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed. Though there were changes in laws, history books and the school curriculum portrayed whites as tolerant and blacks as ‘un-American’ by reinforcing the stereotypes that blacks violated American values, and that America was a European country.9 American immigration history reveals that when America needed labour to build its infrastructure, it absorbed immigrants such as Afghans and Chinese in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, in 1924 the Johnson-Reed Act ‘excluded from immigration Chinese, Japanese, Indians and other Asians on grounds that they were racially ineligible for naturalized citizenship’, and ‘the 1920s actual and imagined association of Mexicans with illegal immigration’ was similarly based on a ‘legal racialization of these ethnic groups’ national origin that cast them as permanently foreign and unassimilable to the nation’.10 Historically speaking, various immigrant racial and religious groups, though of Caucasian or ‘white’ race, were also treated as the Other by the mainstream AngloProtestant American society. For example, Catholics often experienced sectarian tension.11 Catholics resisted pressures to Americanise, and to retain their identity they established their own separate schools.12 During both World Wars, German nationals and German-American citizens in the United States were classified by the government as ‘enemy aliens’ and were interned.13 Similarly, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II revealed that those who posed a security threat (whether Caucasian or Asian) became the Other in American society.14

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16

American or un-American?

John Voll observed that each group of immigrants that arrived in America, such as the Irish and Chinese, in some way was considered ‘un-American’. On the other hand, groups who posed a national security threat were viewed by the wider society as ‘anti-American’, such as German Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. The term un-American implied ‘phobia’ of the Other, which often led to prejudice and discrimination. But the word anti-American implied a national security issue, and it generally involved persecution. Sometimes the term antiAmerican was misused by some mainstream Americans for poltical gain. For example, in the 1950s, when some Americans advocated social justice and economic equality, they were viewed as being sympathetic to communism, and hence anti-American.15 Muslim contact with America commenced in the 1770s on political and commercial grounds. In 1777 Morocco was the first country to recognise the United States as an independent country. John Adams as ambassador and the second US President signed treaties with Morocco and other Muslim countries. John Quincy Adams throughout his career as a senator, as the sixth US President and a congressman championed the rights of slaves, including African Muslims.16 In the 1700s Muslim slaves were brought from Africa. Records show that a few Muslim slaves in the United States became famous. For example Kunta Kinte, who is depicted in Alex Haley’s book (and the television show) Roots, was brought from Gambia in 1767.17 Muslim slaves were not allowed to develop institutional structures in the form of mosques or graveyards, so they could not establish an Islamic heritage for their descendants; nevertheless, some slaves such as Kinte and Salem retained their Islamic identity.18 Some Muslim slaves were forced to eat pork. For example, a Muslim originally from Mali, and enslaved in Mississippi, had to eat pork. However, a few Muslim slaves, such as Ibrahima abd al Rahman, Salih Bilali and Omar ibn Said and Bilali whose religious habits were tolerated ate beef or fish instead of pork. Sometimes Muslims abstained from eating non-halal meat by saying that meat was prohibited for them.19 Muslim immigrants arrived in America in three major waves: 1870–1924, 1948– 1966, and 1967 to the present. With the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a wave of highly educated Arab/Muslim immigrants arrived in the United States, and from the 1970s more Muslims from South Asia migrated there.20 Gradually many Muslim organisations were established to address Muslim issues. Some notable ones are the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Muslim American Society. In the 1950s and 1960s two prominent African Americans who converted to Black Islam (Nation of Islam) and later embraced Sunni Islam were Malcolm X (a radical leader of the Black Power movement), and the boxer Mohammad Ali Clay (formerly Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr). In 2014, the Pew Research Center estimated that Muslims living in the United States constituted 0.9 per cent of the total US population (319 million).21 Ihsan Bagby observed that Islam has been always been positioned as a ‘foreign’ religion and after 9/11 ‘American Muslims and their mosques have felt the brunt of living as outsiders, suffering through even greater suspicion and scrutiny.’22

American or un-American?

17

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John Voll noted that the anti-Muslim sentiments in American society of the 1920s through the 1950s were anti-Muslim because Muslims were different; however nobody thought that there was an ‘Islamic threat’. But later there has been a shift from mistrust of Muslims as being different, to them being ‘un-American’, to viewing Muslims as anti-American and a threat to American society. This rapid change can be seen with the rise of Islamophobia in the United States since September 11, 2001.23

Participants’ views on American and un-American

In this section, against this backdrop of American race relations and immigration history, I present Tables 2.1 and 2.2 where participants reveal their views on the concepts American and un-American. Throughout the chapter as I analyse Table 2.1 An understanding of the word ‘American’, 379 participants Number of participants 86 68 52 47 31 23

21 16

11

8 6 6

3 1

American

Freedom: democracy, Constitution, leadership, equal rights, civil liberties, Bill of Rights, first ten amendments American culture: individualism, modernisation, westernisation, technology, extrovert, upfront; food: American pie, burger, steak, hotdog; dress; sports: snowboarding, hiking; Thanksgiving, poor education, family issues, high divorce rates Identity and citizenship: ID card, passport, vote (37 participants); born in the United States (10 participants); residency (5 participants) Diversity: melting pot, integration, tolerance, co-existence Loyalty: support America, patriotism, Pledge of Allegiance, believe in ecumenism; ‘Who respects America, does the Pledge of Allegiance, no matter what they are doing, because they are fighting for the freedom of America’ Sceptical: politics, doubtful of free speech, overrated, not convinced, ‘Democracy but Islam also provides democracy’; freedom of speech etc. are universal; education, to live in debt, meant to be equal but still racists; diversity is American, diversity is also Islam; ‘American kids are always doing bad things’; diversity is total assimilation by changing names Opportunities: Green Card, social security card, education, jobs American values: American dream, hardworking, economy, compassion, tolerance, respect, health, ‘Land of the free, home of the brave’ Racism: Islamophobia, racial profiling, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, racist history Native Americans: ‘true Americans’ Security: ‘No will touch you’ Other: ‘United under God’; ‘To be normal’, ‘White are Americans’; ‘There’s no single way to answer this question’ No comments: ‘Not sure’ Fearful

18

American or un-American?

Table 2.2 An understanding of the word ‘un-American’, 379 participants Number of participants 123

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78 58 53 29 11 10 10 7

Un-American

Opposite of American: no freedom, undemocratic, monoculture, no diversity, no education, no English skills, not US-born Cultures: Islamic, Bengali, Indian, foreign cultures; American culture Racism: Islamophobia, racial profiling, stereotypes; discrimination; saying, ‘You don’t belong here’; geographical segregation; exploitation; media (media stereotypes); Fort Hood shooting Disloyal: betray your country, act of treason against government; enjoy government facilities but hate the government; taking American facilities for granted No comments: ‘Not sure’ Sceptical: ‘Don’t believe in this term, it is a label’; ‘Shooting/gun culture could be both “American” and “un-American”’; ‘Slavery was “American”, but now it is “un-American”’ Politics: US foreign policy, ‘Bush used this word’, Palestine Illegal immigrants: Mexicans, foreigners Other: Not using opportunities, not liking America, confused and complex question, ‘Never seen an “un-American”’, ‘I always consider those immoral’

participants’ views I will contextualise them in the American socio-economic and political situation. This will help to demonstrate the standing of Muslims in contemporary American society. Table 2.1 shows how the 379 participants in this study defined ‘American’. Sometimes ‘American’ was spoken about in broader terms, so there is some overlap between the factors. For example, US-born, patriotism and co-existence/diversity merged in the definition of American. Sometimes US-born, economy and westernised technology all merged together; and sometimes living in the United States, follow the rules, citizenship and loyalty all merged together. However, the majority of participants linked American or American-ness with positive connotations such as: freedom (86); American culture (68); citizenship (52); diversity (47); loyalty (31); opportunities (21); American values (16); Native Americans (8); and security (6). Some participants viewed the word ‘American’ with scepticism (23); and associated it with racism (11) and feeling fearful (1). Some provided different perceptions under the category of other (6); while some did not comment (3). Many participants were not familiar with the word ‘un-American’. However, in Table 2.2 many respondents (123) quickly responded by saying that it meant the opposite of ‘American’. Other participants connected it with foreign cultures (78); racism (58); disloyalty (53); scepticism (11); politics (10); and illegal immigrants (10). A few (7) provided other thoughts while some (29) did not comment on this topic. The broader themes exhibited in Tables 2.1 and 2.2 such as culture, conventional media bias and Islamophobia will be discussed in depth in the subsequent chapters.24

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The American debate

American or un-American?

19

In this section, I will discuss the key themes that appear in Tables 2.1 and 2.2. Sometimes both concepts, American and un-American, were mentioned in the same interview. In most cases un-American was mentioned in opposition to the notion of American. Most participants defined ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ as concepts or notions, hence they were mainly used as nouns, like freedom, citizenship, diversity and racism. I will discuss the themes in historical sequence, and then bring the discussion to a more contemporary setting. ‘True Americans’

In this study about eight participants explicitly mentioned that Native Americans/ Native Indians should be considered the real Americans. For example, Ghalib (male, 20 years, US-born, Trinidad and Tobago heritage, identity: Muslim American Trini) commented that being an American was ‘Historical, true Americans are Native Americans. Then cowboys. Next Americans are immigrants’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Malek (27 years, male, US-born, mainstream American, Muslim convert), associated the term ‘American’ with oppression: It’s whoever got here first, you know, they’re the true Americans. Whoever got here first and slaughtered the Native Americans and stole their land, they’re the real Americans and then whoever came later, they’re foreigners? (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Ghalib credited Native Americans as the ‘true Americans’ while Malek reminded us of their oppressive history. Research on Native Americans reveals that their destitute condition persists in American society. Since European contact and more than 500 years of colonisation, Native Americans have experienced massive loss of lives, land and culture. This phenomenon has resulted in intergenerational grief and trauma of many Native Americans in the form of high rates of suicide, homicide, domestic violence, child abuse, alcoholism and other social problems among American Indians.25 Fatima (age 45, female, US-born, mainstream American, and also a Muslim convert, identity: American) spoke of her family’s history in the United States: I am of English descent. I am from the founding families of the US. My family came to the US in the 1500s … On the same flotilla of boats from England, the Mayflower. So I refer to myself as a Mayflower Muslim. I have a founding father, a Civil War general, and minister for many hundreds of years in my family. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

When I commented that her state Massachusetts was very historically significant, for example, the Kennedy family, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were from her state, Fatima replied:

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20

American or un-American?

Yeah, it is very historical, but mostly for American history purposes. Kennedy is just the tail end of that; there’s way more than that. There’s the Revolutionary War. There’s the founding of Harvard University, the oldest university in the United States … The Revolutionary War … the first shot was fired in Massachusetts in Lexington … It’s one of the 13 first colonies. It is also the place where the first British landed here, along with some place called Roanoke in Virginia. So there were really three or four states that were original. They were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Fatima, who was directly descended from the original European settlers, perceived the concepts of American and un-American in this way:

To be American is to be inclusive. Because the bottom line for this country is the real native people here live in concentration camps. Let’s just be honest. They live in concentration camps, out all over this country and in Canada. They do not live amongst us. So everyone who came here, literally every single soul who’s here, whose last name isn’t Running Crow is an immigrant. If your last name isn’t Brave Heart or Running Crow you’re an immigrant. And so to act as if other immigrants have no right to be here, and to act as if your opinion is the only opinion, and to act as if no one has a right to have a voice, and no one has a right to be here, and no one has a right to do this except white European people, let’s just be honest, is un-American. And to tell people that if they don’t agree with the government, that they should shut up and sit down, is un-American. To tell people that Muslims are terrorists, and all Muslims are bad, is to lie and to fool the people. And it’s also un-American to say that. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Fatima meant that America is a nation of immigrants. Only the Native Americans are the original owners of the land. The last names Crow and Brave Heart are exclusively connected to Native Americans. Fatima believed that mainstream Americans should be inclusive of other people including Native Americans as well as Muslim Americans. She concluded that exclusion of people and calling minorities names were ‘un-American’ acts. Figure 2.1 is a reminder that Native Americans are the original owners of the land, and that immigrants have been arriving for centuries, and how exclusion and inclusion and the associated power dynamics have been operating in the settlers’ society. Speaking of the dilemma of the terms American and un-American, Kabeer (25 years, male, US-born, identity: African American) commented: Literally my entire history is based on being oppressed, either if you do consider me African American, if you do consider me Native American because I have Native American in me … So I wouldn’t consider myself American in that sense.

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American or un-American?

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I think the term un-American is pretty much is determined by the majority and not the minority. For example, if everybody thinks Muslims are terrorists, then you’re officially un-American … To be un-American pretty much means when you step out of the line, you know when you’re that person that when the spotlight is on, ’cause you look at American history, there’s always been a spotlight on somebody. You know at some point the South, during the Civil War, the South was un-American and the North was the American side. Or you know the Vietnamese were un-American at one point. You know the Japanese were in internment camps and things like that while they were in America, so they were the un-American bunch. Blacks have been unAmerican for the longest time. If they stay in line though, it’s okay, you’re American. If you’re a slave that’s okay but once you step out of line, then the hounds get sick on you, the dogs, so it’s like the fire hydrants and things like that. Now you’re not part of us. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Kabeer provided his observations in a historical context. Kabeer believed that the words American and un-American are subjective terms. When the majority or mainstream Americans, who considered themselves ‘Americans’, want to reject a minority group for the purposes of economic exploitation, such as slaves in the

Figure 2.1 Illegals

Source: The Muslim Observer, 10 April 2013. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

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South, they consider them ‘un-American’. In this context, it should be noted that many abolitionists, who were also white/mainstream Americans and aimed to abolish slavery, would have been considered ‘un-American’ because they were working against the institutional colonial structure.26 During wartime, some Americans whose country of origin was at war with the host country, for example Japanese Americans, were considered ‘un-Americans’. American: follow the American dream

James Truslow Adams, a historian whose book the Epic of America was published in 1931, is credited with coining the phrase ‘the American dream’. Adams stated that the American dream is ‘that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement’.27 The phrase ‘the American dream’ was also used by Adams as a mode of building up patriotism in 1941 when he said, ‘Far more potent than the common past as a unifying force in our national life has been the conception of the future – the American Dream’. Adams continued, ‘The Americans … they have all wanted the same thing – to have the freedom to be themselves and to reach the limit of their capacities. The American Dream is a spiritual bond.’28 In his book The American Dream, Samuel states, ‘The breadth and scope of the American Dream are truly astounding … the pressure to succeed, our perverse fascination with “hope” and “change,” and the belief that “anything is possible” – are all embedded in the Dream’.29 Cullen observed: The popular notion of the American dream was the application of the Darwinian theory of ‘the survival of the fittest’ to human affairs and an individual entrepreneur like John D. Rockefeller was an unique example who raised from the position of an assistant book keeper to business magnate.30

In this study about eight participants believed that to be an American was to follow the American dream. For example, Enam (age 30, male, overseas-born, identity: American-Egyptian, 50:50) noted, ‘Being American, especially in New York, opportunities in New York. Work hard and make a good living and improve your life’. Enam continued:

To be an American, there is like a big ideology that if you work, work, work, you achieve the greatest extent and you become wealthy or you become prosperous. Um that’s the American dream and a lot of people like, in history a lot of people did come to the cities to work, work, work and I’m told they prosper and other people don’t do, can’t reach their goals. (interview, New York, 2009)

Omar (25 years, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: Bengali Muslim) noted:

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What I’ve noticed is the importance of freedom of speech, freedom of the ability to do what you want in this country. Which is something they highly respect, a secure successful life, everybody has the opportunity to do something big in this country with sheer determination. There’s nobody to hold them back and anything you do to keep other people from achieving that dream, is considered un-American. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Farzana (21 years, female, US-born, East African heritage, identity: American Muslim), a school teacher, stated:

The best part about this country is that you’re able to express your religion freely. If you look through American history that’s why people came here in the first place because the promise was, is that you’re, you will be able to live your religion the way you choose to do so and earn the living of the American dream – that’s what we teach our kids. So am I proud to be American, yes in a way … (interview, New York, 2010)

As some participants saw the positive factors in the American dream, some politicians and analysts have also been critical of the selective nature of the American dream. For example, Romney noted the drawback of the foundation of this dream, namely that the ‘early patriots failed to extend the American Dream to African slaves and Native Americans even as some of their colleagues urged upon them the necessity of doing so’.31 Healy observed that, despite some acculturation by Native Americans and African Americans, and some political advancement granted to these groups such as citizenship, voting rights, and protection of civil rights in education and jobs, many members of these two groups are still affected by past and present institutionalised racist policies.32 Similarly, a few participants in this study shared their scepticism on the concept of the ‘American dream’. For example, Subhee (15 years, female, US-born, identity: 100 per cent Pakistani) stated: There’s aspects of democracy and the American dream, but I mean in the current [time], that we’re living, I feel to be American is to be uneducated. I can honestly tell you, most American youths are very ignorant of what’s going around them and they’re very self-centred. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Subhee’s views were mainly about non-Muslim American youths, but another participant, Saeed, shared his experience of pursuing the American dream. Saeed (age 26, male, overseas-born, Pakistani origin, identity: Muslim) observed that the American dream meant to live in debt for one’s entire life: I don’t think even Americans understand what it means to be American because democracy, these are just words, flashy words, people defend. They

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think democracy means freedom, but there are different views. I believe, from my observation and my experience, American life is that you basically when you grow up you’re working and then you’re going home. And that’s what it has been mostly deduced to. You go to school and you’re working to pay off school. And I believe I read somewhere in an article that the American system is designed to put everybody in debt by the age of 25. So that’s the American system. So if you’re in America, you’re living off of credit cards or other loans you’ve taken, and you’re in debt. I worked and I did take a loan. Paying it off. It takes a long time to pay those off. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Both Subhee and Saeed pointed out the challenges of relishing the American dream. Similarly, Romney noted the educational crisis in contemporary American society. For example, it is projected that the combined African-American and Hispanic-American population will rise from 26 per cent in 2011 to 34 per cent by 2030. And if the school drop-out rate among these minorities continues then the average educational level of America’s entire workforce will continue to decline and this will significantly affect ‘human and societal costs, we therefore face a significant economic cost as well’.33 This will create a permanent underclass. School drop-outs are not confined to minority groups. It is estimated that about 29 per cent of mainstream Americans do not complete high school. Most of them will not get out of poverty in their lifetime.34 Race/class structure

A participant in this study, Shakila (17 years, female, US-born, identity: Lebanese American), referred to ‘whiteness’ as American: ‘I think we are all Americans because we were all born and raised here. But I guess people refer to other [mainstream] Americans as people that are white, you know what I mean?’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Similarly, Aafia (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Muslim, Arab and Egyptian) associated Americans with ‘whiteness and monoculture’: For me like to be an American I think you have to be white, you have to be from the country, born and have parents born from the country and worked here all their lives … A lot of people I talk to, they go like, ‘Oh, immigrants don’t deserve to be here’ … Um it [immigrants] doesn’t have to be Muslims, it could be Arabs, it could be people from Mexico, but I just think that Americans like to be within themselves, they don’t just want to be with any other form of culture. (interview, New York, 2010)

In the US census form, the category ‘white’ includes mainstream Americans

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(Caucasians) and Arab Americans (who have lighter skin). However, Shakila and Aafia identified themselves as Lebanese American and Muslim, Arab and Egyptian. They both connected Americanness to whiteness. Their observation may have been based on the class structure of American society. Some critical race theorists have observed that knowledge about race and whiteness has been institutionally embedded through American race relations history. Roy observed that since the sixteenth century, Anglo-Europeans have used their inherent ‘superior’ biological differences (including the colour of their skin) to justify their colonisation.35 For example, when Anglo-Europeans appropriated lands from Native Americans, they considered them ‘uncivilised’ people. Later, Africans and their descendants were stereotyped as lazy, ignorant, vicious or promiscuous simply because they were ‘black’.36 Gaskew observed that Jim Crow laws have left a legacy of white subordination and control of blacks. They established institutionalised racism against African Americans that persists in contemporary American society, particularly in the criminal justice system.37 Roy observed that before the early twentieth century, neighbourhoods in most cities were more racially integrated. Whites, blacks and, in some regions, Latinos or Asians lived close to one another. If middle-class white people lived in the large homes on the street, the poorer blacks, often alongside newly immigrated families, lived in the alleys. Nevertheless, in the 1920s, real estate agents eventually created ghettos. Real estate agents obstructed blacks from settling in middle- and upperclass neighbourhoods by refusing to show them houses or apartments. Bankers often rejected applications from mainstream white Americans for home loans in minority neighbourhoods, a practice known as ‘redlining’ because they used maps with red lines to indicate the boundaries of exclusion. So sometimes the ‘white flight’ was a game plan of the real estate agents. Therefore, white people who would have welcomed an integrated neighbourhood usually yielded to the real estate owners to avoid losing the value of their homes. So neighbourhoods changed very rapidly.38 Under the circumstances, the American dream became a reality for white Americans for whom life in the suburbs was made readily available. Sometimes, enclave dynamics are created by the immigrants themselves. For example, in Hamtramck, Michigan when the first waves of Polish immigrants began to outnumber the German Americans, the latter moved elsewhere. The Germans ‘looked at these Eastern Europeans and thought they were all communists’.39 Since the 1990s, when Hamtramck became a haven for Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen, Pakistan, Bosnia and other countries, many Polish people left.40 So with peoples’ movement a suburb can be automatically marked as white/non-white, Muslim or non-Muslim. Under this process, subsequent generations of immigrants internalise the socially constructed reality of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ races.41 Identity factors, US-born and residency

About 52 participants connected ‘American’ to the notion of identity, or people born in the United States, who held social security cards, American passports or

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residency in the United States. For example, Rabeya (40 years, female, US-born, Native American, Hispanic convert, identity: American and servant of Allah) stated: ‘It’s overrated … I’m an American that’s it, and that’s only because I was born here, you know but I’d rather be classified as a servant of Allah, that’s who I am’ (interview, Virginia, 2009). Another participant, Ghalib (male, 20 years, USborn, Trinidad and Tobago heritage, identity: Muslim American Trini) observed:

So everybody that came to America is an immigrant, or came from immigrant descent. And that term, ‘I’m an American’ would be a relative term, I believe. So I feel I’m American, like I said before, because I was born and raised here. This is my home. And I follow the rules, I follow the laws. I’m not antiAmerican in any sense of the matter. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Razzak (age 18, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi background, identity: more Bangladeshi) recognised Native Americans as the original Americans but he asserted his right to be recognised as an American because he migrated to the United States:

Well there is a lot of American which are Native Americans which are the original Americans, but we are all immigrants in one way. You spend your time coming here and so why wouldn’t you be called an American. You spent your time and money and you came here for a better life, better education for your kids, better family, you know, better living conditions. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Durrah (17 years, female, overseas-born, Somali heritage, identity: African American), stated, ‘If you lived here for longer than a few years, and you’re used to it, and you know the language and you know what to do, you’re practically American, pretty much’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Similar to the above statements of the interviewees, some scholars have also noted that, with a length of stay, immigrants can feel connected and settled in their host country. For example, in their edited book, Growing Up Muslim, Garrod and Kilkenny revealed some immigrants’ stories where first and second generation immigrants acculturate with the host society after a period of time. Similarly, Arif (second generation of Bangladeshi background) spoke about the cultural restrictions in Bangladesh and his parents’ expectations in America for him to be a good Bengali and a good Muslim. Arif wondered why his parents were more lenient with his younger brother who was born in Mississippi and whom his mother called ‘our little American’. Arif’s story revealed that, with lengthy residence in the host country, some parents tend to be more culturally relaxed with their subsequent children.42 Arif’s parents’ case revealed that immigrants’ identity formation can be a complex matter. Stuart Hall observed that identity is a fluid process, ‘It always remains incomplete, is always “in process,” always “being formed”’.43 Sociologists Kiely, Bechhofer, Stewart and McCrone have identified ten ‘identity markers’ that

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people use to claim or attribute identity: place of birth, ancestry, place of residence, length of residence, upbringing and education, name, accent, physical appearance, dress and commitment to place.44 Douglas suggested that identity can go beyond nationality and place of birth. It can be ‘a state of mind’.45 For example, Yunus (16 years, male, US-born, Kurdish heritage) identified himself as American-Kurdish but when he spoke about himself he connected himself to the Kurdish identity/nationality: ‘Somebody as American citizen but does not think of themselves as American, they think of themselves as maybe like for example I think of myself as a Kurdish person not an American person’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). So for Yunus an American-born person can feel free to associate himself with other nationalities. In my (author’s) other research on Muslim identity, I found that the participants of Kurdish heritage connected themselves to their Kurdish nationality. They have been mindful of their imaginary nation of Kurdistan. Since the Kurdish people do not have a homeland, their desire for a nation is also an important part of their culture.46 Jenkins stated that similarity and difference are the dynamic principles of identification.47 Jenkins also suggested that external factors play a significant role in group or collective identity.48 Identity recognises similarity, or shared belonging, and the differences that form the rhetoric of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Burke and Stets have also observed that emotion can play an important role in the formation of one’s identity.49 People with intense positive emotions towards a network/group are likely to identify with it. In this study one participant, Dawood (26 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Lebanese), observed that one’s ethnic identity can lead to exclusion by other people. Also, he thought that it would not be easy to assimilate and forget one’s heritage. So the ‘us’ and ‘them’ rhetoric can come from the individuals themselves. Dawood observed: There is no such thing as American because all the Americans are from other countries and then their grandparents came here and maybe then they took America, Native Indians. But now maybe the Americans are Muslims, Americans because even if you were born here, you’re still a Muslim from your name. Maybe you can change your name but you’d look, it’s hard to be American and forget your background. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Tajfel’s theory of ‘social identity’ provided the basis for a systematic investigation of the relationship between an individual’s self-definitions and their perceptions of the social categories to which they belong.50 Tajfel observed that there are three components of group membership: first, cognitive (knowledge that one belongs to a group); second, evaluative (assumptions about the positive and negative value connotations of group membership); and third, emotional (emotions towards one group and towards others who stand in particular relation to it).51 Other scholars have noted that ‘social identity theory’, and its offshoot ‘self-categorisation theory’,

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address the complexity of social identities.52 Jenkins observed that the inequality of power and resources can have an impact on one’s identity.53 While Dawood categorised his heritage/identity marker using the cognitive category of Tajfel’s social identity theory, another participant, Atifa (25 years, female, overseas-born, Haitian heritage, identity: Black Muslim), said that she was doubly disadvantaged – being Muslim and Haitian. This resonated with Jenkins’ social identity theory and Turner’s self-categorisation theory. Atifa said: I consider myself a Muslim, and I consider myself to be black, and I don’t feel at this point … I try not to utilise labels much in saying, yes, I am a Haitian, because it almost boxes me off from other … it doesn’t take away from the fact that brothers and sisters who are from Trinidad or whatever country, they’re not my brother and sister because I’m quote/unquote Haitian. And that tends to be a big problem within the Haitian culture, where if you’re not Haitian, you’re almost looked at as being foreign. Then again, many blacks from America tell us, we’re ignorant, we’re dirty. And I don’t feel, at this point in my life, that I want to look at labels. Doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m proud of being Haitian. But I want to look at the broader scope of things, that I am a Muslim, which is universal. And I am black, which is universal. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Atifa was happy to construct her identity as a Muslim and black. However, her interview reveals how one group disregards another group as the Other. The Haitians were not inclusive of the non-Haitians. Then again another group, and in this case African Americans, were offensive to Atifa’s (and Haitians’) blackness. Latinos have a long history of immigration to the United States, and they have often been considered threatening and undesirable immigrants.54 Kibria, Bowman and O’Leary stated that the racial categorisation of ‘Latinos’ or ‘Hispanics’ is often associated with racial inequality. Lighter and more European-looking Latinos generally fare better in the US labour market, education, housing, selfesteem and mental health than their darker counterparts.55 Healy observed that because Mexicans were historically conquered and subordinated, stereotypes about Mexicans were characterised by the words ‘inferior, lazy, irresponsible, low in intelligence, and dangerously criminal’. These prejudices were later transferred to Puerto Ricans when they began to arrive in the US.56 But now in Atifa’s view, these stereotypes are also associated with Haitians. It is now some blacks (African Americans) who stereotype them. One observer noted that racism in America was no longer only a black-and-white issue. It is now manifested in many forms: The dogma that racism is a black-and-white issue needs to be looked into. I have witnessed worse cases of racism and discrimination among people of the same color – a light-skinned African-American feigning importance over a dark-skinned brother or sister; and this group overriding others, such as

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Africans, Haitians or Mexicans. On the other side of the coin, Anglo-Saxon Americans overriding whites of eastern European descent; and they in turn fighting Asians, American Indians, etc.57

Remy observed that in a racially stratified society, hostility between different groups is common. Remy noted that some African Americans detest Haitians because of their foreign accent and their upward mobility. Many Haitians work very hard with two to three jobs and manage to buy houses, which could take African Americans many years or generations.58 On the other hand, other research has found that some African American Sunni Muslims feel that they are doubly disadvantaged among the immigrant Muslim community and the wider society because of the issue of colour and the legacy of slavery.59

Freedom, leadership, loyalty

Ahmed (age 30, male, overseas-born, Cuban heritage) belonged to the Nation of Islam (NOI), and identified himself in this way: ‘I consider myself Muslim, I consider myself a citizen of the world’. When I asked Ahmed ‘How would you define being American and un-American?’ Ahmed replied:

The Honourable Elijah Muhammad answered this question in Message to the Blackman in America. And by way of the example of the Honourable Minister Louis Farrakhan, we get a deeper understanding as to like to be an American is not just simply to go along with the programme. If you see America suffering from not just an ailment, but multiple ailments, and you have been blessed with a word to warn America and Americans of the detrimental lifestyle that they are living, of the sad way in which they treat one another, economically, the poor way that we do business with one another, it is our duty and responsibility as Muslims to warn them and to teach them that the path that they are on is surely a path that is not conducive to success. In fact, it’ll lead to their failure. There’s nothing un-American about that. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Ahmed’s opinion on being an American meant Americans should strive to lead a better life, and address the disparity and inequality existing in American society. If black leaders have been critical about mainstream American institutions, then those institutions should be considered un-American because it is based on inequality. Ahmed also mentioned the book by the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Blackman in America, where Muhammad emphasised that black Americans should uplift themselves through education and strive to succeed.60 Ahmed then praised the black leader, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, as an American: We take a look at that in the works of Martin Luther King, Jr, which he really wanted whites and blacks to get along in this country. And he did the great

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sacrifice that he did. But many white people hated him in his time … Oh, he should be the model. Well, back then, many white people didn’t like him. Especially in the South. So in my opinion, as Muslims, this is where we were born, this is where we grew up in America. And we cannot just simply say that we hate America because we’re so attached to America. And we don’t want to see America suffering – how can I put it? Suffering a great fall. But our position as Muslims is to warn. (interview, Florida, 2013)

Ahmed reiterated that American Muslims should fulfil their citizenship duties and address the social issue of ‘suffering’. As Muslims, they should alert the white community of the marginalised position of blacks. Similarly, Wahed (age 40, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: Bangladeshi American) commented:

Un-American is when we are trying to get everything from the society and we don’t want to give anything. I’ve seen that a lot. Sometimes you will have people they’re only going to think about what can the society or country do for me? As John F. Kennedy said in 1960s, I think it was 1963, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country’ and I believe that any country that you are the citizen of, be it Australia or United Kingdom or United States of America, ask yourself that question as to what can I do for this country, as Socrates did.

Wahed continued:

Socrates was around about 500 years before Jesus was even born. And he said that when you are born in a country you actually have an unwritten contract with your country and that is that you’re going to abide by the laws of the land. Well sometimes it can happen that you don’t like those laws. But try to change them, persuade other people in changing those, but as long as they’re the laws you must obey them, you must follow them. And think about it … Breaking laws is un-American. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Wahed simply meant that being an American should include helping to develop America. One can be critical of certain laws but it should a constructive criticism. On the other hand, only expecting one-sided service and facilities from the country would be ‘un-American’, and breaking the laws would also be un-American. Other participants also associated Americanness with loyalty. For example, Saleem (age 17, male, overseas-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: Muslim Pakistani) said: I heard a quote one time saying I love the land I live in but I hate the people that run it. So a lot of times Muslims in this country, you know Pakistanis,

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Arab people, especially overseas they are like, ‘Oh, death to America’, there’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s not America, I love living in this country, like I’ve travelled a lot of overseas, I did my schooling overseas … So everything third world over there, coming here the running water, fulltime electricity, paved roads, the country is the most advanced country like comfort wise. So I love America, I love the lifestyle and everything that it provides and the opportunity that you have to practise your religion more or less freely than other countries. I mean it’s been a little rough these days but still, can’t complain. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Saleem gave these views in the context of anti-American sentiment in Muslim countries. Saleem identified himself as Pakistani Muslim but he felt very connected to America. Saleem did some of his schooling in Pakistan, so he could compare the American quality of life with that in developing countries such as Pakistan. He found that there may have been issues impacting on some American Muslims since 9/11 but overall America was a better country to live in than most. Saleem’s patriotism was reflected in his criticism of the slogan ‘Death to America’ in other countries. When there is a crisis between the United States and some Muslim countries, such as Iran or Afghanistan, Muslims can be heard chanting ‘Death to America’. For example, when the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks commenced in Washington, DC in 2010, the hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a proPalestinian rally of thousands of Iranians that the revived Middle East peace talks were ‘doomed’ to fail. Ever since the 1979 revolution, Iran has organised annual Palestinian solidarity marches across the country on the last Friday (al-Quds day) of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Tens of thousands of Iranians rally in streets around the country shouting ‘Death to America! Death to Israel!’61 After 9/11, US President George W. Bush branded Iran (along with North Korea and Iraq) as the ‘axis of evil’, so in protest millions of Iranians rallied and chanted ‘Death to America’ as they celebrated the twenty-third anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and burnt the US flag.62 In 2002, during hajj, in spite of the Saudi ban on political demonstrations, Iranians in the Iranian complex chanted ‘Death to Israel, Death to America’.63 On 20 March 2011, when Pastor Terry Jones presided over a Quran-burning in Gainesville, Florida it sparked deadly attacks in Afghanistan. On Friday 1 April 2011 in Mazar-e-Sharif, northern Afghanistan’s largest city, thousands of protesters came out of the Blue Mosque and marched toward the United Nations mission. The angry mob entered the compound chanting ‘Death to America’, burnt the US flag and killed seven UN workers. Demonstrations also spread throughout the country.64 First Amendment

Parveen (15 years, female, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: I am a Bengali), migrated five years ago from Bangladesh. She was going through the

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acculturation process, and becoming bicultural through her public school secular education. It was difficult for Parveen to separate herself completely from her Bengali culture. She spoke of Bengali celebrations and songs, while at the same time she appreciated the American way of life, particularly the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.65 Parveen said:

To be an American it’s kind of to be free. You have a lot of freedom that you don’t have in other countries. Especially freedom of press, freedom of speech like going outside, for instance I’ve heard that in Britain, because of all the terrorist groups and terrorist attacks they actually have a lot of cameras in streets or outside of your house. Like you don’t have any more privacy. And in America government cannot do that because in the Constitution it’s says you know, the First Amendment, you have your responsibility. I mean you have your freedom and if the government were to put cameras outside of somebody’s house or things like that without permission then people could sue them. People could sue the government and actually win I guess in the Supreme Court. So I think that to be American is to be free and we should be proud. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Parveen observed that the First Amendment protects all Americans irrespective of their culture and religion, and that makes America better than Britain. Some other participants in this study mentioned the privilege all Americans (including minorities) get through the First Amendment. Historically speaking, Thomas Jefferson proposed the First Amendment in 1802 in his letter to a religious minority in Connecticut. In the First Amendment, religious freedom was addressed in these words, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’.66 Later, Congress passed the first ten amendments to the Constitution, called the Bill of Rights, to provide clarity on certain issues concerning freedom of religion. Some scholars such as Spellberg observed that from a historical perspective the First Amendment included protection of all faiths (including Muslims). Spellberg noted that in the eighteenth century when most Americans were uninformed, misinformed or simply afraid of Islam, Thomas Jefferson could foresee Muslims as future citizens of his new nation. His engagement with the faith began with the purchase of a Quran 11 years before he wrote the Declaration of Independence. He was also assumed to be under the influence of John Locke’s ideology of toleration of other faiths such as Islam and Judaism.67 Jefferson borrowed elements of John Locke’s inclusive philosophy, when he stated in 1776, ‘Neither Pagan nor Mohammedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion’.68 Analysts have observed that Jefferson was familiar with the Islamic faith through his slaves and through his experience of military actions against Tripoli. These experiences may have led him to reflect that perhaps not all Muslims were foreign and potential enemies. In his effort to advance his Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1786, Jefferson omitted the word ‘Jesus Christ’

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from the legislation, affirming his lifelong intent ‘to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination’.69 Spellberg concluded, ‘These words affirm Jefferson’s belief in the free exercise of religion in America, and the principle of American civic inclusion irrespective of faith’.70 On 13 August 2010 President Barack Hussein Obama reiterated Thomas Jefferson’s principle when he addressed American Muslims at the Iftar Dinner in the White House.71 Obama’s speech was given in the context of the resistance of some members of the wider society to the building of the Park51 Islamic Center (Ground Zero mosque).72 Pledge of Allegiance

Some participants said that their family and school have taught them how to be American. Semeen (22 years, female, US-born, identity: Puerto Rican Muslim) said:

To be American? The way I was raised here, to be American is to stand up when you hear the national anthem, to respect the President no matter what, not talk bad about the President. You can disagree, but not wish ill things towards the President, that’s the way I was raised in in America. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Amena (17 years, female, US-born, identity: Muslim Indian American) observed that to be American was to be patriotic and to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance: ‘When I was in public school what was considered American was to be patriotic and support your country … whenever they had the Pledge of Allegiance you had to stand up’ (interview, Massachusetts, 2009). Afeefa (15 years, female, US-born, identity: Arab-Italian-Muslim-American) further added respect for soldiers:

I don’t believe that there is an un-American if you live in America. An American would be someone who respects America, who would get up and do the Pledge of Allegiance, who would respect the soldiers no matter what they are doing, because they are fighting for the freedom of America. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

The participants positively connected respect for the US President, the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance to the concept of American. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy. In 1954, President Eisenhower added the words ‘under God’, due to the Communist threat of the time. It now reads, ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.’73 The use of ‘God’ has become a contentious matter among some Americans. For example, in 2011, Mike Wiles, a Columbus school-board member in Ohio, wanted every district school to begin the day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. But Columbus Superintendent Gene Harris said

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students generally learn the Pledge of Allegiance through their social studies class when they study citizenship issues, and regular recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance ‘would diminish the meaning of the words’.74 One American resident of Columbus objected to Mike Wiles’ proposal, commenting that the pledge was originally written by a socialist, who excluded any reference to God. But it was imposed in the 1950s to [N]od to Jesus into our schools under the guise of patriotism. But it’s not patriotism; it’s nationalism. Patriotism is developed as a person comes to understand what his country is all about. Nationalism is when superficial patriotic concepts are crammed down someone’s throat at an early age. I think it would be in the best interest of everybody if we took the pledge out of our schools once and for all.

The resident further observed, ‘Our schools are in dire need of improvement, and the school board was elected to bring those improvements about. The Pledge of Allegiance is not going to boost test scores; it won’t increase funding for facility improvements or educational materials’.75 National anthem

Nadia (17 years, female, US-born, European-Arab heritage, identity: 100 per cent American) said: I think what it is to be an American is you have to be productive in a way. You have to help the country in a way. So if you’re someone who just doesn’t do anything, who does crime, for example, that’s not being an American. It’s more of morals, actually. The land of the free, home of the brave. (interview, Florida, 2010)

America is supposed to be a secular country but the national anthem includes the word ‘God’: ‘And this be our motto: “In God we trust”. And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!’ Bushra (21 years, US-born, female, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: Bangladeshi Muslim American) commented: The Star-Spangled Banner [US Anthem]? I think they do have the word God in it. Which I don’t – even though a majority of people – majority religions, the Abrahamic religions are Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and of course we all believe in one God, but just because we are Muslim and Christians are Christian, we think that our religion is superior to another does not mean we have to enforce it on others. We can always give dawah, we can invite [nonMuslims to know about Islam]. We can share. But it does not mean we enforce it on others. So it may be very offensive to people that don’t believe in a God. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

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Bushra implied that to be American was to respect other religions even though the American national anthem includes the word ‘God’. However, critics have observed that in American politics the right-wing Tea Party take advantage of the word ‘God’ to claim that the United States is a Christian country and that tends to marginalise religious minorities, particularly Muslim Americans.76 Lacorne observed that America is a country whose highest court outlawed prayer in state schools; yet children recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which (since the revision in 1954) declares the United States to be ‘one nation under God’. However, most presidents including Barack Obama tend to end their speeches by saying, ‘God bless the United States of America’. The words ‘In God We Trust’ on US dollar bills also reveal the contradiction in America claiming a separation of church and state.77 Democratic rights

Ayesha (age 22, female, overseas-born, identity: Syrian Muslim) said ‘Being American means freedom, they do whatever they want’ (interview, Maryland, 2010). While Jabir (17 years, male, US-born, Palestinian heritage, identity: Muslim American) noted:

Well to be American, from my point of view is to act in the political process, the founding forefathers did a process in how things are done and you get the civic process type bills. And there’s lobbying and all this democratic things that you can do and being American will be incorporating yourself in those topics. Un-American is if you just sit there and just do nothing. (interview, New York, 2010)

Jabir’s view on lobbying may have been related to Israeli-American lobbying in the United States on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Lobby groups have the power to influence policy makers because they are also big donors in election campaigns. Under this process, those groups who are not financially affluent may remain marginalised in the political process.78 A tossed salad

The notion of ‘American’ has been described as a ‘tossed salad’, ‘salad bowl’, and ‘melting pot and co-existence’. Bushra (21 years, US-born, Bangladeshi origin, identity: Bangladeshi Muslim American) said that she faced discrimination during a job interview because of her hijab (headscarf).79 However, she held an optimistic view of American society in general. Bushra said: When people are American, I guess it’s when they are born here and they conform to the ways here. But being an American also means that you have civil liberties, you have your rights as an American. The salad bowl concept and coexisting is one of the biggest concepts enforced in America. And I think

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to be an American is when you bring your beliefs and your concepts, and you can coexist with another religion or another ethnicity. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

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Sadiqah (23 years, female, US-born, Palestinian/Jordanian background, identity: Arab Muslim) observed: A tossed salad being, everybody can hold onto their cultural roots but at the same time be American. And I think America’s very close to what Islam is, as the universality of the religion itself in that it accepts, it can adapt and accept everyone and I think that’s what America is. (interview, Florida, 2010)

While Bushra perceived Americanness as co-existence, Sadiqah equated it with Islamic practice. The next participant, Nadira, connected Americanness with diversity. Nadira (18 years, female, overseas-born, identity: Lebanese) noted:

Being American it’s being here, you get to see other cultures. When we were in Lebanon we didn’t even know about Sunni/Shia, it was to that point everyone was just Lebanese. When I came here, I and my family started knowing the Sunni and the Shia people. When we came here we met Iraqis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Algerians. We got to see their cultures, some people are different. Some people are alike. Some people are more open minded about everything, and some are just like still old days. Yeah. That’s what’s good. And to be unAmerican is like you get to be Arabic. Like you get to be yourself. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Nadira’s comments bring to mind Tajfel’s ‘social identity’ theory.80 In identity construction, people look for group similarities as well as differences. In Lebanon people constructed themselves as one group or nationality, ‘Lebanese’. But in a different country such as America, immigrants tend to construct their identities differently and tend to preserve them and pass them on to the next generation, such as Sunni and Shia Muslims. This identity construction may come from their diasporic situation in their host country, or cultural insecurity, or simply be a part of their acculturation process in their host country.81 American values

The concept ‘American’ has been variously described as independent thinking, Bill of Rights, freedom, inclusiveness and patriotism. For example, Ameena (age 20, female, US-born, Egyptian background, identity: Arab American Muslim) stated:

I would define being American as appreciating the values that were established with this country. First you know, it was based on just immigrants basically from that were persecuted in Europe that came here. So I think that notion of

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fighting for what’s right and not being afraid to be who you are, I think that’s what defines being American, not just your ethnic identity or it’s just those values that you stand up for. (interview, Florida, 2010)

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Khojesta (age 30, female, overseas-born, identity: Muslim American Pakistani) defined American in terms of culture:

I like to define American culture for myself, as you know the very values that the forefathers celebrated, like freedom of speech, liberty, equality, egalitarianism, kind of like respect for oneself and for other, other human beings … and if anything that conflicts with good things, I like to say that’s un-American. (interview, New York, 2009)

A Muslim imam/sheikh (age 45, overseas-born, male, identity: IndonesianAmerican) stated:

For me to be an American is to uphold the American values and that is upholding freedom, tolerance, justice, equality, inclusiveness, upholding the work ethos, I mean working hard, the importance of rationality, being rational and think on everything; I think being American is about values, not about just the country, but it’s a value that this country upholds highly. And unAmerican simply, you know behaving in contradiction to the values that America uphold highly. (interview, New York, 2009)

Most participants in this study connected ‘American’ to positive meanings. However, some participants thought that American values should not be considered exclusively American. Some expressed their scepticism about the term ‘American’. For example, Sohaib (16 years, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: American Muslims) stated: Okay being American … you know good qualities like honesty and politeness and trustworthiness. There’s no such thing that saying that these are American qualities, or Bengali qualities. You can’t associate them with from what country you’re from. It just defines you by the society but it’s not, you can’t say that these are American qualities. (interview, Virginia, 2009)

Similarly, Ajmal (16 years, male, US-born, identity: Yemeni-American, also global citizen) said, ‘Technically there is nothing as an American or a Yemini [values]. It’s all the same. It’s all places on earth’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Maha (17 years, female, Sierra-Leone heritage, identity: mostly Muslim) observed: ‘There are other places that have free speech and democracy’ (interview, Florida, 2010).

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American values and Islam

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The participants mentioned that American values included inclusiveness and egalitarianism. Esposito and Mogahed observed that Muslims’ holy book, the Quran, similarly emphasises diversity, inclusiveness and co-existence among people. One Quranic verse states:

O humankind, We have created you male and female, and made you nations and tribes for you to get to know one another. Indeed, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of Him. Behold, God is all-knowing, all aware. (Quran 49:13)82

In this study, one participant equated Islamic and Christian values (for example the Ten Commandments) with American values. For example, Nausheen noted that the values promoted by the Ten Commandments in Christianity, such as ‘Thou shall not kill’, ‘Thou shall not steal’, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’, ‘love thy neighbour’, are also the values taught in Islam.83 Nausheen (21 years, US-born, female, identity: American-Pakistani) said: The whole thing [American values], freedom to practise your religion, freedom of speech, as we [Americans] do … people have a lot of rights is actually, in Islam we [Muslims] do too … I agree with a lot of their rules like if you look at it the Ten Commandments and things like that, I do agree with those. I think it is something good that every person should be given their rights. (interview, Virginia, 2009)

Fazlul (27 years, male, overseas-born, Pakistani origin, national identity: American) equated the American Constitution with the Quran:

Being American is, Americans have a lot of ideals that Islam and the Quran has, which has a lot of parallels between the American Constitution and the Quran, freedom of religion, what Allah says in the Quran there’s no compulsion to religion … In the Quran it says clearly, investigate even the Quran ’cause if it’s not from Allah it will have many contradictions … encourage free thinking … And that’s something I think that America actually got from Islam with the cultural exchange between the Muslim Spain and Europe, with the Moors yeah. (interview, Florida, 2011)

As discussed earlier, US Presidents such as John Adams and John Quincy Adams maintained close ties with Muslim countries including Morocco, Ottoman Tripolitania and Tunis. In 1777, Morocco recognised the United States as an independent country and in 1786 signed one of the earliest treaties with the United States. In a letter to the envoy of the Sultan of Morocco finalising the treaty of

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peace and friendship between the United States and Morocco, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson used the hijri dating of the Islamic calendar and closed their letter with the words, ‘may the providence of the one Almighty God, whose kingdom is the only existing one, protect your Excellency’.84 Therefore, Fazlul’s observation that the American founding fathers were familiar with Islamic principles and Muslim countries is credible. Saiful (30 years, male, overseas-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: American) thought that the American value of tolerance was also an Islamic value:

I think tolerating other people’s religion is definitely American, but there are some caveats on what people definitely should be open. I mean one of the main portions of the Quran that come to mind is when [Prophet] Moses [Peace Be Upon Him] went to Pharaoh and Allah says, ‘Speak to him in kind words’. You know definitely there’s that tolerance that Allah encourages … I think Islam has more history in America than they would like to admit. (interview, Florida, 2010)

The Prophet Moses (Musa, PBUH) is mentioned more than 120 times in the Quran, because Allah/God wanted to save the nation of Israel/Bani Israel.85 Prophet Moses called the Children of Israel to worship God alone. Prophet Moses’s story revealed his trials, tribulations and triumph over the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh exerted his ruthless authority over the people in Egypt. He enforced class distinctions, dividing the people into groups and tribes and setting them against one another. In this setting, he placed the Jews, the Children of Israel, at the lowest level of Egyptian society. In the face of tremendous challenges from the Pharaoh, Prophet Moses (with God’s help) was able to set the Children of Israel free. So the interviewee, Saiful, referred to Prophet Moses’s tolerance and perseverance against the Pharaoh. He perceived that Prophet Moses exhibited tolerance, so in the American context it was not anything innovative.86 Scepticism

Suraiya (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Pakistani) connected being American to notions of superiority when she said, ‘Being American is stereotypical sort of notion such as modernised. Though China is modernised, America is perceived to be modernised’ (interview, New York, 2009). Aasia (20 years, female, Indian heritage, identity: South Asian Kashmiri) was sceptical about how Americans take ownership of democracy. Aasia commented: Sometimes people say democracy is American. Not true. Democracy didn’t originate in the US. I think the first, it was Greece then. I think you could best define American, by saying that really the definition just has to keep expanding to include everyone … not only who holds a passport of citizenship. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

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Aasia is doubtful that American means inclusiveness given the fact that some people such as Latinos who are not immigrants and working in the United States are not granted equal rights.

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Racism/Islamophobia (American or un-American?)

About 11 participants identified racism, racial profiling and Islamophobia with ‘American’, while 58 participants considered them ‘un-American’. Racism and Islamophobia are related terminologies that both involve Othering minorities; however, Islamophobia has a more cultural connotation. Modood noted that racism is generally directed against a non-white person but racialisation of culturally different Asians, Arabs and non-white Muslims leads to cultural racism. Cultural racism is likely to be particularly aggressive against those minority communities that want to maintain some of the basic elements of their culture or religion,87 for example Sikhs wearing their turban or Muslim women wearing their hijabs. Murad (17 years, male, US-born, identity: American, Egyptian, Muslim) observed, ‘A true American should be not racist, they should be accepting other people, but half of the Americans here nowadays they’re racists’. Murad’s view was based on his ambition to be an aerospace engineer. Murad said that he wanted to get a job in NASA but his parents had warned him that he might not get the job because of his Muslim name (interview, New York, 2010). Rania (18 years, female, US-born, identity: Muslim Sri Lankan American) shared the racial profiling her brother faced at the US/Canadian border: My brother … has a short beard. He was taken aside … it was for a short time, but still, the fact that they have to do that. It’s very uncomfortable. I remember this one lecture guy at this one convention I went to. He was saying we all breathe a sigh of relief when we cross the Canadian border … cross the American border into Canada … I was actually in Canada yesterday, and we were crossing the border and we were like, Oh, great, we have to listen to all these questions again. It’s uncomfortable. I would be tense. To Toronto. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Van Driel observed that Islamophobia generates distrust, fear or rejection of Muslims.88 Martín-Muñoz observed that Islamophobia happens when people are blinded by prejudice and stereotypes that internalise reductionist and monolithic images of Islam as the Other.89 In this study some female participants who wore the hijab perceived Islamophobia as both ‘American’ and ‘un-American’. Khadija (40 years, female, overseas-born, Somali heritage, identity: Somali), who wore the hijab, described her experiences before and after 9/11:

Before 9/11, one day a guy chased me and he was riding a bike and I was driving. I made a U-turn, he made it with me, then because he had a bike I drove faster than him and I went the other direction because I didn’t want him

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seeing my house, then I came home and I told my husband what happened and we actually reported to the police. After 9/11, yeah, he was white American, and when he saw us he started walking towards us and he looked calm. Yeah, so we stopped the car and my husband was trying to get out of the car, but when he opened the door the guy came and he pulled my husband and he punched so hard. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Khadija’s perception of Americans was that they were racists. Since Khadija and her husband were coloured people and she wore the hijab, the perpetrators’ acts could have been manifestations of both racism and Islamophobia.90 The term ‘racial profiling’ refers to discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials who target individuals on suspicion of crime or terrorism based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.91 Ata (15 years, male, USborn, identity: African American) was proud of his Islamic heritage, but he was distressed about his mother being racially profiled in public spaces because of her hijab.

My mother, she was going to take a trip to Washington, DC. And she was going through security check, her bags, they do the standard procedure. But then, they took her in the back to check her some more. And they actually told her to remove her scarf. Then she told her religion, you’re not supposed to remove it for another brother. So they sent a female security. But that’s like on my own personal experience … I’ve heard about other people’s stories, but that’s my own personal story. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Academic Sayyid observed:

Islamophobia is a concept that emerges precisely to do the work that categories like racism were not doing. It names something that needs to be named. Its continual circulation in public debate testifies to ways in which it hints at something that needs to be addressed.92

In other words, it shows that Islam and Muslims are perceived as a problem. Like racism, it is used to justify exclusionary practices against Muslims. Research has found that the lives of Muslims (and Arabs) in America have become exceedingly difficult because of the Patriot Act.93 Smith observed that soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks the USA Patriot Act was signed into law. It allows law enforcement agencies to use surveillance, and to search and deport people suspected of terrorism-related acts.94 Ameer (20 years, male, overseas-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: Pakistani) spoke of the Patriot Act as ‘un-American’: And so what the Patriot Act does is it restricts your freedoms, it allows people to have more power over you then is morally or ethically responsible. And so

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that is in many ways ‘un-American’. And so it’s not necessarily just, you know, what America decides or what America accepts as American. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Some airports have introduced a full-body scanner, which some Muslim women who value the notion of conservative clothing or purdah find offensive. Duaa (18 years, female, identity: Muslim, Bengali American) believed racial profiling was an American practice: Honestly, I think manual checking with the metal detectors is enough … I heard a lot of people complaining … that’s going too far was the body scanners. They practically look at you and practically strip you down. I think that’s too much, like violation of someone’s privacy.

Later, Duaa connected racial profiling with race and religion:

I think they’re, just making Muslims look really bad, making us feel really bad. Making the non-Muslims hate us. Trying to slowly kick us out of their country. Yeah, I know this Bengali family. They were deported. They were here for a couple years, and they had their papers and everything. A lot of people came, about 200 people, and they tried so hard to stay, but they got kicked out. They weren’t citizens. They were trying to apply, but they wouldn’t let them. They are Muslims. That might be why. Because I believe that if it was someone from Bosnia or Albania, from a European country, that wouldn’t have happened to them. Because that only happens very rarely to Europeans if they do something to get kicked out. But honestly, like Arabs, Bengalis, the Muslim races, even if you don’t do anything and you’re a good citizen, they’ll find a reason to get you. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Duaa believed that Muslims were seen as a less desirable group of immigrants than non-Muslim Europeans. She equated Muslims to a ‘race’ who were susceptible to deportation because they were not considered ideal citizens. Some scholars have also discussed the harassment Muslims face at American airports. For example, Ali Mazuri was associated with the Muslim American Congress, the old American Muslim Council and the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. Mazuri said that on his return from overseas on 3 August 2003 he was detained at Miami airport for seven hours under repeated interrogation. He missed his flight from Miami to New York and had to leave the next day. He was interrogated by immigration, customs, Homeland Security and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.95 Mazuri observes that Muslim identity can be constructed by two major processes: the unifying power of shared achievement or the unifying power of shared suffering. Muslims’ heritage in the past was a unifying factor. But would shared suffering by Muslims unify them, asked Mazuri.96 Mazuri observed that in

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the aftermath of 9/11, ‘On and off there are hundreds of people in detention without trial under American jurisdiction. They are overwhelmingly Muslims’.97 However, it is not publicly announced that they are in detention. The US Attorney General John Ashcroft gave the FBI authority to spy on churches, mosques and other sacred places.98 Naber observed that soon after 9/11 the FBI targeted US-born citizens, non-citizens and naturalised immigrants. The primary targets were working-class men, although some women were also included in the racial profiling, surveillance, detention and deportation.99 In the first few months after 9/11, about 7,000 men were detained. There is no record of the number of deportations. The FBI interviewed 5,000 Arab and Muslim men in America.100 American race relations history discussed so far through the participants’ observations about the concepts ‘American’ and un-American’ has revealed that racism has been manifested in different forms, for example, through the exclusion of Native Americans and the institution of slavery. Yet, exclusionary policies erupt time and again in different states. Figure 2.2 shows that racial profiling against blacks has shifted to the Latinos; and Figure 2.3 shows that it now focuses on Latinos and Muslims.

Figure 2.2 Anti-immigrant Law

Source: The Muslim Observer, 29 June 2011. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

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Figure 2.3 Racial Profiling

Source: The Muslim Observer, 6 May 2010. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

In the context of US race relations history (and Figures 2.2 and 2.3), it is worth noting the contribution of Martin Luther King to the black community. In April 1963, Martin Luther King went to Birmingham, Alabama, a city where public facilities were separated for blacks and whites. King intended to force the desegregation of lunch counters in downtown shops through a non-violent protest.101 As the Birmingham campaign continued, the images of police brutality shocked the world and gained a lot of sympathy for the civil rights movement. After pressure from President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, Birmingham shops and businesses finally agreed on 10 May to desegregate all rest rooms, lunch counters, fitting rooms and drinking fountains, and to hire more black workers. The President started to push for a new civil rights law. In 1965, King led the Selma to Montgomery march. After a series of incidents and demonstrations the civil rights movement was successful in gaining certain rights for African Americans.102 Finally, in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. It aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States.

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However, exclusionary practices are now focused against Latinos and Muslims. At the state level, some states are considering restrictions on undocumented and unauthorised immigrants. In 2010, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070 was passed. It requires police to determine the immigration status of someone arrested or detained when there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ they are not in the United States legally. After SB 1070 was passed, two dozen copycat bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country; five passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah. The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of civil rights organisations have filed lawsuits in all six states.103 Though the immigration law in Arizona may impact on Latinos, Muslim leaders observe that it will also impact on Muslims. Dawud Walid, a Muslim leader in Michigan, said, ‘Since legal status in America cannot be ascertained by looking at persons’ skin color or religious attire, this bill becoming law has the potential of targeting Latinos and Muslims from various national backgrounds’.104 In 2011, Alabama passed the toughest anti-immigration law in the US, HB 56, which resulted in the deportation of undocumented families and migrants. More than 800 Hispanic students have either withdrawn or not returned to state schools. Many Hispanics who worked in the construction industries fled Alabama for Tennessee or Washington state because of the law and in fear for their families and children.105

Exclusively American

Some participants connected the concept ‘American’ with certain factors that made America unique. For example, Faseehah (16 years, female, overseas-born, identity: 100 per cent Bangladeshi) compared America with her country of origin when she said, ‘Back home, if we don’t have job, like no food or anything, you can die, but here no people die because of no food’ (interview, Michigan, 2014). Faseehah characterised America as a country where there is food security. Fawad (27 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Egyptian) saw Americans as people who are looked after by their government. He observed: To be an American, which we know is a good thing for any person. When you have the nationality of the most powerful country in the world. So it’s security. It’s a guarantee that no one will touch you. Me, as a prosecutor in Egypt, if any American citizen come to my office, I take care of him, because he’s American. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Kamal (age 35, male, overseas-born, Algerian background, identity: African American), compared America with other Muslim countries and thought that, even after 9/11, Muslims in America did not suffer much. Kamal commented:

I think 9/11 went very smoothly and it proved the strength of the American country. Muslims didn’t suffer here in the United States, they didn’t suffer at all if you wish. Any person who got arrested because either their visa has expired or they’re still in here illegally. I don’t know of any person who got arrested just

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for the sake of being arrested. If the same thing happened in any other country, even in a democratic country Muslims would have suffered really. (Interview, Massachusetts, 2010)

Kamal said that after 9/11 he had mainstream American friends who offered him help. Muslim women who wore the hijab were also asked by the mainstream community if they needed any assistance when they wanted to go to mosques for prayers or to any public space. So there was a lot of compassion in the wider society. Ruhee (30 years, female, Palestinian origin, identity: Arab American) compared America with some Arab countries, and found America was a better place to live. She found real Islam in America.

I consider myself a practising Muslim and for both my husband and I we cannot imagine ourselves living back home whether it’s Jordan or Syria. We truly believe that the real Islam is here in terms of dealing with people, in terms of the structure and organisation and institutions. You know there is so much corruption back home whether it’s Syria, whether it’s Jordan, whether it’s Palestine … (interview, Florida, 2010)

Some participants noted that America was far better than Europe where Islamophobia was rampant (see Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4 European Islamophobia

Source: The Muslim Observer, 1 May 2010. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

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Khan (60 years, male, identity: Bangladeshi American) migrated to the United States in the 1970s. He noted:

Being American doesn’t take away your historic background, which is great so nobody really looks down on us that we are from Bangladesh or anywhere else and other things that America has is religious freedom. One or two people might insult you, but law says over here you can pray anywhere you want and you can build mosques anywhere you want, the local government cannot stop you. So that’s another thing which gives us a boost. I heard in Australia the local government turn down if you want to build a mosque. They say this will create traffic problems, this will create noise problems, they’ll give you reasons and turn you down, same thing they do in England and Germany, France, but they cannot do it here. So I think, here we have great advantage that’s why so many mosques are being built here. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Khan’s observation that Muslims in other countries such as Australia face resistance in mosque building is credible. Like America, Australia has a number of mosques but some mosque-building initiatives were opposed by local people and city councils.106 Khan also referred to Islamophobia in some countries in Europe when Muslims attempt to build mosques. Research has found that in Britain some politicians have made overt remarks on Muslim women’s niqab (face veil), or have alleged that Muslims will introduce Shariah law.107 In France, the hijab is banned in public schools, and the niqab is banned in public spaces. In Switzerland, mosques are not permitted to build minarets. In Denmark, a cartoonist upset many Muslims with his cartoon of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).108 Khan’s observation that Islamophobic attitudes are rampant at the local and national level in some European countries is credible. However, this study has found that America is also not immune to Islamophobic attitudes.109 American means to be fearful

Muslims in America have built mosques since the early twentieth century. For example, mosques have been built in Maine (1915), Connecticut (1919), Highland Park, Michigan (1919), Michigan City, Indiana (1925), Brooklyn, New York (1926), Pittsburgh (1930), and Sacramento, California (late 1930s).110 The first purpose-built mosque, the Mother Mosque of America, was built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1934. In 1953 the Federation of Islamic Associations of the United States and Canada was established to address Muslim issues. The Muslim presence was gradually recognised by American authorities. In 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower inaugurated the Washington Mosque by cutting its ribbon.111 As Muslim immigration to America grew after 1970, more mosques were established. In 2011, the US Mosque Survey counted a total of 2,106 mosques; as compared to the year 2000 when 1,209 mosques were counted. This represents a 74 per cent increase from 2000 to 2011.112 However, with the growing negative

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international news on the Muslim world and the 9/11 Twin Towers attacks, some mosque-building initiatives have faced resistance. For example, in 2010 there was tremendous resistance to the building of the Park51 Islamic Center (Ground Zero Mosque) in New York. It was finally opened in September 2011.113 Other mosques faced resistance from some members of the wider society, and participants associated with those mosques shared their perspectives on the concepts American and un-American. When I asked a participant, Nuzhat (female, age 35, US-born, Asian heritage, identity: Muslim American), ‘What is meant by the term “American”?’ she replied, ‘fearful’. Her response was against the background of the development of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC, some call it Roxbury Mosque), Nuzhat further commented: I think the backlashings against the Muslims after 9/11, and I mean it also depends on who you’re talking to, whether they’re afraid to talk to you; they might be just exhausted, we get interviewed all the time to be quite honest with you. You know people are constantly, like I worked with this masjid. I did all of the public speaking … about the Muslim community, I’ve been on the TV, I’ve been in the papers. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Nuzhat spoke of the media hype during the ISBCC/mosque case. She spoke of the Boston Globe columnists who opposed the building of the ISBCC. She recalled:

So Jeff Jacoby is one that I’ll say. There’s another guy who I won’t name, but he’s been very mixed. I mean he has written things that are balanced, but I really don’t trust the way that he approaches the subject matter.

In 1999, the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) got a piece of land from the Boston Redevelopment Authority to build an Islamic community centre (and mosque). After the groundbreaking ceremony, in 2003, the ISB started facing resistance from some members of the wider society. The Boston Herald and local Fox 25 published stories accusing ISB leaders of links to terrorism.114 James Policastro, a resident of the Mission Hill neighbourhood of Boston, filed a suit against the city of Boston with the claim that it was illegally supporting religion by selling a parcel of land to the Islamic Society of Boston for $175,000, well below market value. Policastro filed his suit after a series of articles in the Boston Herald were published. The articles alleged the mosque project was funded by Saudi and Middle Eastern sources and linked ISB leaders to Islamist terrorists. That same year, the local Fox station ran stories alleging that mosque leaders had ties to terrorism. While Policastro filed the suit in his own name, much of the legal work was handled by a lawyer from the David Project.115 The David Project, a right-leaning, pro-Israel advocacy group, began to publicise the charges and seek public hearings. It later became clear that news stories were their ‘strategies to attack the mosque’.116 In 2005, the ISB filed a

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defamation suit against the groups and media outlets. Matters got more complex between mainstream Jewish organisations and the David Project group. Some Jewish groups were critical of the ISB’s ties with three controversial Muslims such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.117 However, a group of young Jews believed that the fear mongering and Islamophobia of some Jewish groups and media outlets against ISB was counterproductive and ‘un-American’. So they launched a website (www.supportthemosque.org) to encourage others in the Jewish community to support the ISB. Finally, in 2007 the lawsuit was settled.118 Another participant, Saqeeb (male, US-born, Asian heritage, identity: Muslim), was also associated with ISBBC at a certain point. He recalled that around the time of the groundbreaking ceremony in 1998, locals like Mayor Menino and Senator Cary supported the ISB staff. But later, the media turned to stereotypes in their reporting of the construction of the mosque. He recalled:

The very sensationalistic ones were The Boston Herald and Fox News … they had a picture of Osama bin Laden and a picture of the mosque … And then there was a lawsuit that was brought against the city and the mosque saying that the land deal was the violation of the separation of church and state because … the city sold the land at a discounted price of actual money. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Saqeeb said:

The lawsuit was brought by an individual named James Policastro … The Globe as well as the Policastro lawsuit was an entity named the David Project which is a kind of far right Israel advocacy organisation and it had a number of individuals, you know … some of the usual big Islamophobes in America, Steve Emerson, Charles Jacobs and Anna Cullodner and others were actually driving this fear … The Fox News and Boston Herald really put the leadership of the mosque physically at risk. I mean they got death threats … Then only did the leadership of the mosque decided to sue for libel, to sue for defamation against the two media sources … In a very recently post-9/11 environment to say that Al-Qaeda has landed in Boston and so on and so forth, it’s like saying fire in a crowded theatre. So this incitement was really dangerous.

Another participant, Roxana (45 years, female, US-born, mainstream American convert, Muslim convert, identity: American), shared her frustrations on the resistance to the building of the ISBCC: Those Islamophobes are still around. They just have their own articles. There’s nothing they can really do. It’s a fait accompli, you can’t do anything. We’re in here, the building is open. There’s thousands of people coming here every single year. What are you going to do? They stand basically on the corner and

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say we are a hotbed of terrorism. This is their thing. They’re [Islamophobes] just afraid because this is a very visible symbol. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009).

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Roxana noted that, on the other hand, local Muslims were resolute about their practice of Islam in the mosque.

You know, when the gay population in this country flip those signs up, which says, ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get over it’. Well, this is like that for them in reference to Islam. We’re here, we’re Muslims, get over it. We’re not going anywhere, and we’re not leaving. We’re not tearing it down. We’re not moving out. We’re going to become visible. We’re not small. We’re not stupid. And we’re not the kind of people that you can take advantage of. And we’re not terrorists. And that scares them [the Islamophobes]. So they’re going to just keep on going. They’ve nothing but put articles after articles after articles. They are like the right wing hawk newspapers that pretend to be left wing like The Phoenix … When it comes to us [Muslims] they are terrified. But when it comes to other social issues, they’re liberal.

Roxana mentioned another Boston newspaper, The Jewish Advocate:

There’s a guy in the Jewish Advocate who’s the leader of the David Project. His name is Charles Jacobs, and he is always writing column after column after column of the same old stuff. And the funny part is that, if we were really Islamic extremists, there would be no woman – I wouldn’t be working here in an office full of guys. They’d have a man doing my job.

Roxana spoke of the people who were against the mosque:

It’s a certain organised extremely conservative Jewish groups. And they operate under the radar, and they drag in Americans who are afraid. And play on their fears to continue on this stupid path, which has nothing to do with anything … We have an expression in America – we call it ‘poor white trash’. It’s about sickly people who are completely illiterate, completely racist.

Two participants, Nuzhat and Roxana, observed the fearful nature of Americans. While Nuzhat explicitly mentioned that to be American was to be ‘fearful’ … ‘they’re afraid to talk to you’, Roxana used the words, ‘They drag in Americans who are afraid. And play on their fears to continue on this stupid path.’ All three participants, Nuzhat, Saqeeb and Roxana, spoke about how the anti-mosque groups and some media worked together against Muslims, and Roxana explicitly described them as ‘Islamophobes’. Mayor Tom Menino played an instrumental role in the establishment of ISBCC. When Mayor Menino passed away in 2014, the ISBCC community paid him tribute for his service and dedication.119

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Fuad (19 years, male, US-born, Egyptian heritage, identity: Egyptian American Muslim) was sceptical about the words ‘American’ and ‘un-American’. Based on Fuad’s observations about certain incidents that happened to his former school principal, Dr Sami al-Arian, Fuad believed that ‘American’ means to ‘distrust’ Muslims, so un-American would be the opposite, hence: ‘Trust is un-American’. Fuad regarded his former principal Dr Sami al-Arian very highly. He was distressed about how the government handled his case. Fuad stated: A couple of examples of people that have been arrested for expressing their opinions because they’re Muslim but others that are not Muslim, Americans, Christians, Jews, whatever, they can say whatever they want, and they call it the First Amendment, freedom of speech. But we [Muslims] violate our First Amendment. (interview, Florida, 2010)

When I asked the participant, ‘So was there anybody who got arrested in Florida, any Imam or anyone else?’, he replied:

Well the principal of my former school was arrested. They said he was actually funding orphans overseas in Palestine … He was developing a fund to support them, but then they turned it around and said that he was supporting terrorist funds. He was a very bright guy, he was a professor at USF … Dr Sami al-Arian.

Fuad further noted:

Something that would be American is they’re very biased. They’re very biased to other groups because most Americans find themselves superior to any other groups. Something to be un-American is I’d say trust. ’Cause they can give you their word and not follow it in many ways. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Dr Sami al-Arian was a Palestinian-American civil rights activist. He was also a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida. He came to the US in 1975 to seek higher education and better opportunities. In February 2003, Dr al-Arian was arrested on terrorism charges. He was indicted on 53 counts of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was designated by the US government as a terrorist group. If convicted, Dr al-Arian would have faced multiple life sentences and 225 years in prison. Supporters of Dr al-Arian (including mainstream Americans, his attorneys and legal teams) viewed it as a political case. Dr al-Arian was kept under house arrest from 2008. In 2014, the Federal Court dismissed all charges against Dr al-Arian, and he was deported.120 In 2015, in his good-bye note, Dr al-Arian said that he always wanted to live in a free society where freedom of speech, association and religion was not only tolerated but guaranteed and protected under law. He then stated:

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Today, freedom of expression has become a defining feature in the struggle to realize our humanity. The forces of intolerance, hegemony, and exclusionary politics tend to favour the stifling of free speech and the suppression of dissent. But nothing is more dangerous than when such suppression is perpetuated and sanctioned by government … One hard lesson that must be learned from the trial is that political cases should have no place in a free and democratic society.121

Exclusively un-American

In this study, participants defined ‘un-American’ mostly from their observations of the community they moved in. Marzia (35 years, female, overseas-born, Bangladeshi background, identity: American) defined un-American in general terms: We’re founded by the Puritans who came here for religious freedom, so we are the society where everyone’s free to practise their religion. So if anyone violates that by being overtly prejudiced, then we feel ashamed. That’s unAmerican to do that. (interview, Maryland, 2010)122

Marzia asserted herself as an American. She perceived that violation of religious rights would be considered un-American. Other participants provided other definitions of un-American. For example some participants perceived American foreign policy as ‘un-American’.123 Many participants associated ‘un-American’ with their own ethnic and religious culture.124 ‘Illegals’

Disapproval of some groups of people is not only confined to some mainstream Americans. Some members of the more established immigrant groups may also be suspicious of the arrival of a new group of people. For example, Seerat (17 years, female, US-born, Palestinian background, identity: Arab American) thought unauthorised immigrants in the United States were ‘un-American’:

What’s un-American, I don’t know how to word that. There’s so many different perspectives on what’s American and what’s not. You could probably consider something being un-American as foreign. Like, not to be discriminatory or anything, but the Mexicans. No offense. How they’re aliens. Illegal aliens coming into – I think that is pretty un-American. I understand that they have to come here to get a job to support their family back in Mexico, or in the other places. But there is a way to do it. You might need it immediately, but patience is a virtue. You’ll get it in time. You just have to be patient. (interview, Florida, 2010)

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Seerat’s version of un-American shows that immigrants who have lived in American society for a long period of time feel ownership of their host country and consider newcomers, in this context ‘illegal’ immigrants from Mexico, should not be welcome because they are ‘un-American’.

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Community observation

Nasim (19 years, male, US-born, Yemeni heritage, identity: American) related unAmerican to a hard life and illiteracy. He said, ‘Un-American … breaking your back ’cause you’re doing the hard job, working the factories, you didn’t go to school, you’re living the hard life’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Semeen (22 years, female, US-born, identity: Puerto Rican Muslim), said ‘To be un-American is disrespect … to shut someone down just because they’re different from you’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Faiz (17 years, US-born, male, identity: American Lebanese Muslim) said, ‘Un-American … Just not getting into all the stupid things everyone else is getting into’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Husna (21 years, female, US-born, Trinidad and Tobago heritage, identity: American Muslim) said, ‘An un-American is, I guess, maybe someone who came here and they have no fixed business or green card or anything. They’re striving to be an American’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Naseef (17 years, US-born, identity: Filipino/Egyptian) related un-American to not enjoying one’s citizenship rights and violating traffic rules. He said, ‘Being un-American would be able to not participate in the system and be fine. You know without voting, without being in the line and driving, without staying properly in your lane’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Dawood (26 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Lebanese) commented, ‘Even if he [a person] is American but he’s not serving the United States, like for example those persons that, they do those credit cards frauds and all these stuff and the insurance [fraud]’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Abida (22 years, female, US-born, Palestinian heritage, identity: Arab American) was frustrated that some Muslims were opportunists who did not want to integrate with the wider American society, which she thought was un-American. She stated: To be un-American is like if you think about it, people come here, they want to use the benefits such as health care, welfare, you know social security all that, but at the same time they’re going to talk bad about American people and they don’t respect. They don’t realise that they’re here the same reason that other people are here. The people that first came to this country is because where they lived they didn’t have the freedom to do what they wanted to do. So, in essence you’re doing the same thing what they did three, four hundred years ago and instead of assimilating and making the situation into a positive you’re just going to sit around and mope and make it a negative, I guess that’s not American because you’re not pursuing your opportunity. That’s why it’s called the land of opportunity. (interview, New York, 2009)

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Disloyalty

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About 53 participants explicitly mentioned that disloyalty was un-American (see Table 2.2). Razzak (25 years, male, identity: more Bangladeshi) commented: Well to be un-American is when, let’s say the World War II, the Vietnam War they had the draft and a lot of people left the country and that’s pretty unAmerican. If you are living in this country, why would you even leave this country, your country needs you to fight. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

In the United States, military conscription has been used many times during its wars. In 1973, the draft was abolished but men of draft age (18–25) still have to register with the Selective Service System so a draft can be readily resumed if needed. During wartime, some Americans flee the country to avoid the draft. For example, during the Vietnam War about 50,000 Americans fled to avoid the draft for various reasons.125 Some Americans later justified their fleeing to other countries because of their anti-war sentiment.126 However, Razzak believed that in times of war Americans should be loyal to their country. Another participant, Yunis (22 years, male, Guyanese heritage, identity: Muslim), said, ‘Un-American is to harm the interests of this country or to spread chaos and violence in this country which I think is not only un-Islamic but I think it’s un-American as well’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Yunis did not condone violence on American soil. Since 9/11, the ‘Muslim question’ has raised doubts about whether Muslims are loyal to their host country. In this study the participants spoke of loyalty as American and disloyalty as ‘un-American’ (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2). Some participants were critical of American foreign policy.127 But none of them supported extremism or terrorism. In 2011, based on interviews with 1,033 Muslim Americans, the Pew Research Center found that 64 per cent of American Muslims felt there was little or no support for extremism in their communities. However, 15 per cent of American Muslims supported extremism.128 Grewal discussed the trend since 9/11 of some American Muslim students travelling to Muslim countries to learn about Islam. They enrol in government-sanctioned religious institutes such as Abu Nour in Damascus or AlAzhar in Cairo but they may also attend informal religious classes offered outside the classroom or in private houses. Their common language is the ‘crisis’ of Islam. When they return to the United States they focus on ‘establishing Islam’, ‘preserving Islam’ or ‘carrying’ Islam. Grewal noted that American student travellers and their peers in the Middle East are thinking of ‘the future of their tradition in the US and the world’.129 However, Grewal did not mention whether this group (student travellers) constitute the 15 per cent of Muslims who support extremism. Grewal also found that some students associated with the Muslim Students Association in American universities prefer to identify themselves as ‘Muslim first’. The identity politics of ‘Muslim first’ can be a hindrance to American diversity and the ‘melting pot’.130 However, in my research on young American

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Muslims I found that some participants defined themselves as ‘only Muslim’ but this did not imply that they did not contribute to diversity or the ‘melting pot’. They were very bicultural even with their single Muslim identity.131 Nevertheless, the Pew Research Center’s finding that 15 per cent of Muslims support extremism cannot be dismissed, if we consider the case of US-born and educated Anwar al-Awlaki, who attended a university in Yemen. Later, al-Awlaki returned to the United States and preached radicalism in the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia in 2001.132 The Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan has been alleged to have been under the influence of al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki was believed to have lived his later years in Yemen from where he continued to radicalise American Muslims. For example, he is alleged to have radicalised Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted the 2009 Christmas Day bombing of an American plane.133 In another incident of disloyalty, about 18 American adolescent boys and young men of Somali heritage living in the Minneapolis area went to Somalia to join the militant training camps run by the extremist Al-Shabaab organisation in 2007– 2008.134 In 2015, the FBI said that more than 200 American Muslims have travelled or attempted to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.135 For this study, I interviewed the 379 participants in 2009–2011. Many participants then observed disloyalty to be un-American in general terms. They were critical of the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan but at the same time they pointed out the bias of the American media – in particular, if criminals are not Muslim the media does not specify their religious affiliation, but it emphasises their religion if they are Muslim.136 Name-calling

Some participants considered name-calling un-American. For example, Fariha (female, 16 years, US-born, Palestine, identity: American Muslim) said, ‘UnAmerican is to call someone a terrorist on the middle of the train or a nuclear bomber in the middle [of a train]. Yeah, they called me that twice’ (interview, New York, 2010).137 Surma (17 years, female, Egyptian Muslim/Russian Jewish background, identity: Muslim American) said, ‘I guess you’re un-American if you don’t talk the way they [some Americans] do or use slang or, curse every minute or … you know the ‘N’ word or there’s a lot of things … it’s not good’ (interview, New York, 2009).

Islamophobia

Some participants spoke of experiencing Islamophobia because they looked different. Mariyam (22 years, female, US-born, converted to Islam, identity: African American) looked visibly Muslim because of her colour and hijab. She said:

Un-American is I think people who are American that judge other people and tell them, ‘Oh why don’t you go back to your country’. I’m like my country’s

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here, I’m born here, I’m like why don’t you go back to your country which is Europe right? ’Cos everybody’s from somewhere, everybody emigrated here somehow. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

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Sumaiya (15 years, female, US-born, identity: Algerian American) shared how her brother was singled out because of his ethnic visibility:

The thing is that un-American I think is pushy discrimination, which is really prominent now, even though it shouldn’t be. It’s like a thing that’s really unAmerican, because if you’re saying something against someone who is different, it’s like this whole point of America is that it’s a place with different kind of people. So it doesn’t matter who you are.

When I asked Sumaiya, ‘So can you name any incidents of discrimination?’ she replied:

Oh yeah. In 2007, one time we were in Florida, and it was me and my brother, I think I was in seventh grade or something, and my brother’s older, and we were sitting on the side of the road, I think we were in Disneyworld or something. And this guy walks up with his friends and he’s like, ‘Oh, look, a suicide bomber on the other side’. And I didn’t really hear him, but my brother did, and my brother was really mad, and I was like, just sit down. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Human Rights Watch reported that after 9/11, among other minority groups that have historically been targeted, Muslim Americans became the most frequently targeted group in hate crimes.138 Research has shown that Muslim Americans routinely encounter discrimination. In the media Muslim Americans are portrayed as terrorists.139 Prejudice in schools

Some Muslim students reported facing discrimination at school. In a group learning activity a teacher who was a veteran and had served in Iraq asked his Muslim student to come to the front of the classroom. The teacher then used his computer to broadcast Azan (Muslim call to prayer). This joke generated laughter from other students in the classroom. The Muslim student felt humiliated but he pretended to ignore it and answered the American history question.140 In another incident, a new Muslim student who was wearing a hijab entered the class, and as she sat a classmate whispered to the participant, ‘Watch out, she has a bomb.’141 The hostility from nonMuslims typically included strangers calling them ‘dirty Arabs’ and ‘terrorists’.142 Another teacher was identified by a student as a veteran of the US armed forces. In a US government class, the teacher contrasted the Middle East with the United States. The teacher commented, ‘The Middle East stones people when they do

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something wrong’. The student noted that the comment was offensive because it misinterpreted Shariah law. It was also ‘an overgeneralization, characterizing all Muslims and nonsecular Muslim governments as religious extremists’. The Muslim student observed that Shariah law is the Islamic code of conduct about society, family and individual behaviour. For example, Shariah law regulates Muslims’ way of life and saying prayers five times daily. It proscribes gender roles and prohibits alcohol and extra-marital sex.143 In 2014, in my fieldwork I also found some similar stories of teachers’ prejudice. One former public school student, Noori (19 years, female, US-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: Muslim American) said that in her history assignment on ‘What Islam did to women’? she wrote the text book response that Islam treats women equal. But her teacher did not agree with this answer and insisted that she should write that Muslim women were oppressed because the way they dressed with their hijabs. The student refused to write that so she scored poor grades.144 In this context it should be noted that Muslim women wear the hijab for various reasons.145 Some women may consider the wearing of the hijab as a religious obligation. Some women choose to wear the hijab and abaya or burqa (loose long garment) to pay due respect to the teachings and tradition of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), known as the Hadith or Sunnah. In some Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the wearing of the hijab is mandatory, whereas in other countries, such as Bangladesh, it is a matter of personal choice. Some women wear the hijab for cultural reason or as an identity marker. It could be her own choice or family requirements. In 2015, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas when he brought a homemade clock to school. The school confused it with a bomb, and thus transformed him into a ‘symbol of perceived anti-Muslim bias’.146 Ahmed has been released, and his family has decided to leave the United States for the unforeseeable future. About 30 Congressmen have asked the federal government to investigate whether anti-Muslim discrimination prompted Ahmed’s arrest.147 A political concern

Mona (15 years, female, US-born, Egyptian origin) who defined herself as Muslim thought a political or economic system which is contrary to the American system would be un-American:

Un-American, maybe where there isn’t that much freedom of speech, for example, speaking against the government in some countries is prohibited and you can go to jail for it. This is a very capitalist society, so in other countries there is mostly socialist or whatever but un-American is that you’re not a capitalist because this country solely runs on capitalism in business. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Akbar Ahmed has observed that the concept of individualism and equality differentiates the Muslim and the Western world, particularly the American system.148

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The West takes pride in its technical advances, democracy, equality, supremacy of the individual, class structure, and so on. But when one takes Western policies against indigenous populations (for example Native Americans), the Western concept of equality gets eroded. On the other hand, Islam offers a contradictory picture. The individual is regarded as ‘subordinate to the ummah. God is the focus, the pivot, of creation and everything else takes it cue from this reality. But before God human beings are equal. The egalitarianism in Islam is genuine and pronounced’.149 All Muslims are expected to offer their daily prayers, which reveals their submission to Allah. During hajj, Muslim class, status and racial superiority are removed as pilgrims tie around themselves the prescribed two-piece cloth known as the ihram. However, in reality, inequality in Muslim countries, including dictatorships and the treatment of women, children and poor people, ‘depict a depressing picture of inequality’.150 Therefore, both Muslim and non-Muslim worlds have their merits as well as failings.

Conclusion

This chapter has revealed that the participants generally held positive views of the notion ‘American’ and perceived ‘un-American’ as the opposite to their concept of American. Their views have added to knowledge about the race relations and immigration history of America. They have further added to critical Muslim studies in the American context. In the historical perspective, some participants acknowledged that Native Americans are the original owners of the land. In their socio-economic arguments, participants of Arab heritage observed that colour is still an issue, for example, ‘White people are Americans’ highlighted the existing class dynamics of American society. One participant of African-American background recalled the oppressive history of his people. The participants’ interviews also reflected the diversity among American Muslims. For example, some participants spoke of American values as unique to America while some said that those values were Islamic and universal as well. Some participants thought ‘exclusively American’ meant racist or Islamophobic. Their views were based on their real life experience, such as the struggle to build a mosque or unfair treatment of their mentors. ‘Exclusively un-American’ was also discussed from the participants’ lived experiences, for example, some participants were yelled at by people saying ‘Go back to your country’, or experienced racial profiling of their family at airports. Others did not draw a line between American and un-American, as discussed under ‘Some scepticism’. The participants also discussed ‘un-American’ by making observations about their own community, for example, they believed that some Muslims were not inclined to integrate, or took advantage of government facilities and so on. Challenges in education were noted as American. Disloyalty was identified as un-American. The participants’ opinions revealed that some older or established Americans of diverse backgrounds may look down upon new groups of people. For example, a Muslim participant considered the Mexicans as ‘illegals’. The Haitian participant said that she was stereotyped as ‘dirty’ by some African Americans. Some African-

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American Sunni Muslims believed that they were not accepted by immigrant Muslims. So there are layers of persistent race relations issues in American society. But in discussing the concepts American and un-American, the participants highlighted Islamophobia as a major issue in American society, for example, racial profiling at airports, yelling at people who are visibly Muslim in public places, and harassment of students in their classrooms.

Notes 1 2

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Throughout this book, for a better understanding of the participants’ views, I have provided their demography such as their age, heritage and identity as they defined themselves. Mitt Romney, No Apology: Believe in America (New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 2011), p. 286. Ibid., p. 286. Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012); Mohamad Ridhuan Abdullah, ‘Islamophobia and Muslims’ Religious Experiences in the Midwest – Proposing Critical Muslim Theory: A Muslim Autoethnography’ (PhD Thesis, Kansas State University, 2013). Joseph F. Healey, Diversity and Society: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender, 4th edn. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014), p. 122. Nazli Kibria, Cara Bowman and Megan O’Leary, Race and Immigration (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2014), p. 9. Ibid., p. 9. Maurice E.R. Munroe, ‘Perspective: UnAmerican Tail: Of Segregation and Multicultural Education’, Albany Law Review, 64 (2000): 241–308, see pp. 268–269. Ibid., p. 286. Nadine Naber, ‘The Rules of Forced Engagement: Race, Gender, and the Culture of Fear among Arab Immigrants in San Francisco Post-9/11’, Cultural Dynamics, 18/3 (2006): 235–267, p. 241. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, What is an American Muslim: Embracing Faith and Citizenship (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 50–55. Ihsan Bagby, ‘The American Mosque in Transition: Assimilation, Acculturation and Isolation’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35/3 (2009): 473–490, p. 475. Arnold Krammer, Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). A similar pattern of internment of ‘enemy aliens’ took place in Australia during World Wars I and II. See Nahid Kabir, Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 95–142. Naber, ‘The Rules of Forced Engagement’, p. 242. John Voll, ‘Charging Opponents with Anti-Americanism is Old Politics’, in Mohammed Nimer (ed.), Ismaphobia and Anti-Americanism: Causes and Remedies (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications 2007), pp. 27–34. US Department of State, American Muslims (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2014), p. 15. Amir Nashid Ali Muhammad, Muslims in America: Seven Centuries of History (1312–2000), 2nd edn. (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 2001) pp. 9, 15. See also, Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 12–14.

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Gulam M. Haniff, ‘The Muslim Community in America: A Brief Profile’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 23/2 (2003): 303–311, see pp. 303–304. Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 2013), pp. 120–122. Halal means slaughter of animals in the Islamic way/permissible according to Islamic law. Jackleen M. Salem, ‘Citizenship in Question: Chicago Muslims Before and After 9/11’, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, 7/2 (2011): 1–20, see p. 2. See also, Sally Howell, Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). Pew Research Center, America’s Changing Religious Landscape (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2015), www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changingreligious-landscape/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Bagby, ‘The American Mosque in Transition’, p. 474. Voll, ‘Charging Opponents with Anti-Americanism is Old Politics’, pp. 32–33. See Chapters 3, 4 and 5. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart and Lemyra M. DeBruyn, ‘The American Indian Holocaust: Healing Historical Unresolved Grief’, American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research, 8/2 (1998): 56–78; Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, Josephine Chase, Jennifer Elkins and Deborah B. Altschul, ‘Historical Trauma among Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: Concepts, Research, and Clinical Considerations’, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 43/4 (2011): 282–290. John R. McKivigan, History of the American Abolitionist Movement: A Bibliography of Scholarly Articles (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1999). See also, Steve McQueen, Twelve Years a Slave (movie based on a true story), 30 January 2014. James Truskow Adams, Epic of America (New York: Little Brown & Company, 1931), pp. 214–215. Cited in the Library of Congress, ‘The American Dream’, www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/american-dream/students/the dream.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Cited in Lawrence W. Samuel, The American Dream: A Cultural History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2012), p. 31. Ibid., p. 5. Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 107. Romney, No Apology: Believe in America, p. 12. Healey, Diversity and Society, pp. 130–274. Romney, No Apology: Believe in America, p. 215. Ibid. William G. Roy, Making Societies: The Historical Construction of Our World (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001), p. 88. Ibid. Tony Gaskew, Rethinking Prison Reentry: Transforming Humiliation into Humility (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014). Roy, Making Societies, p. 105. John Leland, ‘Tension in a Michigan City over Muslims’ Call to Prayer’, New York Times, 5 May 2004, p. 20. Sally Howell, ‘Competing for Muslims: New Strategies for Urban Renewal in Detroit’, in Andrew Shryock (ed.), Islamophobia, Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press,

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41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

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2010), pp. 209–236, see p. 218. In the British context, Kabir found that when minorities such as Jewish or Polish immigrants attained economic affluence and upward mobility, they would move to a more exclusive mainstream suburb. Or sometimes, ‘white flight’ takes place automatically when another ethnic immigrant group settles in that neighbourhood. See, Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young British Muslims: Identity Culture, Politics and the Media (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 34, 43–44. Roy, Making Societies, p. 80. Arif Khan, ‘On the Outside’, in Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny (eds), Growing Up Muslim: Muslim College Students in America Tell Their Stories (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2014), pp. 121–132. I discuss culture and acculturation in detail in Chapter 3. Stuart Hall, Polity Reader in Cultural Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), p. 122. Richard F. Kiely, Frank Bechhofer, Robert Stewart and David McCrone, ‘The Markers and Rules of Scottish Identity’, Sociological Review, 49 (2001): 33–55, see p. 36. Fiona Douglas, Scottish Newspaper, Language and Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), p. 19. Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘Muslim Youth’s Identity in Australia: Vigilant, Rational and Bicultural’, Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 1/1, (2015): 82–96, p. 88. Richard Jenkins, Social Identity, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 18. Ibid., p. 41. Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets, Identity Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 160–161. H. Tajfel (ed.), Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (London: Academic Press, 1978). Cited in Jessica Jacobson, Islam in Transition: Religion and Identity among British Pakistani Youth (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 10. J. Turner, ‘Social Categorization and the Self-Concept: A Social Cognitive Theory of Group Behaviour’, Advances in Group Processes: Theory and Research 2 (1984): 77–122; J. Turner, C. Hogg, M.A. Oakes, S.D. Reicher and M. Wetherell, Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self Categorization Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), cited in Jenkins, Social Identity, pp. 112–113. Ibid. Samuel, The American Dream, p. 37. Kibria, Bowman and O’Leary, Race and Immigration, pp. 124–125. Healey, Diversity and Society, p. 306. Patrick Solomon Pobee, ‘Letters – In My Opinion – Fight Racism from the Inside Out’, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 16 October 1997, p. A19, Gemima M. Remy, ‘Haitian Immigrants and African-American Relations: Ethnic Dilemmas in a Racially Stratified Society’, Trotter Review, 10/1 (1996), pp. 13–16, http://scholarworks.umb.edu/trotter_review/vol10/iss1/5 (accessed 15 February 2016). Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering, reprint (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). See also, Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 82–83. Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Blackman in America, reprint (Phoenix, AZ: Secretarius Memps Publications, 1997 [1965]), pp. 36, 38, 43.

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‘Ahmadinejad Says Israel–Palestinian Peace Talks “Doomed”’, SBS World News, Australia, 4 September 2010, Newsbank data (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Iranians Chant “Death to America”’, The Hamilton Spectator, 12 February 2002, p. D05. Reuter News, ‘Haj Pilgrims Denounce Israel and U.S.’, Reuters News, 22 February 2002, http://0-global.factiva.com.library.ecu.edu.au/ha/default.aspx (accessed 30 July 2011). Jeffrey T. Kuhner ‘Ban Koran-Burning?, The Washington Times, 7 April 2011, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/7/ban-koran-burning/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Culture will be discussed further in Chapter 3. Cited in US Department of State, American Muslims, pp. 13–14. Denise A. Spellberg, Thomas Jefferson’s QUR’AN: Islam and the Founder (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), p. 3. Ibid., pp. 237–238. Ibid., p. 238. See also, Thomas Jefferson, ‘Autobiography’, in Adrienne Koch and William Pedan (eds), The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Modern Library, 1998), pp. 3–104, see p. 46. Spellberg, Thomas Jefferson’s QUR’AN, p. 238. Barack Hussein Obama, ‘Remarks by the President at Iftar Dinner’, 13 August 2010, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/13/remarks-president-iftar-dinner (accessed 15 February 2016). For further information on resistance to Park51 Islamic Center see Chapter 5; see also Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 20–22. ‘The Pledge of Allegiance’, Historic Documents, no date, www.ushistory.org/ documents/pledge.htm (accessed 15 February 2016). Jennifer Smith Richards, ‘Columbus Schools Daily Pledge Recital Sought; SchoolBoard Member Proposes Policy Change’, The Columbus Dispatch, 4 August 2011, p. 1A. Steve Croyle, ‘School no Place for Pledge of Allegiance’, Letters to the Editor, The Columbus Dispatch, 12 August 2011, p. 8A. Review by Clive Crook, ‘Demented Faith or Godless Mammon’, Financial Times, 1 August 2011, p. 6. Crook reviewed Denis Lacorne’s book, Religion in America: A Political History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). Right-wing groups are discussed further in Chapter 5. Crook, ‘Demented Faith or Godless Mammon’, p. 6. Zaid Jilani, ‘Why the Israel Lobby Grip on to Politics may be Waning’, Al Jazeera America, 10 August 2014, http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/israellobby-us-politicsaipac.html (accessed 15 February 2016). This is discussed further in Chapter 5. Bushra’s discrimination case is discussed in Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 50–51. Tajfel (ed.), Differentiation between Social Groups. This is discussed further in Chapter 3. Quranic verse cited in John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think? (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), p. 9. Catholic Bible 101, ‘The Ten Commandments’, no date, www.catholicbible101.com/ thetencommandments.htm (accessed 15 February 2016). Islamic values are discussed further in Chapter 3.

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US Department of State, American Muslims, p. 15. See also, Spellberg, Jefferson’s QUR’AN: Islam and the Founder. Aisha Stacey, ‘The story of Moses’, 2010, www.islamreligion.com/articles/3366/ viewall/story-of-moses/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Tariq Modood, Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity and Muslims in Britain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 38–39. Barry van Driel, ‘Introduction’, in Barry van Driel (ed.), Confronting Islamophobia in Educational Practice (Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham, 2004), pp. vii – xiii, p. x. Gema Martín-Muñoz, ‘Unconscious Islamophobia’, Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 8/2 (2010): 21–28. For similar case studies, see Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘Young Somalis in Australia, the UK and the USA: An Understanding of Their Identity and Their Sense of Belonging’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 34/3 (2014): 259–281. American Civil Liberties Union, ‘Racial Profiling Definition’, no date, www.aclu. org/racial-profiling-definition (accessed 15 February 2016). S. Sayyid, ‘A Measure of Islamophobia’, Islamophobia Studies Journal, 2/1 (2014): 11–25, see p. 11. Arab Detroit After 9/11 Team, Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009); Tony Gaskew, Policing American Muslim Communities: A Compendium of Post 9/11 Interviews (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008); Louise Cainkar, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), p. 128; John Esposito, The Future of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 163. Jane I. Smith, Islam in America, 2nd edn. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), pp. 187–188; William Wininger and Aziz Huq, ‘PATRIOT Act’, in Jocelyne Cesari (ed.), Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States, Vol. 1, (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 489–492. Ali A. Mazuri, ‘Is There a Muslim American Identity’?, Journal of Islamic Law and Culture, 8/1 (2003): 65–77, see p. 66. Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 71. Ibid., p. 72. Naber, ‘The Rules of Forced Engagement’, p. 253. Ibid., p. 253. National Archives UK, ‘Heroes and Villain’, no date, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ education/heroesvillains/g6/cs2/ (accessed 15 February 2016). CNN, The Sixties: A Long March to Freedom (1960–1968), transcript, 26 July 2014, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1406/27/tsix.01.html (accessed 15 February 2016). American Civil Liberties Union, ‘Arizona’s SB 1070’, no date, www.aclu.org/ feature/arizonas-sb-1070 (accessed 15 February 2016). CAIR, ‘Call Gov Synder to Oppose Arizona Style Profiling Bill’, www.cairmichigan. org/action_center/action_alerts/ (accessed 15 February 2016). See also Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 90–91. Laura Dixon, ‘Schools and Fields Empty as Fearful Immigrants Flee’, The Times (London), 6 October 2011, pp. 42–43. Kabir, Muslims in Australia, pp. 175–196, 278–284; Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘Muslims in Australia: The Double Edge of Terrorism’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration

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Studies, 33/8 (2007):1277–1297, pp. 1283–1285. Kabir, Young British Muslims, pp. 143–198. Ibid., pp. 106–107. See also, Bhikhu Parekh, A New Politics of Identity: Political Principles for an Independent World (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2008), p. 105. Discussed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. AANM Educational Series, Arab Americans: An Integral Part of American Society (Dearborn, MI: Arab American National Museum, 2009), p. 16; Abdus Sattar Ghazali, ‘The Number of Mosque Attendants Increasing Rapidly in America’, American Muslim Perspective, 4 August 2001, www.amp.ghazali.net/html/mosques_in_us.html (accessed 15 Febrary 2016). Haniff, ‘The Muslim Community in America’, pp. 303–304. Ihsan Bagby, The American Mosque 2011 (Washington, DC: CAIR, 2012), www.cair. com/images/pdf/The-American-Mosque-2011-part-1.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). Karen Zraick and Verena Dobnik, ‘Park51 Islamic Center Opens its Doors Near Ground Zero’, The Huffington Post, 22 September 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/ 2011/09/22/park51-islamic-center-ope_n_975585.html?ir=Australia (accessed 15 February 2016). Jane Lampman, ‘Boston Mosque Rises Above the Fray’, The Christian Monitor, 12 July 2007, p. 13. Judy Rakowsky, ‘Lawsuits Dropped, but Battles over Boston Mosque Continue’, Forward, 27 June 2007, http://forward.com/news/11052/lawsuits-dropped-butbattles-over-boston-mosque-c-00063/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Lampman, ‘Boston Mosque Rises Above the Fray’. In 1979, the Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a revivalist Islamic scholar, cautioned American Muslims against the danger of assimilation and urged them to proselytise and ensure the next generation’s Muslim identity. See Zareena Grewal, Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority (New York: New York University Press), pp. 141, 190–191. Al-Qaradawi’s speeches also had anti-Semitic undertones. See Uriya Shavit, Islamism and the West: From ‘Cultural Attack’ to ‘Missionary Migrant’ (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2014), p. 126. Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, The Pluralism Project at Harvard University, 2014, www.pluralism.org/profiles/view/74890 (accessed 15 February 2016). Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, 30 October 2014, www.facebook.com/ ISBCC.org/posts/775175569188231 (accessed 15 February 2016). Laila Al Arian, ‘Who Stands with the Accused?’, The Nation, July 2/9, 2012, pp. 31–34. Sami Al-Arian, ‘U.S. Deports Never-Convicted Professor and Activist Dr. Sami alArian’, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 34/3 (2015): 44–46. In his book, Democracy in America (University of Michigan, 1863), Alexis De Tocqueville discussed the contribution of Puritans to the US. He observed that Puritans established America’s democratic social state of equality. They were equal in education and belonged to the middle class when they arrived in America. Tocqueville also noted that Puritans contributed a synthesis of religion and political liberty in America that was exemplary for Europe, particularly in France. See the detailed discussion on the Bush and Obama administrations’ foreign policy in Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 76–79, 148–177. Discussed in Chapter 3.

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Catherine Philp, ‘Goodbye Uncle Sam – US Army Deserters’, The Times (London), Time Magazine, 28 July 2007, p. 34. John (no last name), ‘35 Years Later: An Interview with a Vietnam Resister’, December 2002, www.eelpie.org/cricket/vietnam.htm#works (accessed 15 February 2016). For further discussion see Chapter 5. Pew Research Center, Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2011), p. 1, www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). Grewal, Zareena, Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority (New York: New York University Press, 2013), pp. 49–51. Ibid., p. 140. Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 94–97. ‘FBI: Fort Hood Suspect had Ties to Radical Imam’, USA Today, 10 November 2009, p. 2. Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 125–133. Stevan Weine, John Horgan, Cheryl Robertson, Sana Loue, Amin Mohamed and Sahra Noor, ‘Community and Family Approaches to Combating the Radicalization and Recruitment of Somali-American Youth and Young Adults: A Psychosocial Perspective’, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways Toward Terrorism and Genocide, 2/3 (2009): 181–200. Julian Hattem, ‘FBI: More than 200 Americans Have Tried to Fight for ISIS’, The Hill, 8 July 2015, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/247256-more-than-200americans-tried-to-fight-for-isis-fbi-says (accessed 15 February 2016). For more discussion see Chapter 4. For more discussion see Chapter 4. Karen J. Aroian, ‘Discrimination against Muslim American Adolescents’, Journal of School Nursing, 28/3 (2012): 206–213, see p. 206. See also, Human Rights Watch, ‘We are not the Enemy’: Hate Crimes against Arabs, Muslims and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslims after September 11, (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002). Aroian, ‘Discrimination Against Muslim American Adolescents’, p. 209. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 210. Ibid., p. 209. Notes taken by the author, New York, July 2014. See also, Ranya Tabari Idliby, Burqas, Baseball, and Apple Pie: Being Muslim in America (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 8 and 208. Avi Selk, ‘Ahmed Mohamed will Move to Qatar’, Dallas Morning News, 20 October 2015. Ibid. Akbar S. Ahmed, Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society, revised edition (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 220–221. Ibid., p. 221. Ibid.

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Culture matters

Research on young Muslims growing up in America has found that many Muslims are living in extremely challenging times. The challenges are multi-layered. Most of their parents are first-generation immigrants who arrived in the United States under either the skilled or humanitarian category. Initially, many first-generation immigrants experience culture shock. Some also remain disappointed with the class structure and racial inequality that persists in some sections of American society. In the new cultural environment, Muslim parents may also become overprotective of their children’s upbringing. In their edited book, Growing Up Muslim, Garrod and Kilkenny discussed the life stories of 14 young Muslims in America.1 The stories revealed the dynamics of Muslim identity, cultural norms in some families, cultural sensitivities, wider society’s lack of knowledge of minority cultures, the hijab dilemma, the influence of the diaspora, Muslims’ awareness of American foreign policies and its impact on their freedom of speech, and repercussions of 9/11 on American young Muslims. The stories showed that some young American Muslims remain under tremendous pressure to meet their parents’ cultural expectations.2 In their educational institutions, young Muslims were expected to assimilate with the wider society’s culture. In her book Muslim American Women on Campus, Shabana Mir examined the stories of 26 Muslim girls from two colleges in the United States.3 Mir observed that American Muslim women experience ‘double scrutiny – from their own communities and from the dominant ones – they found and created spaces within both communities to grow and assert themselves as individuals’.4 In the process of becoming individuals, they encountered many ‘conflicting expectations, resistance, triumph, compromise, and surrender’.5 In this chapter, I try to understand how the participants’ place themselves in their ethnic/Islamic and mainstream American cultural context when they define the terms American and un-American. I first discuss the meanings of Islamic, ethnic and mainstream American cultures. Second, I discuss the participants’ views on the concepts of ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ in the diasporic setting. Third, I examine the notion of individualism and its impact on American Muslims. Fourth, I examine the overall placement of young Muslims within their complex cultural situations. Finally, I discuss the importance of biculturalism in American society.

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Culture is one’s daily practices, beliefs and meanings, and one’s way of life. Marc Ross observed that culture is a shared system by which people make sense of the world.6 It is inherited by a group of people, and is transmitted to other people in the same group through communication and historical memories. Culture is a framework that marks a group’s ‘distinctive way of life’ and the subjective ‘wefeeling’ among its group members. It is expressed through specific behaviours, customs and rituals that connect people through time and space. Cultural identities such as a similar ethnicity connect individuals through perceived common past experiences. It is also expected that members of the in-group will carry the memories of these shared past experiences with them into the future. Group members often go through similar developmental experiences and they may share common emotional concerns.7 Frances Raday observed that culture indicates a collective identity. There are two types of culture: social culture refers to people’s social organisations; and ideological culture, which relates to what people think, value, believe and hold as ideals.8 Different cultural norms may exist in an ethnically and religiously homogeneous society, for example, cultural norms may vary at the levels of family, workplace, church and state. Raday also believed that religion is an integral part of culture. People’s daily life is regulated by their religious beliefs which they hold as ideals.9 American-born anthropologist Clifford Geertz viewed culture as a complex phenomenon when he observed: ‘Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs’.10 Geertz noted that the meaning underlying one’s culture (or one’s web) can only be analysed through interpretation. On the surface, culture can look ‘enigmatical’, so the challenge would be its interpretation and explanation.11 Geertz conducted his long-term fieldwork in Indonesia (Java and Bali) and Morocco. He tried to understand these cultures through his symbolic interpretation of their practices, for example how the Javanese people distinguished their feelings, how Balinese people named their children, or how Moroccan people represented ‘synoptic characterizations’ to create a credible picture of a human form of life.12 Geertz admitted that interpreting other people’s cultures could be challenging. However, interpretation of a culture should be done from the perspective of local knowledge. Also, Geertz noted that interpreting ‘other’ cultural views in ‘our’ vocabularies with some ‘thick description’ could be helpful.13 Talal Asad did not agree with Geertz’s view of ‘thick description’ which was based on contemporary observation.14 Asad, being born and raised in a Muslim society and later educated and working in the United States, observed that culture is a lived experience where an understanding of a religion through its historical process (movements, classes, institutions and ideologies) is important. But Geertz failed to recognise that.15 I (the author) find both scholars’ arguments relevant. As I discussed in Chapter 1, I am a Muslim woman. I was born in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and I spent many years of my childhood in Pakistan (then West Pakistan). I lived in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman) for ten years, and also lived

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in the United States for about four years (and I am now living in Australia). I also hold a US permanent resident visa (Green Card), so I visit America regularly. In my family space, my husband is a Bangladeshi Muslim and we are parents of three adult children. Drawing on Geertz’s suggestion that it is important to live in a certain culture to understand and interpret its dynamics and Asad’s observation that it is important to be born and raised in a certain culture and religion to understand the lived experience, I try to interpret Islamic culture (including power and practice) through a historical perspective. I also try to understand both the Islamic and ethnic cultures of my participants (and their parents) and their perception of their ethnic/religious culture and American culture through their definition of the concepts of American and un-American. Islamic culture

Tariq Ramadan observed that Muslim identity is embodied within Islamic culture and is founded on Muslims’ belief in five pillars of Islam.16 The five pillars of Islam are shahada (there is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God); salat (prayer five times a day); zakat (alms giving); fasting (Ramadan); and hajj (pilgrimage).17 El Droubie further added that Muslim identity is instilled in children immediately after their birth with the call to prayer (adhan) in their right ear.18 The children first hear the word Allah soon after their birth; as they gradually grow older their family members teach them to recite the Muslim holy book, the Quran. Eventually, they learn to offer their salat and to fast, and gain knowledge about charity and the hajj. So their Islamic identity is formed within the Islamic family environment. Muslims’ consumption of halal food, prohibition of alcohol consumption, Muslim women’s choice to wear the hijab and Eid celebrations add to their Muslim identity. One could argue that Islamic practices should be considered only as religious practices. However, in my research I consider that since religious practices are so intricately associated with Muslims’ daily life, they should also be regarded as Muslims’ cultural practices (which make them separate from nonMuslims). Globally, about 87 per cent of all Muslims in the world are Sunnis and about 13 per cent are Shi‘ite.19 The followers of Sunnism are divided into four schools of law (fiqh, or jurisprudence): Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i and Hanbali. Today the Hanafi school has the largest number of followers in the Sunni world. Malikism is based mostly on the practice of Medina and is very conservative in its approach to the fiqh. The Shafi‘i school is followed by some Arabs, particularly Egyptians. The Hanbali school adheres to a very strict interpretation of the Shariah. Wahhabism and Salafism, which are dominant in Saudi Arabia, are really offshoots of Hanbalism. Both Wahhabism and Salafism are very much opposed by the vast majority of Sunnis and also by Shi‘ites. The other major branch of Islam, Shi‘ism, follows all the four Sunni schools of law, together with one additional school called the Ja‘fari.20 Many Muslims in Central and South Asia of the Hanafi school of thought in the Sufi tradition (who are known for their adaptability) have Islamised their local

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traditions and see themselves as generic Muslims. This is known as folk Islam.21 Folk Islam has not officially canonised saints or ‘Friends of God’ but historically some Muslims came to accept certain individuals they perceived to have an intimate relationship to God as saint-like.22 Mahbuba stated that folk Islam in Bangladesh is usually followed by a practising Muslim or a regular observer of Islam. However, folk Islam may not comply with the normative teachings of the Quran and hadith, and can sometimes be contradictory to the principal teachings of Islam. For example, visiting a mazar/dargah (mausoleum/shrine) and even prostrating oneself in front of the grave of a saint is contradictory to the principles of Islam. Muslims are meant to prostrate themselves only in the direction of Kabah which is considered submission to Allah. Some Muslims wear tabeez/taweez which is a piece of paper with Quranic verses and duas sealed in a locket. It is given by the living pir or Muslim Sufi saint. It is meant to protect Muslims from evil spirits and ill health, and to bring success in education, jobs or finding a good marriage partner. It is also believed that a tabeez may harm an enemy.23 Rahman noted that the religious practices of Sufi Islam or folk Islam are questioned by some Muslims.24 For example, Muslims observe Eid-e-Milad un Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and Shab-e-Barat, which is celebrated 15 days before the month of Ramadan which are not observed in the Middle East. Shab-e-Barat is considered one of the holiest nights for Muslims. Muslims normally pray throughout the night. Similarly, there are controversies on issues such as whether on Friday congregations (Jumma) Muslims can pray for the salvation of a deceased person. Some Muslims believe that only a family member should pray for the deceased. However, many Bangladeshi Muslims believe that it is religiously sanctioned to pray for the deceased in Friday congregations.25 In South Asia, particularly in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, after the Jumma (Friday) prayers there is a lengthy munazat (a traditional way of seeking God’s forgiveness by holding two hands in front of the face). However, Muslims in Middle Eastern countries generally do not have such lengthy munazat.26 Ethnic cultures

Ethnicity is defined as a shared sense of group identity that results from factors such as a common history, shared life experience, or common demographic characteristics such as skin colour. In contrast culture means the sum of experiences and learnt behaviour patterns of a given group. In other words, culture is a collective term that describes ‘the outward manifestations of the inner beliefs, values, and shared identity that define ethnic, religious or social groups’.27 Modood observed that nearly half of the South Asians in Britain are Muslims but not all Muslims are comfortable speaking about their Muslim identity, though Islam can be internalised in their ethnic/cultural identity. However, some Pakistanis view their cultural heritage as inseparable from their Muslim lifestyle. They feel proud of their ethnic Punjabi or North Indian cultural identity but their activities may speak a lot of their Islamic identity. In other words, their ethnic and Islamic identities are inter-related. Therefore, South Asian immigrants to Britain have been

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keen to teach their children to believe in the ‘uniqueness of their cultural distinct beliefs and practices, and felt that this cultural heritage was of value and under threat’.28 Modood noted that South Asian immigrants settle in a society very different from the one they have left, in which for example religion played a very important role in structuring their collective identities. These immigrants are aware of the stereotypes their collective identities generate in the mainstream society. But they are keen to retain their collective ethnic and religious identities because of their loyalty to their minority community ‘within a public discourse of equality and civic integration’.29 They want to maintain some of the basic elements of their culture or religion and thereby assert their difference in public and they expect respect from the mainstream society.30 For example, a Pakistani woman may choose to wear traditional dress such as shalwar-kameez (trousers and tunic) in public. Similarly, a Bangladeshi woman may prefer to wear her traditional clothing such as a saree.31 South Asian ethnic culture includes their traditional wedding celebrations such as the mehendi or henna night. On the first day of Eid, many Muslims prefer to wear new and colourful clothes (see Figure 3.1). Some Muslim girls put henna on their hands the night before Eid (see Figure 3.2).32

Figure 3.1 A Bangladeshi family in New York during Eid celebrations, 2015. All are dressed colourfully, and two girls have henna on their hands. Reproduced with kind permission from Saima A. Khan.

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Figure 3.2 Henna on a woman’s hands before Eid celebrations. Reproduced with kind permission from an anonymous contributor.

Enculturation and acculturation

In a diasporic setting, the children of first-generation Muslims (like many other immigrants) go through enculturation and acculturation processes. Enculturation generally refers to the process by which individuals learn and adopt the ways and manners of their respective culture,33 for example, speaking their native language, wearing traditional dress, and enjoying traditional food and dance. Muslim children also learn to adhere to their religious practices and rituals. Matsumoto and Juang stated that enculturation is related to ethnic identity development, whereas acculturation entails adopting a second culture.34 In other words, enculturation is first-culture learning and acculturation is subsequent culture learning, for example, learning the English language. Matsumoto and Juang observed that enculturation (into one’s ethnic culture) occurs mainly through parenting styles, child-rearing practices, peer groups, day care, the education system and religious institutions.35 For example, Bengali-speaking working parents may enrol their children in family day care run by women of Bangladeshi backgrounds. On the weekends, ethnic

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background parents often send their children to their respective ethnic and religious schools. Second-culture learning (acculturation) occurs through involvement in the external environment.36 For example, youths acquire education and Englishlanguage skills through public and private schools. They acquire knowledge of music and sports from their participation in the wider society.37 Some scholars, such as Markus, Kitayama, Matsumoto and Juang have noted that the process of enculturation and acculturation can be challenging for immigrant children. On the one hand, they can be raised within the non-Western collectivist family concept. On the other hand, they see the individualist family model in mainstream Western families.38 In the non-Western collectivist context, children or family members are expected to remain connected to and interdependent with other family members; for example, individuals will respect their family’s decisions rather than be adamant about their own choices. Immigrant parents may also expect their children to maintain contact with their extended family members back home. In the individualist context, a person is the sole decision maker about his or her destiny. It is also important to recognise that these cultural models are mere tendencies, and it is entirely possible for an individual to embrace both an individualist and a collectivist stance as precursors to acquiring bicultural skills. Some scholars such as Hofstede and Markus and Kitayama have noted that American culture emphasises an individualistic (independent) self while Asian cultures tend to be collectivist (interdependent). Hofstede observed that individualism represents a model of psychology in which people operate as unique and autonomous actors who pursue their self-relevant goals. On the other hand, in collectivism actors are seen as interdependent and inherently embedded within their social contexts, resulting in a sacrificing of self-interest for the sake of the collective.39 Lykes and Kemmelmeier observed that Markus and Kitayama initially developed their theory in the context of East–West comparisons. However, subsequent research found that the patterns of independence (individualism) and interdependence (collectivism) can vary widely across cultures as well as within cultures. In the broader application, individualist and collectivist cultures can have consequences of social anxiety or loneliness with their uneven blend. 40 American culture

Kim Zimmermann observed that, because America is a nation of immigrants, its culture has been shaped since the 1600s when the English colonised America.41 American culture has become a ‘melting pot’ with a blend of English, Native American, Latin American, African and Asian cultures. However, the main features of American culture include: the English language, the Christian religion, American clothing styles, American food, arts and sports, and American holidays. The American clothing style is mainly casual, including denim jeans, sneakers and cowboy hats and boots. Some of the well-known brands include Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. American cuisine, mainly influenced by European and Native American foods, includes hamburgers, hot dogs, beef steak, potato chips and corn

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bread. The United States is globally known as a leader of mass media, including television and movies. Americans also have a theatrical history and Broadway shows are popular in New York. American folk art includes quilts and other handcrafted items. American music includes rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, country and western, blue grass, rock ’n’ roll and hip hop. US sports include American football, basketball, baseball, hockey and tennis. American celebrations include the Fourth of July Independence Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas.42 Peter Skerry observed that American culture includes an emphasis on material advancement.43 It encourages rich people to grow richer and it also provides room for the non-rich to move up. From an economic perspective, the American dream cherishes continued economic growth. For more economic growth Americans will continue to progress through unregulated markets and, increasingly, regulated markets. America’s culture includes its market-based capitalist economy. Americans own two or three cars per family because most American cities and suburbs are not well equipped with inner-city rail and intracity mass transit.44 Thus, the Islamic, ethnic and American cultures have their distinct features, for example, folk Islam in the Islamic culture, wedding celebrations in ethnic cultures, and music and sport in American culture. In this study the participants were mostly US-born second generation immigrants or migrated to America at an early age. Their views on the concepts of American and un-American (discussed in the next section) reveal their upbringing within the complexities of their family, community and wider society. It also shows how they negotiate these complexities in their everyday life.

‘American’ and ‘un-American’ in a diasporic setting

The term diaspora originates from Greek etymology meaning ‘a scattering’ from the roots dia (apart) and speiren (to sow). Originally it referred to the exile of the Jews to Babylon in the sixth century.45 But in the contemporary context the term diaspora refers to a population living outside its homeland. Such populations are generally characterised by past traumatic events, or a legacy of collective memory or retaining cultural expressions through a multinational network.46 So there is now a Bangladeshi diaspora, and Indian, Arab and Muslim diasporas. In her research on Bangladeshi immigrants in America, Kibria found that some immigrants were keen to maintain Islamic traditions rather than their Bengali cultural traditions.47 Bangladeshi women who were not religious in their home country chose to become religious when they arrived in America. They feared that their children would be lost in the mainstream culture. For example, a Bangladeshi American mother said that in Bangladesh she had worked for several years as a model and an artist. She was not a practising Muslim. Now living in New York, she found that many Bangladeshis in her neighbourhood became very conservative in their outlook. She struggled hard to ‘to cope with a sense of “losing herself”’ when she became a practising Muslim so that she could ‘maintain a balance in her son’s

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life’. She said, ‘I find that I have to constantly teach my son, which one is halal [permissible in Islam] and which one is haram [forbidden in Islam]. These are big changes for us; at home we were more relaxed about religion.’48 Generally speaking, many families around the world are struggling with the competing pressures of individual autonomy and family solidarity. In the context of Muslim family life, Sherif observed:

Children are taught not to question the authority of either parent. This socialisation is constantly reinforced with reference to the Qu’ran and its emphasis on respect for one’s parents … A young child quickly learns that it is shameful to disregard parental directives. Conformity to parent authority extends to all spheres of life, such as the choice of a major in college, and at times, the choice of a spouse. Decisions that most Americans consider individual choices are, for Muslims, the result of extensive group discussions and negotiations. The individual may take the final decision but only after a great deal of familial input.49

Haddad et al. observed that it is a tremendous challenge for immigrant Muslim parents to raise their children in a Western society. For example, keeping their children aware of their traditional home values and their Islamic identity, and providing a sound education through the mainstream educational system while also imparting ethnic and Islamic education through after-school or weekend classes.50 Many American Muslims live in a diaspora, and their cultural and religious practices are still rooted in their country of origin. So in different celebrations their allegiances come to the fore. Haddad et al. observed that normally the traditional Islamic concept of the family is maintained more by the most recently arrived Muslim immigrant families than by many second- and thirdgeneration Muslim families. Some Muslims also opt to socialise with other Muslim families in the local mosques or Islamic centres to retain their Islamic identity.51 Some Muslim families maintain their cultural identification by socialising with people of the same cultural background, for example, Bengali Muslims with Bengali Hindus.52 Eid celebrations or any Islamic gathering may bring out their pan-Islamic or ummah attachment (Muslim community feeling transcending all national boundaries). Ethnic activities may generate deep feelings for their culture, for example, Muslims from Bangladesh may enjoy Bengali music and literature, while those from Pakistan may enjoy mushaira (a poetry recitation gathering). On the other hand, to conservative Muslims, any ethnic celebration may be deemed to be un-Islamic or an ‘allurement of Satan’.53 On the concept of American and un-American, a participant in this study who was a second generation immigrant, Amjad of Jordanian background (18 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Arab American), observed: I think what they [the first generation] try to do the most is because they weren’t raised here they try to maintain their sense of culture that they held … they brought their sense of culture with them from there. But for most of us

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the second generation, we were all of course all raised here so we have a stronger sense of an American identity instilled in us. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

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Ali of Egyptian origin (17 years, male, US-born, identity: Arab American) said:

To be an American is to have dreams for the future, to do something with your life and yeah, ambition. Un-American would be to sit home. Yeah, sit home and dread for the past and that stuff, not look forward to something else. (interview, New York, 2010)

Amjad’s comments indicated that the first generation are inclined to cherish their past and maintain their culture they brought from back home. Ali used the words ‘dread for the past’. Perhaps, he meant that some people worry that their past memories will be lost in their host country. These are some signs of how some immigrant parents live in a diaspora. Ahmed observed that in America many immigrant Muslim families have maintained close family ties. Young people normally live with their family until they marry. Parents tend to play major roles in their children’s life including choosing their clothing, friends, recreational activities, educational aspirations and spouses. Immigrant families may struggle with their familial expectations. Parents fear that their children (particularly daughters) will engage in religiously and culturally prohibited behaviours and therefore the parents limit their interactions with their non-Muslims peers. Ahmed observed that there are certain sociocultural and religious implications for Muslim youth with the onset of puberty. At a time when Muslim youth are trying to ascertain their identity and their place in Western countries, parental cultural and religious norms can impact on their development. Ahmed observed that children go through a critical transition between adolescence and adulthood, when they want to find out their identity. They ask ‘Who am I’ and Do I matter?’54 During this period children may expect privacy and independence from their parents. But their parents from a collectivist background may perceive this process as a rejection of their cultural and family values. Unger et al. observed that many ethnic parents (including Muslims) send financial help to their family members back home and try to support other family members to immigrate, thereby adding to crowding and economic hardship.55 However, fluid and flexible family and household boundaries may be a risk factor for family dysfunction. Many family members living together in a small house may lead to sleeping arrangements such as children sleeping in the same bed or same room as their parents, but this may be inappropriate for emotional health and safety. The nuclear family is still considered to be a model of healthy family life.56 But if migrants cannot afford to live as a nuclear family due to poverty and unemployment, then the vicious cycle of poverty tends to grow. The views of some participants of this study on ‘what it means to be American and un-American’ revealed some of their anxieties while growing up in America.

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Parental restrictions

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Mary of Palestinian origin (15 years, female, US-born, identity: Arab American) commented, ‘To be an American? I think is to just be normal, have fun. To be un-American? To know your limits … A lot of girls have limits like you can’t have a boyfriend’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Jannat of Palestinian heritage (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Arab American) said that ‘American’ meant children get more freedom from their parents: When I think of Americans, I think their parents give them more freedom and to be Arab girl, parents are more careful for their girls and they want them home at a specific time … American girls I feel their parents are more about letting them go. When they turn 18 they can move out. Our parents won’t let us do that until we’re married and we have somebody with us, probably. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Ramia (17 years, female, US-born, identity: Pakistani Muslim) spoke about the restrictions imposed by her parents as ‘un-American’:

Our parents were brought up by their parents who at that time had really different thinking. They were so strict with their kids, sometimes they told them, ‘You can’t go [there]’ … Our parents have been always strict on their kids. ‘You can’t go there’. I feel kids just need to be allowed sometimes to do things and experience it themselves, and sometimes parents from back seats don’t understand that. They feel they have to protect their kids from everything, but you really have to let them see the world sometimes for them to understand why this is wrong and why something is right. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Another participant of Bangladeshi background, Fahima (15 years, female, USborn, identity: American Bengali), spoke about the cultural restrictions imposed on her by her parents:

Sometimes I’m not allowed to do everything like my friends would be allowed to do, so if one of my best friends had a Sweet Sixteen party I wasn’t allowed to go. So I think Bengali parents are more concerned about having their kids slip and fall whereas American it’s just culture [freedom]. (interview, New York, 2010)

The next participant, Rubina (17 years, female, overseas-born, Bangladeshi origin), pointed out her parents have imposed cultural restrictions on her because they are worried about gossip in their ethnic community:

Being an American is different than a normal Bengali life. For example, I have some friends who goes to the parties in the weekends, they come home late

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after school, which we can’t. We have some curfews. We have to be home by no later than 5:00 pm because my mum or my dad; they’re more into Islam and plus they’re worried. This Bengali culture is really different. If you do something people talk about it, that’s the thing they [my parents] are mostly scared of which we don’t apply. In my point of view I used to say I don’t care actually what people think of, what people say. Well I’m studying, I go home I try to do my work and I don’t listen to what people (are) saying. (interview, New York, 2010)

Rubina migrated to America in 2005. She identified herself as ‘I am a pure Bengali. I would say because even though I am staying here, like getting my education I have respect for my country, I love my Bangladesh’. Rubina then reflected her Muslim identity when she said, ‘I’m a Muslim girl, it doesn’t matter which country, which nationality I have, which country I’m from so I’m a Muslim and Islam is the best thing, like best identity for me. I love listening to nasheeds, Islamic music’. Rubina explicitly placed herself as un-American when she said, ‘I would say I’m not an American’. As Rubina spoke of her Bengali identities as ‘I am a pure Bengali … I’m a Muslim girl’, she preferred the Arabic word nasheed rather than the Bengali/Urdu word naat. Naat is Islamic devotional songs or poetry in praise of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) sung in Bengali or Urdu. But Rubina spoke of nasheeds which are Islamic devotional songs but in America they are mostly sung in English or Arabic.57 In the context of American Muslims, Rahman observed that first-generation Bangladeshi Muslims may speak of traditional or folk Islam (discussed earlier) but second generation Muslims growing up in America may endorse transnational Islam,58 which means that young Muslims of diverse ethnicities listen to common religious songs such as nasheeds. Similarly, they may choose to attend a Bosnian or Turkish mosque for prayers rather than their ethnic Bangladeshi mosque. Some participants in this study said that they abide by their family’s rules, yet their parents’ or communities’ comments can be stressful. For example, Erphan (16 years, male, US-born, identity: Iraqi American) said that he, his siblings and ethnic friends abide by the family rules, ‘Basically our views on what’s American and what’s not American is the way our parents like to say it … So they say, “You can do this part of the American culture but not that part of the American culture”’. Erphan struggled when some of his community members associated their general teenage/youth activities with the American culture: Here we like to do pretty much the same thing as everybody else does, like we hang out at the mall, we go to the movies, but people say, ‘Oh, that’s just American culture’. But that’s not really necessarily true.

Then Erphan distanced himself from some aspects of American culture: ‘With some of the American culture people like to go and hang out in places like

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clubbing, drinking, we don’t do that, you have the American culture that does that for fun, we don’t do that’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Emran (17 years, male, US-born, identity: ‘American Pakistani but mainly I say Pakistani’) was critical of his father’s stereotype of American-ness:

To be American, I think my father brought me up in a different way. He tells me obviously he’s not talking about every single American, but to him American is the ones who are drinking and having boyfriend/girlfriend, enjoying the environment, going out, dropping out, all these kind of things. I used to agree with him, but now I don’t, because every American isn’t like that. They’re different people. They can come from very good families, better than Muslims sometimes. So I see Americans as different types of Americans, obviously. So it depends on who I see to define as American. Everybody has their own ways. (interview, Florida, 2010)

By pointing out his father’s conventional view Emran exhibited his individualistic reasoning when he said, ‘They can come from very good families, better than Muslims sometimes’. Nawaz of Yemeni heritage (19 years, US-born) who defined himself as, ‘I’m straight American. I’m an American citizen’ commented: American yeah. I reckon it’s where you get to party, you get to drink, you get to smoke marihuana, you get to do whatever you want, whatever is in your head. In a free country you do whatever you want.

Nawaz continued, ‘Un-American means your Dad locks you up in the house, he calls you, you bring the car home, don’t do this, pray, listen to this, listen to your granddaddy. They want you to live like them’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Dating and courtship

Rafia (20 years, female, US-born, Cuban-Turkish heritage, identity: American) commented: Being American I think is, we go to school and we are social and un-American would be like maybe we have our own cultural background I guess from the Turkish side that we don’t go out at night, like past a certain time. We don’t do a lot of things that regular American kids are allowed to do. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Rabia (16 years, female, US-born, Palestinian origin, identity: Arab American Palestinian) defined un-American in term of ethnic and Islamic culture:

Un-American would be probably following what my religion is now wearing the hijab, praying, doing a lot of things that I’m not allowed to do like dating,

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wearing short clothes. To be an Arab basically the way I’m living now, I wear hijab, even though I’ve never been to my country. I have guys that are friends yeah, but I don’t date. I don’t wear short clothes unless it’s like a girl’s party where it’s all girls. And I don’t go out, with the guy friends to places, I’m mostly with girls. At home we’re treated equally like my dad doesn’t favour the guys can date and the girls can’t, and they can go out but I can’t, we either all go out and whatever they do, I get to do. So he prohibits dating and stuff for everyone just to make us not feel like he’s favouring the guys. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Rabia considered her hijab as part of her religion. She also considered her hijab as part of her ethnicity when she said, ‘To be an Arab basically the way I’m living now, I wear hijab, even though I’ve never been to my country’. Her father is the authoritative figure in the family but he has imposed restrictions on both boys and girls. Haddad et al. observed that young Muslims in America struggle between the notions of respecting parental wishes and breaking free from their parents’ expectations. The concept of dating is frowned upon by many Muslim families, while some young Muslims tend to refrain from having relationships and dating.59 Many Muslim immigrant families in America prefer to arrange their children’s marriages. Many Muslim youth detest the idea of arranged marriage but some prefer to follow their parents’ preferences, thinking that their parents would make the best decision.60 Mir noted that American culture incorporates the culture of boyfriends and girlfriends. Yet some Muslim families consider that having an opposite sex relationship before marriage is culturally inappropriate. In some cases the young people keep their relationship secret until their family approves it for marriage.61 Some Muslims consider dating culture as haram. In the sexualised American college campus culture, some Muslim students feel singled out.62 Some Muslim parents, however, do not approve of 100 per cent arranged marriage. They avail themselves of community networks, where their children are allowed to get to know a person before they get married. Some parents have been liberal to a certain extent but they keep a close eye on their daughters. For example, some parents allowed their daughters to play sports such as softball and tennis with boys but they were hesitant in allowing them to go for a walk with the boy players.63 Mir observed that it is common for immigrant daughters to experience stronger parental pressure to maintain cultural expectations than sons do. Even parents who dated as high-school students in places such as Pakistan admitted that they had adjusted their expectations of their daughters in America. ‘Muslim’ norms were perceived as diametrically opposed to American norms. So the parents guarded their cultural difference to keep the ‘dangerously corrosive majority culture from seeping in’.64 Mir observed that Muslim women were crushed between conservative Muslim and majority American expectations. ‘Conservative Islamic ideologies constrain women’s identities by demanding that women fit into an

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idealized homogenous community; Orientalism reduces Muslim women to an entity both hyperreligious and hyper feminine’.65 In this study I found that some Muslim students were married to someone from a different ethnic group such as a Palestinian male married to a Pakistani female student. I also found that some Muslim parents tell their children that they can marry another Muslim of any ethnic background but their partners have to be Muslims. As Haddad el al. pointed out, there are Muslim websites through which Muslims try to find their partners. Matrimonial services are also provided by major Islamic organisations. Annual conventions organised by the Islamic Society of North America and the Islamic Circle of North America, and events organised by Muslim student associations and various professional organisations enable young Muslims to get to know each other in a structured situation.66 Culture as a marker

Fawzia of Palestinian background (15 years, female, US-born, identity: Arab American) described how some cultural practices marked her as un-American:

The way I’m dressed in the more Arab style, but when people look at me they just realise I’m Muslim. It’s just the way things are, like how we go to the movies, they consider more that’s American, but at the same time we have our Eid, and go Eiding and so I think that makes us who we are. We sit and talk and the way we believe in the way our marriages are, the whole non-dating and not going out with the guys and mixing with the girls and just small things like that. That’s what makes us different from the regular Americans. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Fawzia thought that when she went to the movies it made her look American but all other practices such as celebrating the Eid festival, socialising only with girls and her community’s belief in traditional marriages marked her as ‘un-American’. Nabil (21 years, male, overseas-born, Palestinian background, identity: Muslim first) discussed the challenges he faced after he migrated to America:

I really can’t say exactly what American verses un-American but when I came here in elementary school the people were more patient and everybody wanted to help out that one kid that doesn’t speak English and everybody comes to me and, ‘Don’t eat that, that’s pork’. Because by the second day everybody knew because I’d ask everybody, ‘Is this pork?’ They would say, ‘No, that’s tater tots’. I was just trying to make sure because my parents told me to ask anybody. Everybody was patient at the beginning so I didn’t feel like I didn’t fit in because I had people that wanted to be with me because I didn’t speak any English, they thought it was pretty cool, and they were all asking me to write stuff in Arabic. (interview, Florida, 2010)

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Nabil was a typical new immigrant Muslim child from a non-English-speaking country, who was also very careful about the food he was supposed to eat. Nabil found his school friends were friendly and ready to help him. Nabil said, ‘I didn’t speak any English so when you’re younger there’s no racism or anything pretty much, like, if I came here when I was older I’m sure it would be more difficult’. Nabil grew up just as his parents wanted him to. But as he was growing up he found it strange that he had to explain to his non-Muslim friends about his cultural sensitivities. Nabil continued: Anyway, as I grew up I just did my own thing and growing up you kind of understand what the norm is and you understand what you’re supposed to do and what you’re not supposed to do, you know, but I always had to explain why I did some things. For example, when I got older not going to parties or the beach with people and stuff like that, you had to explain I’m not supposed to put myself in places where it’s going to tempt me and stuff like that. And they didn’t understand the whole dressing modestly thing. It’s outrageous how you think it’s just like common sense and living as a Muslim, or even as an Arab sometimes, you think that the dressing modestly thing is just like common sense and then you talk to somebody that’s like, ‘So what if your sister is in a bikini on the beach?’ So it’s really, really weird, different not weird.

When he was an adolescent, Nabil expected his friends to understand his culture (as some of them understood when he was younger). Sometimes, non-Muslim Americans’ curiosity about Islamic culture may be naïve as they want to learn more about the unknown culture. But an immigrant Muslim youth may be frustrated as they continue to explain or justify their culture to their non-Muslim counterparts. The next participant, Raiyan (20 years, male, US-born, Albanian background), did not care how his friends perceived him. Raiyan was in a better position than other immigrants because of his whiteness but he preferred to remain different. Raiyan said, ‘Going to school I didn’t, honestly I still, to this day, I don’t like to be considered white. I don’t know what it is about me. I like to be considered a different culture.’ Raiyan was happy to remain different when he said, ‘Yeah, I call myself Muslim before I call myself Albanian … I don’t like to consider myself as part of the white majority. I’d rather be part of a minority. So that’s just me.’ Raiyan said that culturally speaking some of his acts could be considered un-American: When I think of American, un-American I think of following the culture, you know, just the norm. When I think culture, I think Thanksgiving. For example, I’ve never done Thanksgiving, any kind of Thanksgiving dinner and feast, none of that stuff, my friends know that and they’d be like, ‘That’s unAmerican’.

Raiyan observed that some American celebrations such as Christmas were no longer a Christian thing. Raiyan commented, ‘Even nowadays with Christmas, it’s

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not even a religious holiday anymore, it’s more of an American holiday, I would think. You’ve got non-Christians doing it, atheists, Jews, I even know some Muslims that do Christmas.’ Since it has become a cultural thing his school friends were shocked, ‘What? You don’t do Christmas? How do you not do Christmas?’ To them it is not a religious thing, it is a cultural thing. Raiyan then added: Even the Super Bowl, for example, that’s more of an American culture thing. I haven’t watched in years because it was such a build-up, you know, ‘Oh, are we going to watch the Super Bowl this week?’ That’s all they would talk about in school. And I totally lost interest in it and I was like, ‘I don’t care about this’. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Raiyan was not impressed by his fellow students’ social and cultural norms. Raiyan was also not fascinated with the commercial culture of Super Bowl when he said, ‘Now you got millions and millions of people watching it, millions of dollars just in ads’. Under the circumstances, Raiyan defined American as: ‘American I would consider just following the culture basically, not just the social norms in high school because the social norms in high school don’t necessarily go along with American culture because it’s pretty screwed up’. Rayan concluded that ‘un-American’ was ‘just not following the major American cultural values that they have today’. Thus, in terms of culture as a marker of difference from the majority, most participants in this section observed that anything that goes against the norm of the majority would be considered un-American. Some participants such as Nabil found it strange that some Americans do not want to understand the notion of modesty in Islamic culture, while Raiyan, being in the privileged position of whiteness, chose to remain different even if it marked him as ‘un-American’. Respect and care

On family and culture, Esposito and Mogahed noted that in predominantly Muslim countries the status afforded to motherhood is ‘a Gift of God, a source of everything in existence’.67 ‘Women have always been seen as a bearer of cultures, the center of the family unit that provides a force for moral and social order and a means of stability for the next generations’.68 A famous hadith explains the importance of mothers in Islam. A man asked Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) what was most worthy of honour, to which the Prophet Muhammad responded, ‘Your mother’.69 Khan and Ahmad observed that for Muslim families caring for parents in their old age is considered very important from both a cultural and religious point of view. Some verses from the Quran emphasise children not only loving and respecting their parents but also being dutiful to them particularly when the parents are old and weak.70 For example, the following Quranic verses illustrate the importance of parental old-age care:

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And We have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: In travail upon travail did his mother bear him. And in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), ‘Show gratitude to Me and to thy parents: To Me is (thy final) Goal.’ (31:14) And remember we took a covenant from the Children of Israel (to this effect): Worship none but God [Allah]; treat with kindness your parents and kindred, and orphans and those in need; speak fair to the people; be steadfast in prayer; and practise regular charity. Then did he turn back, except a few among you, and ye backslide (even now). (2:83)

Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them but address them in terms of honour. (17:23) And, out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say: ‘My Lord! Bestow on them Thy mercy even as they cherished me in childhood’. (17:24)71

Khan and Ahmad observed that these verses from the Quran have influenced many Muslims to share a culture of caring for elderly family members.72 Caring for older family members and for poor or weak family members has been a strong tradition in Muslim families. For example strong or economically affluent family members are expected to care for their children, parents and siblings. Therefore, the Muslim collectivist family pattern also comprises a parental expectation of old-age care from their children. Rahima (26 years, female, overseas-born, identity: ‘Bangladeshi Muslim 50:50 but more close to Bangladeshi culture’) noted that being American was more about independence and hard work, while being un-American would include being caring and dependence on parents, and older parents being dependent on their children: Being American … There may be more independence because here people start working when they’re even in high school and a lot of them, when they go to college, they pay for their own tuition and stuff like that but in our culture parents take care when you go to college, if they are able to pay for your tuition and stuff like that, they will. If I was an American I’m pretty sure I would have moved out when I turned 18 but since I’m not, I’m Bangladeshi, I’m able to stay with my parents. So there are a lot of differences … more independent living style. And unAmerican would be families are closer, they care more, I guess family bonds are stronger … like the kids grow up and they still live on their parents. When they grow up they actually try to help their parents. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

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Similarly, Saima (15 years, female, US-born, identity: American Bengali) equated the notions of independence and dependence with the terms American and unAmerican when she said:

I think Americans are more rebellious, they’re more independent whereas non-Americans or even Bengalis, for that sake, they’re more dependent on others. Like with my parents, they say, ‘Oh, when we’re old, will you take care of us? I mean, of course I will, but if this was American they’d become independent like that.’ (interview, New York, 2010)

In traditional Muslim cultures elderly people are usually supported through their extended family. A young married woman is expected to live with her in-laws and when the in-laws get old it is understood that they will live with their son’s family. Islamic tradition does not endorse the concept of nursing homes. Elderly people are not thought of as a burden; rather families think that older parents’ place is in the family home.73 In Rahima and Saima’s case, they both were daughters but they spoke of caring for their parents in their old age. This indicated that they were aware of the collectivist norms in their ethnic/Islamic cultural tradition. Kashfia (15 years, female, US-born, identity: ‘mostly Bangladeshi’) said, ‘I feel Bangladeshi people, they care about each other but here the Americans just care about themselves, they just want the best thing for them, they don’t care about other people’ (interview, New York, 2010). Kashfia regarded Bangladeshi immigrants (un-Americans) as caring (in a positive sense) while Americans were ‘not caring’ people or selfish (a negative connotation). Even though she was US-born, her collectivist notion of caring came to the fore. Her notion of caring included Bangladeshi people considering the wellbeing of other people in the family, extended family or the Bangladeshi community rather than just pursuing their own selfish goals. In her book, Hospitality and Islam, Siddiqui observed that caring, hospitality and reaching out to people in their times of need are important aspects of Islamic culture. Inviting extended family members and friends, cooking food and sharing meals with them also build both emotional and psychological contentment for many Muslims.74 Siddiqui noted that there are numerous references in the Quran about hospitality and warmth towards guests, neighbours and travellers.75 For example, the following Quranic verses illustrate doing good towards others: Worship God and associate nothing with Him, and to parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbour, the neighbour further away, the companion at your side, the traveller, and those whom your right hands possess. Indeed God does not like those who are self-deluding and boastful. (4:36)76

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The next participant, Sohail (27 years, male, US-born, identity: American Indian) described the concept of un-American in the context of his ethnic and Islamic culture:

Yeah basically in terms of how you would respect, even though many times I’m conscious that I’m very much in contradiction of what would be proper Indian … There’s a lot of Muslimness to it [in the value of respect] too, but sometimes there’s an Indian flavour to how it’s done because, you know Arabs might not be the same way or others may not be the same way. Whether it’s the idea of respecting your parents, you know lowering your voice, how you deal with this difference between kids and adults and how you show respect towards others in terms of, the way. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Sohail indicated that there are layers of cultural etiquette among Muslims themselves when it comes to respect for the young and old, for example, lowering one’s voice when speaking to one’s parents, the tone of one’s voice and the manner in which aged parents are addressed. Nazma (16 years, female, US-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: Muslim American) noted that some American values contradicted Islamic values. Her views revealed that she had internalised the respectful aspect of her religion: But the [American] values itself, I don’t agree with a lot because it contradicts a lot of the Muslims. For example, it’s normal for a girl to just prance around in her house with short shorts in front of her father. I wouldn’t do that because then in my religion it’s considered disrespectful, I would have to present myself to my father in a nicer way. There’s a lot of different aspects but I still manage to fit both into my life. (interview, New York, 2011)

Habib (17 years, male, US-born, identity: American Lebanese Muslim) related American-ness with American culture. He was not happy with American culture and expressed his contentment with his parents’ culture:

To be an American, the culture in America is really strange. It’s not too normal. I don’t like the American culture because it’s not a good culture, because the kids are always doing bad things. They’re not well-behaved. And I don’t like it. So basically if you’re not among the crowd of the American kids, I guess that wouldn’t make you the American culture. I don’t consider myself to be of American culture because I don’t get into things these other kids get into. I have a better state of mind. Mostly it’s how the parents are. And the environment they grow up it really affects the child. (interview, Florida, 2010)

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Marium (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Afghan) related being un-American with collectivism:

To be an American I mean to do just the regular thing, go to work come home, you know, they only have one meal together which is probably dinner … I feel not to be an American [or to be un-American] is when you actually have breakfast together, lunch together and dinner together. You actually sit down and talk about everything and follow your religion, your religious qualities and stuff like that. (interview, Virginia, 2011)

Marium pointed out being American meant more aloofness, and being unAmerican involved a more collective feeling in one’s daily life. Khojesta (15 years, female, US-born, Pakistani background, identity: Pakistani Muslim) commented:

American culture or the Western culture includes a very scarce amount of modesty, a very scarce amount of respect for women and a very scarce amount of, you know, care and love for your brothers and sister. So it’s these types of concepts that we aim to bring into the society and, like I said before, our main goal is dawah [invite someone and explain what Islam is about] in America … The terms American and non-American or un-American are definitely very broad and must be dug into. (interview, Maryland, 2011)

Khojesta found that the terms American and un-American were broad but she believed that American culture needs to learn from Islamic culture which incorporates respect for women and love of one’s siblings (or inclusiveness in one’s family). Islamic culture appeared to be internalised among some participants. Aimal (female, US-born, 15 years, Lebanese-Italian heritage, identity: Italian American) considered her Italian heritage was more in alignment with Arab culture. It was family oriented and the notion of respect was an important aspect of her family.

I think the cultures got mixed up together. But I was raised by my uncles who are all American and Italian. The Italians are close to Arabs as a culture. With family respect [value] Italians are very family oriented. So I grew up with my family, and I grew up with respect and dignity and knowing what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do. I used to get hard consequences. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Faizul (25 years, male, US-born, Guyanese background, identity: Muslim) questioned if he did not follow American culture would that make him un-American?

Well, for us, as Muslims, what I believe, and if something goes against Islam, well, then, you don’t do it if it’s American culture. For example, American culture is going to Halloween and doing all these things during Halloween. We

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as Muslims should not be partaking in certain things. And if that’s considered un-American – or if I go to school and then during Valentine’s Day they have all these things going on; if I don’t participate, then I’m not doing that, then does that make me an un-American? (interview, Florida, 2010) Are parents un-American?

Some participants related being un-American to aspects of their culture. For example, Ayesha (female, US-born, 16 years, identity: Pakistani Muslim) said, ‘Un-American is to be at home. Not to work, for example my mother’ (interview, New York, 2010). As discussed in Chapter 2, some participants in this study related Americanness to diversity and inclusiveness (the melting pot). For example, Aamaal (female, US-born, 28 years, Pakistani heritage, identity: ‘feel very American’) said, ‘To be American means caring about your country [America]’. Aamaal considered some Muslim parents were un-American when they revealed their ‘othering’ attitude. Aamaal observed: As far as Muslims go, I feel that there is this whole mentality that amongst Muslims and my mum does it and a lot of people do it. If say a Muslim guy wants to marry a girl that was not Muslim, they will call her American or he is marrying an American girl and I always think, I’m an American, he’s an American, they should say he is marrying a white girl or he’s marrying a Christian girl. There should be another classification. They treat American as this other thing, but they don’t seem to understand that they are American. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Aamaal’s observation of some Muslim parents indicated that they did not feel rooted in America. When the parents used the word in their cultural context, ‘Oh, she is an American’ it appeared to be derogatory. Research has found that some parents are apprehensive about the mainstream culture. They would rather encourage their children to endorse another culture that is closer to their ethnicity. In the context of the Bangladeshi diaspora in the United States, Rahman observed that many first-generation Bangladeshi parents make an earnest effort to pass their Bengali culture to their children. Parents install Bangladeshi television channels at home so that their children learn the Bengali language and culture through television programmes. Some parents approve of their children embracing the desi subculture. Young people may like to go to Bengali melas (fairs), and to wear salwar kameez, or fatowa (Indian top) with jeans. They may attend Punjabi bhangra dance parties and perform Gujarati garba dancing. Parents may also allow their children to attend Hindu festivals, for example, Diwali nights.77 It appears that some Muslim immigrant families are fearful of the mainstream culture because they think that it will impact negatively on their children’s ethnic and Islamic

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cultures. In some instances, other relatives’ comments can also have an impact on parental restrictions on their children. For example, a first-generation Bangladeshi woman, Zohra (35 years, female, overseas-born, identity: Bangladeshi), who migrated to America about two years ago was fearful of her extended family members losing their Bengali heritage when she said: Some of my cousins, nieces and nephews, mainly the kids who born and brought up here, they say, ‘Oh, we are American’. I told their parents that you should teach them that we are not American, we are Bangladeshi. Our roots are from Bangladesh but the kids say, ‘Oh, no. We are American.’ They are not interested in education. They think that, ‘We’re American. We can do whatever we like.’ And most of the time they spend chatting in Facebook or MySpace or something like this or texting or cell phone or I don’t know what they’re doing. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Zohra being a new immigrant was concerned that some of her extended family members were losing their Bangladeshi heritage as they defined themselves as Americans. However, her connection between American-ness and social media is not accurate because social media is also very popular among the younger generation in Bangladesh. Diasporic parents’ dilemma

As discussed, some first-generation immigrants in the United States struggle to adjust to the competing pulls of the culture and traditions they left behind in their country of origin and the entirely new culture of the Western world. More and more they cling to their memories of the past and, in fear that their culture could be eroded, they put extra pressure on their children to retain their heritage.78 Nazim (20 years, male, US-born, identity: 80 per cent Bengali, 20 per cent American) spoke of his parents’ diasporic dilemma. Nazim was born in the US but his Bangladeshi parents always retained their sense of emotional exile and expected him to remain a Bengali in heart and spirit. Nazim stated: That’s a hard question when there’s two cultures involved. Most of the time I feel like I’m an American, but other times I feel un-American because I’m following so many Bengali cultural values, like I don’t get to party outside, I don’t get to do this and that which the majority of the people are doing. So whatever the majority is doing that’s what we call a ‘normal’. Now if I don’t fall in the normal I can’t really call myself an American. (interview, New York, 2010)

Nazim related his Bengali identity with his language and food:

My language of course is number one; what do I speak throughout my day, it’s Bengali. I talk with my parents 24/7, the only time I’m with somebody else is

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when I’m at school and college, that’s the only time I’m speaking English or, you know, I’m not working. If I was working maybe the percentage would have been more towards the American side but here I’m eating Bengali food, I’m with Bengali people, it’s all about Bangladesh so.

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Nazim then pointed out the patience of immigrant children who have to bear parental expectations at the cost of their school friendships:

Now if you’re a type of guy who’s respectful to your parents and you have that type of patience – now patience is the key word – because you have to give children some credit in accepting their parents’ difference. Now what the children do, one a child decides not to go to that Sweet Sixteen they’re sacrificing popularity, they’re sacrificing many things which parents don’t realise. They’re doing it to keep peace within the family and it always depends on the kids, it depends on the type of kid you are. I know people that go to Sweet Sixteens and I know that people don’t go to Sweet Sixteen and there’s a difference between characteristics.

Nazim said that his parents exhibited their Bengali self all along but once they visited Bangladesh their Americanness came to the fore when they complained about the weather in a Third World country:

In America when you’re on the plane going to Bangladesh you feel Bengali, everyone around you is Bengali, they’re all happy, you identify yourself as a Bengali. Once you step off the plane and you feel the heat you instantly turn into an American – why, because we’re not meant to feel that type of heat on an everyday basis. It’s like a 100 whatever degrees with humidity out there, we instantly turn back to our American selves. When we’re complaining about sweat, when we’re complaining about it smells, the dirt in the street, everything makes us into an American again. But to be Bengali you’re going to have to accept that, buses should be crowded like that, everyone should be sweating like that, that’s what being Bengali’s about, that’s part of it. I usually tend to accept everything that’s around me, my dad on the other hand for example, ‘We’re in traffic’, he’s complaining. He said, ‘Oh, why do we have to be stuck on Farmgate [a place in the capital city, Dhaka] for 30 minutes for no reason?’ and I’m saying, ‘Enjoy the moment!’ (interview, New York, 2010)

Shirin (16 years, female, US-born, Egyptian origin, identity: Arab American) spoke from the gender point of view. She associated Americans with more freedom and Arabs with sexism (which was un-American in her perception), when she said, ‘If you compare them to the Arabs I think Arabs are more strict. Americans have a lot more freedom than we do. Arabs, they’re very sexist in a way because boys have more freedom than girls here.’ Her father’s preference for her future husband was different from her mother’s: ‘Well my dad is very strict, he thinks he should be an

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Egyptian – an Egyptian only. My mom as long as he’s Muslim that’s what she cares about the most, as long as he’s Muslim.’ Shirin was born and brought up in America. She has difficulties in adjusting in Egypt, as she stated: When I go to Egypt it’s very hard because my Arabic isn’t very good. I mean I speak it fluently … but I’ll mess up a word they’ll start laughing. The way I dress is different than the way they dress, everybody’s covered up, I wear whatever I want so when I go there it’s like I have to watch what I wear, what I say, I don’t eat as much as I do here because I’m not used to the food so I lose a lot of weight when I go to Egypt! (interview, New York, 2010)

It is quite normal for children of immigrants to become accustomed to the food, dress and weather of the place where they spend most of their time. But parents with strong diasporic connections tend to ignore these issues because they want their children to be bonded with their heritage, which could be at the expense of their children’s health.

Impact of individualistic cultures

Sherif-Trask noted that Muslim families are diverse yet many studies of Muslim families use the terms Arab family, Islamic family and Middle Eastern family and discuss these families in opposition to their Western counterparts.79 These studies suggest that the institution of the Muslim family has not undergone the significant transformations that have been associated with the rise of capitalism in the West and have not endorsed modernisation that promotes individualism at the cost of family influence and control. For example, in the United States, the patriarchal family is slowly dissipating as gender roles change. Globalisation appears to be a very important factor in the worldwide movement of labour into formal and informal labour forces. Globalisation is also affecting families through new concepts of child-rearing and parenting practices. For example, mothers go out to jobs, and children are left in day care centres. However, when individuals are confronted with new beliefs, ideals, values and practices, they may instinctively retreat to their old values and norms. Most immigrants are culturally and linguistically separate from their counterparts in their host societies. They may have rural roots, different religious and cultural traditions, and may also look different. Their status as immigrants or ‘non-citizens’ means they are likely to encounter prejudice and discrimination. And that may distance them from the host society and lead them to draw closer to their family members, values and norms.80 Pressure to fit in

The US-born children of immigrant parents automatically become citizens by birth. Therefore, they get the same rights and privileges as mainstream Americans. Under the circumstances, they may have a greater sense of loyalty to the United States

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than their overseas-born parents. The US-born citizens are likely not to be fully enculturated into the traditional cultural environment of their country of origin, and this may allow them to navigate within a wider range of environments. However, if they are raised within a strong cultural environment in the United States, they are likely to get ‘caught at the crossroads in debates about minority self-expression, ethnicity, and the role of mainstream culture’.81 Samiha (17 years, female, US-born, Egyptian background, identity: Muslim American) spoke of being an American as forced assimilation when she said, ‘External pressure to fit in too … your pants are not down to your knees, or you not fitting onto the newest styles … here everyone’s more about superficiality, they’re not really about who you are on the inside’ (interview, New York, 2010). Rafia (20 years, female, US-born, Cuban-Turkish heritage, identity: American) said: I think I started wearing the hijab the year of 9/11. It happened during the time that I was covered and I mean I’m a strong person character wise, and I knew everyone, but it was just difficult because there were one or two students that were ridiculous that they would scream out, ‘Oh, Bin Laden’, or ‘Go back to your country’ and I’d respond you know, just kindly [politely] like I’m not even from the Middle East you know. But it was difficult in the sense that in 6th Grade everyone saw me with hair and then in 7th Grade, I just started covering and I was so shy, when in 6th Grade I was a girl running around everywhere. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Though Rafia identified herself as American, her wearing of the hijab coincided with the 9/11 incident. The girl who was one of ‘us’ (US-born, mainstream American) was immediately constructed by some as the ‘Other’ when she became visibly Muslim. But for Rafia it was difficult to accept the ‘role of mainstream culture’ which was reluctant to accept her Islamic culture because she considered herself as American as anyone else. Ajmal (19 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Yemeni American), who migrated to the US at the age of 14, observed that ethnic minorities (un-Americans) do not blindly follow Americans. They are cautious and more informed as they follow their goals: Some people they have their backgrounds, they won’t be American, they’ll think that [to be] American it’s wrong. They are strong, will look for goal, look what they read about America, what they do, go to the library, like check movies or something. American stuff. ’Cause they heard from other people that they thought that Americans do this and that, wrong things. Similarly they don’t check, and they do the same what they [Americans] say. (interview, Michigan 2011)

Similarly, Naila (23 years, female, overseas-born, identity: American Guyanese,

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50/50) said that culturally speaking, ‘When you meet someone … just have certain conversations … they’ll get to know you. They’ll talk about education.’ But to be American would involve a lot of pressure to assimilate. Naila noted a big difference between herself and her American friends: It’s a big difference, because I have a lot of American friends because I go to school, because I said I was brought up over here. And when you meet someone, or they’ll know, ‘Okay, yeah, you’re brought up over here. Do you get to do that?’ I’m like, ‘No’. And they’ll look at me, like ‘No?’ A lot of people I know, they’re into movies, different types of movies. And I’m not really into it. Then they say, ‘Oh, what do you do?’ It’s like, am I supposed to be into that just because everyone else is? I feel a lot of Americans, they follow more [youth subculture] than they lead. So when they meet someone that doesn’t do that, ‘Why don’t you do that?’ I don’t have a reason why I don’t do that. I just don’t do that. I’m not like everyone else. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Perhaps Ajmal meant that Muslim youths who tend to follow the American youth subculture blindly in terms of entertainment should be regarded as Americans. Naila thought that to be American would be to be just like them, going to movies, and so on. In their edited book Growing Up Muslim, Garrod and Kilkenny revealed that it was difficult for overseas-born new immigrants of refugee backgrounds who had experienced enormous hardship in their country of origin to adapt to their new lives in the United States. Some of these immigrants experienced prejudice because they looked different and had very poor English-language skills. For example, Shakir Quraishi who migrated with his parents from Afghanistan said that in his high school, when he asked questions in class, ‘half the class burst into laughter because of my accent’. This impacted on his self-esteem and it discouraged him from participating in classroom discussion. After 9/11, Shakir was in his freshman year. The students used to call him and his siblings ‘Osama’ or ‘Taliban’. The insulting name calling affected his confidence.82 Shakir survived and eventually succeeded in his education and graduated from the prestigious Dartmouth College in the United States. This was possible through his persistence and individualist spirit of cherishing his American dream. Cultural similarities

Ruhee (30 years, female, US-born, Jordanian background, identity: Arab American) said, ‘I think some people may say that’s un-American but for me I feel that there are a lot of Americans that share the same views in terms of gays and lesbians’. Ruhee continued her conversation, ‘My religion certainly influences my views but again, there are a lot of similarities with Americans within the society as well’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). Perhaps Ruhee meant that in the US people

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have choices in terms of sexuality. Her conservative views based on her religion may be considered un-American but then again some mainstream Americans share the same views. Academic Ahmad observed that on social issues such as homosexuality, pornography and abortion some American Muslims share similar views with their non-Muslim counterparts. For example, about 60 per cent of Muslim Americans say that homosexuality should be discouraged, a figure that corresponded to that reported for white Evangelicals. Similarly, some American Muslims’ views on abortion, pornography, same-sex marriage, and ‘family values’ have been as conservative as those of white Catholics and evangelical Protestants.83 Be upfront

Afreen (17 years, female, US-born, Pakistani background, identity: Kashmiri/ Mirpuri/Pakistani) noted the cultural difference that being American meant being upfront and extroverted, which would be considered impolite in other countries:

In America, we believe in certain things like I know people from overseas don’t believe in. We believe in freedom of speech and expressing who we are. A lot of people believe certain things and they keep it inside them just because of what other people think it’s not right, and they shouldn’t say. But as an American, I openly let people know what I think. You can’t just be rude about it. You have to be polite about it. But I think people should know. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting people know what you think. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

It is interesting to note that, although Afreen identified herself as Kashmiri/ Mirpuri/Pakistani, when she said, ‘In America, we believe in certain things … freedom of speech’, she asserted her American identity. Nadir (17 years, male, US-born, identity: Sudanese American Muslim) commented:

Well I feel that my parents always have that boundary when they come to dealing with American society as a whole. And so American society gives us the youth, the ability to, when we see something wrong to say ‘No’. I think that overseas or in the Third World countries as a whole we are, youth are not really given that opportunity to ‘No’ to anything. So I feel that one of the values that American culture has given me is when I see something is wrong, I don’t hold it or I don’t say okay I do it just because my parents are telling me to do it, or just because someone’s telling me to do it so. (interview, Massachusetts, 2010)

Nadir pointed out a cultural difference between his country of origin and his host country. He realised that his upfront response to his parents may be considered rude in ‘Third World countries’ but, due to his American influence, he would rather

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be upfront with his parents even if he has to say ‘No’ to his parents’ request. Nadir felt confident with his American individualistic norm.

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Mind your business

Ameena (22 years, female, overseas-born, Pakistani heritage, identities: multiple), who migrated to the US at the age of 13, defined American and un-American from her host and home countries’ perspectives. Ameena’s concept of ‘not caring’ had a positive connotation. Ameena said, ‘I wasn’t born here, yet I do have an American mentality to the sense I mean after 13, I was here, a lot of my perspectives have been changed’. On her definition of American, Ameena said: Being an American is basically I would say that over here you wouldn’t see people caring about each other as much as, not caring in a sense that not getting into someone’s business, not being concerned about what’s going on in the other person’s life or not being involved in it. If a girl is walking by and she’s wearing shorts and perhaps sleeveless clothes I don’t think a lot of men would look at her and be like okay. So that’s something that America teaches you. I mean over here if I was wearing a hijab yeah people would look at you because you’re weird, but not yell [at you].

Ameena commented positively on Americans’ non-interference or ‘not caring’ about other peoples’ business. Ameena considered that, culturally speaking, her country of origin would be un-American: Where back home, I mean un-American person would probably feel, because that’s something that every day they don’t see there … a girl wearing shorts or miniskirts or bikinis at the beach. So it’s very new to them. So all of a sudden it’s like (gasp), you know. ‘Ahh, what’s this!’ (interview, Virginia, 2009)

Ameena wore the hijab but she did not encounter any vilification from anyone. However, in this study some participants related that they were yelled at because they were visibly Muslim. Work and responsibility

Asbah (18 years, female, US-born, Somali heritage, identity: Muslim American) said:

To be an American is I have to work, help my family, a lot of those stuff. And un-American is like not an American. If I was not an American I’d just have to sit there and have to wait till my Dad found a job and help support us, but where I find myself as an American happening, I help my family and I have to be strong for them. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

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Asbah said that if she was not an American (or if she were un-American) then she would expect her father to be the breadwinner. The idea of a woman working independently (and also helping her family) blends into the Western individualistic norm.

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Freedom but not family oriented

First-generation immigrant male, Manzur (30 years, male, overseas-born, Algerian background, identity: Muslim) was critical of the lack of focus on the family in the individualistic American society. Some American Muslims also embrace this life. Manzur commented: American is … freedom of speech, also freedom of religion. But I will criticise the lack of family, so is the way of life or is it just us that we forget about family and we try to run as fast as we can to catch? (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Some second generation Muslim American females also reflected similar views on American society. Suraiya (16 years, female, US-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: Muslim American) noted the uniqueness of her religious values against American traits: We as Muslims don’t do dating and underage relationships and all that, because they [some Americans] end up with drugs and everything. They end up on the streets, and their parents are like, ‘You’re on your own now’. So that’s sad about being an American. But there are some plus sides. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Suraiya believed ‘Un-American is completely against what America means’. In this context, it should be noted that problems with drinking and drugs are not only exclusive to mainstream Americans, and some Muslim Americans also have these issues (discussed later). Afroosa (18 years, female, US-born, identity: Iraqi American) noted that in an individualistic society such as America people (including some Muslims) are less inclined to observe their religious and family traditions:

We have the religion that we have to follow but what I’ve noticed from a lot of people that are Americans they don’t really follow their religion and just after being 18, they get out just because of their college. An un-American person specifically in Arab countries … I see them being more with their families after graduating but in America they don’t really stay connected to their relatives anymore. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

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Munerra (15 years, female, overseas-born, identity: Yemeni American) appreciated her Yemeni culture as she spoke of Americans’ right to freedom. Munerra thought that marriage at an early age was better than dating:

I think to be an American is too much freedom like boyfriend, girlfriend and stuff a lot … then they haven’t married and a lot of girls they get kids. It is so difficult for us to understand. Like for our country, we marry when we are small, but we marry at the same time, not like them who have to go outside dating them. That’s confusing us when we see it, but we try to save ourselves, that’s how we are. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Sowaibah (23 years, female, overseas-born, Guyanese background, identity: American Guyanese) said:

I believe the typical American … there’s some that would follow up with education. And then there’s some who wouldn’t. I’m just saying on behalf of what I see, unfortunately they’ll get a baby and not be married. Or they’ll have more than one baby and be with a person and not even be married. I am so very against that … The de facto relation, I guess. And a lot of people do drink and smoke. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Silma (16 years, female, US-born, Pakistani background, identity: Pakistani) noted:

There are aspects of democracy and the American dream, but I feel to be American is to be uneducated. I can honestly tell you, most American youths are very ignorant of what’s going around them and they’re very self-centred to say. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Misha (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Bangladeshi American Muslim) commented: ‘The pro, I think America has a lot of educational purposes. When it comes to – like there’s always divorces going on in America. America has family issues. In general I’ve seen breakups and divorces before’ (interview, Michigan, 2010). In his book, No Apology: Believe in America, Mitt Romney said that it is estimated that, of children born to mothers aged 30 or younger, 44 per cent are born outside of marriage. Among other groups the rates of children born outside marriage are as follows: African Americans: 77 per cent; Hispanic Americans: 46 per cent and Anglo Americans: 34 per cent.84 The total number of out-of-wedlock births is larger among Anglo mothers aged under 30. There are 420,000 out-ofwedlock births to under-30 Anglo mothers compared with 292,000 African American mothers of the same age. Among mothers who have not completed high school, from all ethnic groups, 62 per cent of their children are born outside of

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marriage. For mothers with a bachelor’s degree, only 13 per cent have children born outside marriage. For African American mothers without a high-school certificate, 90 per cent of the births of their children are out of wedlock.85 Under the circumstances it becomes very difficult for a poor, undereducated single mother to pay attention to her child’s education. Many studies have demonstrated that these children underperform in schools, drop out of school, end up on welfare, use drugs and commit crime. Then they end up in prison.86 This cultural pattern again creates an underclass. The gender question

Dina (19 years, female, US-born, Trinidad and Tobago heritage, identity: Muslim American Trini) observed that being American meant more freedom than in Trinidad:

American, because I was born and grew up here. This is, I guess, the Western side. Because in Trinidad, you have one side, but then you never truly fit in. You obviously fit in because of family and whatnot. But this is your home, because we basically grew up here. We have friends, family. I’ve grown accustomed to the life that we have here. And as a girl, personally, I know I’m able to do a lot more over here than I am over there. Because over there, girls, they tend to not go out as much as guys. But over here, I drive to school. I know how to drive to Miami by myself. But over there, the girls, at a certain time, they’re not supposed to go out. It’s not that they’re supposed to, but family-wise and culture-wise, girls who go out past a certain time, they’re frowned upon and things like that. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Dina said that being un-American meant, ‘Go against the norm of the society, harm the society, the community’. Dina’s views on being American highlighted America’s individualism as compared to the conservative culture of Trinidad and Tobago. It also highlighted gender issues in Trinidad and Tobago. In this chapter, I have discussed how some young Muslim girls faced restrictions from their family in American society. There have also been reports of verbal and physical vilification of American Muslim women in public spaces. For example, Naber noted that after 9/11, throughout her fieldwork:

Hegemonic discourses represented the act or gesture of veiling in particular to parameters of identification that transformed them into daughters or sisters of terrorists in general, or Osama or Saddam in particular, as opposed to agents of terrorism thus reproducing discourses on Arab women’s passivity vis-à-vis Arab male violence and misogyny.87

One of Naber’s working-class interviewees stated, ‘We were walking down the street to a meeting and one guy started yelling “are you Osama bin Laden’s wife?

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Come here, I want to rape you.” This is really scary stuff that happens on almost a daily basis’.88 Naber noted that normally visibly Muslim women were targeted. For example, one man on a bus yelled at a Muslim woman, ‘We should have f*ing blew up your country you goddam terrorist. You f*ing Afghan. You fucking Muslims.’89 This pattern of vilification by some Americans can be perceived as un-American. It also reflects that the Other in gender dynamics are now Muslim women. Selod found that some American Muslim women who face prejudice because they wore the hijab abandon their hijab. However, those who were still wearing it were ‘willing to accept the responsibility of dispelling misconceptions about Muslims, although a few confessed this collective responsibility was emotionally and mentally taxing’.90 One participant in her study, Samira, abandoned her hijab to make her look more American and felt empowered but it was at the cost of her religious identity. Soled noted that ‘The hijab does not signify foreignness; it represents an ambiguously defined geographic part of the world that is antagonistic to democracy and American values: the Muslim world’.91 Soled stated that in public spaces some Americans treated Muslim women who wear the hijab as if they do not have the same rights to public spaces as they do. Religious symbols such as the hijab are gendered, leading people to see Muslim women as foreigners. They are seen as a threat to American cultural values, while Muslim men are perceived as a threat to national security.92 In this context it is also worth noting that America has a history of gender inequality. In the eighteenth century when women’s suffrage was unimaginable, Abigail Adams (1765–1815) through the American Revolution and in her career as the First Lady campaigned against women’s unequal status in the patriarchal structure of American society.93 Inequality against women continued. For example, in the 1880s Martha Carey Thomas (also known as Minnie) excelled at all levels of education. She attended the graduate school of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore but was not permitted to attend classes with male students. Later, Thomas continued her studies in Europe and attained her PhD from the University of Zurich in 1882. In 1884, Thomas was the first woman dean of Bryn Mawr College. Nine years later she was named the president of the college, though members of the Board of Trustees objected to a woman in such a prestigious position.94 The institutional nature of women’s unequal rights continued. For example, during World War II, many women, having either served in the military or taken factory jobs on the home front, had every intention of working after the war, and many had a dream of starting their own businesses. But women’s jobs remained confined to the beauty shop, apparel store, restaurant and bakery.95 In 1963, the US Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, declaring it illegal to pay men and women different wages for equal work for jobs that require equal skill.96 Until 1920 in many US states women were denied the right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement started in 1848.97 For the next few decades, American women continued their meetings, parades, and signed petitions. Many of them encountered verbal and physical assaults. Finally, in 1920, in the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution American women got the right to vote. But women still faced discrimination in employment. Women started demanding equal

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pay for equal work. In the 1970s they organised across the United States to make their voices heard. By the 1980s, women were being nominated for national positions of power. In 1984, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York, a Democrat, became the first woman nominated for vice president by a major party. In 2008, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska became the nation’s first female Republican vice presidential candidate. In that year, New York Senator Hillary Clinton, another Democrat, ran for president. She did not win the nomination but President Obama appointed her to be the US Secretary of State. At the time of writing this chapter, Hillary Clinton was running for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2016.

Culture: a complex phenomenon

So far the discussions of diaspora, collectivism and individualism reveal the struggle, challenges and negotiations of the participants in this study. On one hand the mainstream society could be considered an ‘imagined community’. As Anderson observed, ‘imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’.98 In reality, nationstates have never been culturally homogenous. For example, the American nation is composed of Native Americans, African Americans, British Americans and others. In the British context (which also applies to the American context), Hall observed that national cultures seek to ‘represent what is in fact the ethnic hotchpotch of modern nationality as the primordial unity of “one people’”, that creates amid social divisions the characteristic of a nation, an imagined community.99 So in the ideals of one nation or an imagined community, ethnic minorities are often excluded from the imaginary of the mainstream society. Gilroy (writing in the British context) noted: A [form of cultural] racism which has taken a necessary difference from crude ideas of biological inferiority … now seeks to present an imaginary definition of the nation as a unified cultural community. It constructs and defends an image of national culture, homogeneous in its whiteness, yet precarious and perpetually vulnerable to attack from enemies from within and without.100

Ackroyd and Pilkington observe that people cannot restrict themselves in small homogenous or imagined communities and with globalisation people are interacting in a global village through telecommunications and economic and ecological interdependencies. Through migration people tend to opt to fuse different cultural traditions and create new hybrid identities.101 Within the dynamics of hybrid identities, there is tremendous pressure for young Muslims to assimilate. Ahmed observed that young American Muslims are portrayed in the media as ‘aggressive, chauvinistic, militant and fundamental people who are not to be trusted’.102 Muslim men are particularly scrutinised on aeroplanes, subways and in government buildings, as people perceive that they are

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potential terrorists. In order to ‘fit in’ the ‘imagined or homogenous’ society, some young Muslims choose to assimilate with the wider society and abandon their traditional religious and cultural practices. Rahnema observed that Muslim diasporic sentiment may differ in terms of their country of origin and culture. Some Muslims may be more angry and frustrated because in their host countries they generally encounter racism and Islamophobia (also discussed in Chapter 2).103 Rahnema noted that the vicious circle of Islamism and Islamophobia can occur in the Western world (including Canada) when he said, ‘Prevailing racism and discrimination continue to marginalize Muslims; the more marginalized they become, the better chances are that they will turn to their religion’.104 Rahnema continued that in some cases too much focus on religion can lead to Islamism, which is fed by radical ideologies produced both in Islamic societies and in the diaspora. The stronger religious and Islamist tendencies are, the greater the chance that they incite more Islamophobia, eventually leading to further marginalisation.105 Rahnema observed that Muslims in Canada have relatively higher levels of education than the total Canadian population. But Muslim unemployment is also higher with a low level of income. It is likely that marginalised young Muslims in Canada could be drawn to the vicious circle of Islamophobia, marginalisation and Islamism.106 It is worth noting that marginalisation or high Muslim unemployment could also lead Muslim parents to feel more close to their culture, and this in turn could have an impact on their children when they impose restrictions on them. The case of radicalised Somali Americans (discussed next) shows that radicalisation can be a complex process. The Somali American case

Between 2007 and 2008, an estimated 18 or more Somali American adolescent boys and young men living in the Minneapolis area travelled to Somalia to join the militant training camps run by the extremist Al-Shabaab organisation.107 Research has found that many Somalis cherish the American dream. They have learnt the English language and are enrolled in school and colleges. They are present in all sectors of the Minnesota workforce. However, research has also revealed several factors that may have triggered the radicalisation of these young men: •

•

Living in an impoverished area: many Somalis live in an impoverished area of Minneapolis. In 2008, a 20-year-old college student Ahmednur Alia who did volunteer work at a community centre was murdered by another Somali youth. Such news of violence within the Somali community demoralised some Somali youth who became susceptible to radicalisation and recruitment. Traumatic stories of Somalia: radicalised Muslims may have heard stories about the traumatic experiences and memories of their parents while they were in war-torn Somalia. This may have influenced them to go to Somalia and defend their home nation against invasions, though their parents may not have expected them to do so.

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• •

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The clan/warrior tradition: the clan and warrior tradition has also had an impact on some Somali American youth. For example, a participant in this study, Roshani (30 years, female, identity: Somali) said that her husband is a notable person in the Somali community. Her six-year-old son dresses like a prince and says, ‘I am the prince of my clan’ (interview, New York, 2010). The youths can be drawn to radical ideas through recruiters who are charismatic males and speak on political issues with authority. Peer pressure to fit in: sometimes Somali youth (like other new immigrant/ refugee youths) remain confused as they become trapped between the concept of assimilation (Americanisation) and their parents’ diasporic identities. Parents become concerned if their children become too Americanised and, while the youths are drawn to their Somali culture, they may be drawn to social media and stay connected to Somalia through storytelling and the internet. So when someone is killed in their village in Somalia, the youth may know about it through the internet. Lack of male guardians: a lack of fathers or caring guardians in their lives also allows them to be drawn to the recruiters. Sometimes single mothers encourage their sons to spend more time in mosques but that is sometimes where indoctrination of young Muslims takes place.108 Quranic verses: sometimes some Quranic verses may have an impact on young Muslims. For example, one Somali student wrote on his Facebook page, ‘Allah will never change the situation of a people unless they change themselves … take a sec and think about our situation deeply – what change do u need to make?’109 Young Muslims can be influenced by such statements that use concepts of nationalism or religion.110 Mentors: sometimes, a mentor of young Muslims who himself is marginalised may not be the right person to guide young Muslims.111

Werbner stated that diasporic communities such as Pakistani Muslims in Britain have developed local roots and a stake in the continuity of their relationship to the country of settlement. They are permanent sojourners in the sense that, while they recognise a continued affinity and loyalty to the home country, they increasingly come to participate as active citizens in the country of settlement.112 In Australia, by contrast, political exiles or terrorists or extended family members of terrorists may see their sojourning as temporary, and have no commitments and loyalties to the country of settlement. For example, an Australian-born girl of Arab heritage, who was a relative of a convicted terrorist, felt disconnected to Australia. She felt that the stigma attached to Muslims as ‘terrorists’ would never change.113 Furthermore, moral panics created by the media can divert these young people from their loyalties to the country of settlement. Similarly in the US context, an overseas-born Somali mentor of Muslim youths who migrated to America at the age of four identified himself as ‘I am a Somali’. He said that he and his family had been harassed by law enforcement agencies several times.114 Therefore, continuous scrutiny of some Muslims by the wider society may alienate them from their active citizenship.

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Economic factors

The issues of diaspora, economic marginalisation and parental restrictions on their children can be inter-related. Kibria observed that some Bangladeshi immigrants settling in America experience a sense of occupational loss and disconnect from their home family’s social capital. This can lead to a widespread sense of class decline. Even if the immigrants succeed in their professional lives at a certain point in their host country, they may think that they would have achieved more selfesteem and success in their country of origin.115 If in the psyche of the immigrants they are second-class citizens in America, and if they live with a sense of loss and they think that they will return to their country of origin, then their children will be the cultural casualty. Their sense of not belonging to America will have an impact on their children who are born or raised in America. Their children will see a tension between the majority and minority cultures in their homes. In 2011, a Pew Research Center survey found that about 41 per cent of American Muslims had full-time employment compared to 45 per cent of the total population. In addition to this about 18 per cent of US Muslims had part-time employment and about 20 per cent were self-employed or small business owners. Underemployment was, however, more common among Muslims compared to the total population. About 29 per cent were either unemployed, looking for a job, or working part-time and preferred to have full-time employment compared with 20 per cent of adults nationwide. Underemployment was particularly widespread among Muslim adults aged under 30.116 In 2011, the annual household income of 14 per cent of American Muslims was approximately $100,000 compared to 16 per cent of the total population; 40 per cent of American Muslims had annual household incomes of between $30,000 and $100,000 compared with 48 per cent of the total population. And 45 per cent of American Muslims had annual household incomes of less than $30,000 compared to 36 per cent of the total population.117 It is difficult to examine the labour market status of Muslims in America in detail because the US government does not collect data on the basis of religion. However, through my data on the economic situation of the parents of 290 students, I found that out of 290 fathers 252 (about 87 per cent, including 29 per cent professionals) were employed. Out of 290 mothers, 82 (28 per cent, including 8 per cent professionals) were employed. Only 17 fathers (6 per cent) were unemployed/ looking for work, while only one mother was looking for work. The number of stay-at-home mums was 200, which was about 70 per cent.118 High-risk behaviours

Ahmed observed that placing too many restrictions on young people may lead them to internalise their anger against their parents and to misinform their parents about their activities.119 Ahmed observed that at the transitional stage immigrant children who are exposed to pressure to assimilate from the wider society (or cultural tensions within their community) are likely to endorse high-risk behaviours such as heavy alcohol consumption.120

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Ahmed observed that in Muslim families parents may not talk to their children about sexual issues due to the cultural concept of modesty and a belief that this information is not relevant to their children. Some may consider such discussion as a cultural taboo that should not be discussed at all. In Western countries, peer pressure may promote sexual exploration and activity, whereas in Islamic religious and cultural beliefs sexual activity is limited to marital relationships. Despite this prohibition some young Muslims are sexually active. Young Muslim women may engage in fellatio only, seek a hymen reconstruction or request a virginity certificate from physicians before marriage in order to cover up their sexual activity. Parents are often unaware of their child’s sexual activity or are in denial and therefore are unable to address it in an appropriate manner.121 Ahmed observed that in their country of origin parents may not have observed such adolescent behaviour. However with globalisation and internet facilities, Muslim majority countries are not immune to ‘Western-like adolescent behaviours’.122 A US research study conducted by Amy Adamczyk and Brittany Hayes at John Jay College of Criminal Justice New York analysed responses from 2000 to 2008 of over 620,000 people between the ages of 15 and 59. The study was a part of the Demographic and Health Surveys in 31 mostly developing nations. Most countries surveyed were either predominately Muslim or Christian. Results from the study showed that, on average, Muslims who were married were 53 per cent less likely than Christians to report pre-marital sex. Adamczyk and Hayes believed that these results could be due to Muslims’ greater adherence to strict religious tenets that only allow sex within marriage. Muslim leaders are also known to place heavy importance on the custom of marriage.123 In the United States, Muslim parents who continuously forbid pre-marital sex, and alcohol and drug consumption may have a positive impact on young Muslims. Ahmed et al. assessed a survey of 10,401 students that was collected in 2001 (before the September 11, 2001 Twin Towers attacks). Out of 10,401 students, 135 students said that they were raised in Muslim families. A majority of students (68.7 per cent) lived with friends or in on-campus housing, compared to a minority (31.3 per cent) who lived with parents or relatives.124 Most Muslim students (58.5 per cent) reported engaging in at least one high-risk behaviour during the past year, of whom a majority (77.6 per cent) engaged in two or more high-risk behaviours (alcohol use, illicit drug use or gambling but not sexual intercourse). In their multivariate analyses, the authors found that higher religiosity worked as a protective against any past year high-risk behaviour.125 However, Muslim students were less likely to consume alcohol compared to students of other religious groups. Religiosity was associated with Muslim students’ lower drinking habits.126 Research has found that American Muslim students may encounter multiple groups’ behavioural expectations such as societal, religious and cultural and also experience discrimination from the wider society. If Muslim parents decrease the monitoring of their children then it might lead to an increase in high-risk behaviour among Muslim college students. The survey showed that 46.6 per cent of Muslim students drank alcohol in the past year.127 Within Islam, tobacco use can be considered a risk behaviour and some religious

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scholars view it as prohibited to strongly prohibited (makruh meaning detestable). Gambling is also prohibited in Islam and is considered a risk behaviour. In Islam any form of pre-marital intimacy including sexual intercourse is considered a risk behaviour.

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Biculturalism

According to Erik Erikson, youths’ coherent sense of identity can be developed when they move in a culturally homogenous environment.128 But identity formation in the globalised world is far more complex. According to Ackroyd and Pilkington, there are four important aspects to understand people’s identity formation. First, individuals do not maintain one fixed cultural identity but they tend to negotiate a range of ever-changing cultural identities. Second, individuals are constantly positioning themselves according to their identities. Third, the global environment influences one’s cultural identity and fourth, individual agency determines and restricts one’s distinctive cultural identity.129 Since identities are not fixed, they constantly shift depending on social class, educational level, age and gender. Therefore, immigrants in a host society constantly negotiate their identity between numerous cultural spaces and socio-historical contexts.130 Immigrants’ parenting skills also have an impact on the formation of their children’s identity. Greder and Allen observed that parenting is a process of nurturing, guiding and protecting a child through the course of their development. Parents also aim to help their children achieve success in their lives.131 In some cases religious beliefs shape people’s values and behaviours, including parenting practices. Many Muslim parents are influenced by their holy book the Quran.132 Parenting can differ according to one’s position on the socio-economic spectrum. For example, children from poor families or low income families are unlikely to have access to resources such as high quality health care or educational opportunities, while children from upper-income families are likely to have easy access to such facilities. These factors add to the stress of parenting in low income or ethnically marginalised families. Factors such as ethnicity, religion and socioeconomic class can potentially shape cultural values and behaviours that become associated with the ‘culture of poverty’.133 Parents develop their parenting style based on their upbringing, individual and family experiences, their personalities, their cultural group and socialisation, and the characteristics of their children. It should be noted that culture is the main component of the psychological, social and physical environments of individuals and families. So parenting and parenting practices must be viewed in the context of various cultural experiences. Culture shapes parenting but the various cultural contexts parents live in are constantly evolving and being reworked. In addition to culture, parenting behaviour is influenced by other factors such as socio-economic status, gender, age and education.134 Parents from the same culture can have different parenting styles, beliefs and practices depending on their socio-economic status, exposure to other cultures and so on.

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Parents’ roles in bringing up their children depend on their family structure, and roles and responsibilities in the family. The degree to which cultural heritage influences parenting is often based on a family’s level of acculturation, the country or neighbourhood parents reside in, how close or involved are they with their traditional relatives and how much they are influenced by the cultural and social norms of their surrounding communities.135 Acculturation is a process that occurs over a period of time in which families or individuals combine their ethnic, minority and dominant cultural values. Individuals or family members who constantly interact with members of the dominant culture through attending schools and community events are exposed to acculturation opportunities. For example, the parents in a new migrant family may not allow their teenage children to wear Western clothes. Also, a teenager might not be allowed to wear baggy trousers or jeans that are loose and hang low on the hips because it would disrespect their honour and culture.136 Studies suggest that parents who are bicultural can benefit from membership in two divergent cultures. Greder and Allen observe: Bicultural parents are able to retain social, psychological, and attitudinal linkages with their original culture while simultaneously adapting to and navigating the majority culture(s). Biculturalism does not mean abandoning one culture or absorption into another; the ideal is for both constituent cultures to be accessible and useful. Bicultural parents and their families may experience healthiest adjustments to the multicultural contexts of their lives.137

For example, Mexican parents who have migrated to America maintain their basic traditions (such as values of cohesiveness) and roles, such as the father being the primary income provider while learning to use the formal social support system in his new community to help him meet the basic needs of his family.138 Positive child development is often associated with parents’ socio-economic success. Parents would encourage their children to take pride in their ethnicity, overcome racial barriers and stress equality. If parents encounter racism, prejudice and discrimination it may have direct implications for their child’s development, including the child’s sense of self-esteem, their response to stress, their academic performance and their acquisition of useful skills.139 Research suggests that adolescents with parents who understand them, have positive educational expectations for them, and have high levels of family cohesion will have stronger bonds with their parents and will have more access to parental resources and thus improved wellbeing. Research also indicates that adolescents in two-parent households with parents who have high involvement and strong network ties will have more access to community resources and thus improved outcomes.140 Studies by Melucci and Gregg demonstrate that bicultural individuals can shift identities between the cultural frames of in-groups and out-groups with relative ease.141 That is, a bicultural identity caters for emotional tensions and creates a sense of adaptability.142 Melucci observed that a (bicultural) self-identity becomes a dynamic system defined by recognisable opportunities and constraints.143 Identity

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is both a system and a process, because the field is defined by recognisable opportunities and is simultaneously able to intervene to act upon and restructure itself. Two crucial and perplexing questions arise here: the continuity of the self, and the boundaries of the self. The question is one of deciding where the subject of action begins and where it ends and how a person is likely to adapt to a new culture. Melucci noted that an individual’s (bicultural) identity floats within the primary bonds of belonging, like kinship or local and geographical ties (family, community, country of origin and place of residence).144 Schwartz and Unger observed that fully bicultural individuals, for example those who have integrated their Hispanic and American cultural streams, reported the highest level of familial ethnic socialisation. Individuals characterised as separated reported somewhat lower levels of familial ethnic socialisation, and those characterised as assimilated reported among the lowest levels of familial ethnic socialisation. Contrary to the fear of some political commentators such as Huntington,145 then, parents who socialise their children strongly towards the family’s heritage culture do not necessarily create a separated and ‘un-American’ outlook in their children.146 In other words, bicultural identity is flexible and may move through both independent and interdependent collective stances, which is again possible when an individual has a firm grip on both cultures through education, sports, and dialogue and communication. Participants’ bicultural stance

The participants in this study were bicultural, and most of them appreciated positive features of America such as freedom and democratic rights as discussed in Chapter 2. In this section, I discuss how some participants reflected on their bicultural viewpoints. Ahmed (30 years, male, overseas-born, Cuban background) said: I consider myself Muslim. I consider myself a citizen of the world. But in the immediate, I would say that my identity is definitely, at minimum, bicultural, Cuban as well as American. But I have so many other influences. Black Americans influence me very much. (interview, Florida, 2011)

Azeez (20 years, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi background, identity: Bangladeshi American) emphasised diversity and integration: ‘I mean, being American, it’s not really the culture, because everyone has their own culture in America. So being American, you could still express your own culture, but you have to stay within the limits, kind of’. Azeez thought being un-American was ‘cultural, eating with hands instead of cutleries’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Nooha (17 years, female, overseas-born, identity: Pakistani American Muslim), who migrated to the United States at an early age, was critical of immigrants who are keen to assimilate into the Western culture and abandon their own tradition. Nooha suggested a balance between two cultures:

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If you come here, you’re Eastern right, you’re different than them. Like a lot of people get very westernised and changes themselves … It doesn’t necessarily means better if you are American, if you exactly behave like American. If you’re a Pakistani exactly behave like a Pakistani, because whichever country you go to you have to get used to the laws and environment and pick up everything [integrate], but also keep what’s in your culture and from your religion. Don’t forget that you came to another country, you don’t forget everything what you were in the past; you have to remember everything and put everything together so you know what you’re doing right now and what happened in your past. (interview, New York, 2009)

Similarly, Rafiq (17 years, male, US-born, identity: Palestinian American) said:

I think to strictly call yourself American is someone that rejects their Palestinian culture, or any other culture that they come from, and try to blend into the mainstream society here, and I think that’s one extreme. And the other extreme is somebody that comes to America, and calls themselves strictly Palestinian, and they limit themselves to only talking to other Palestinians, and only eating Arabic food, and not going to any American places. That’s the other extreme.

Rafiq was happy with his bicultural ‘self’ when he stated:

I believe that extreme doesn’t prosper in society either. I think what I have chosen Palestinian American, to blend into both societies, and to keep my culture with me, but to expand and accept American culture here. I find it the most prosperous because I can live in society and I can deal with different kinds of people. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Silma (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Pakistani) spoke of her integration:

To be an American you have to be deal with what your surrounds are. Because what school I am in, this is not what I am outside, this is, I mean when it’s outside it’s a whole different thing. A whole different people, when you’re wearing your hijab, your jilbab [a full length outer garment] outside, people look at you with a whole different perception, like ‘Oh my god’, you know? And we have to give ourselves a good media now what media’s saying about us not anything like that. Being an un-American would be that what I am, Pakistani and they look at Pakistanis different ways too than they look at Arabs. So I’m actually like both there, so that’s it. (interview, New York, 2010)

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Perhaps Silma meant that, even though in her school’s mainstream surroundings she felt American, outside her school when she wore her traditional clothing she was perceived as the ‘Other’. She observed that the media sometimes portray Muslims negatively. Under the circumstances, Muslims should present themselves positively (or as role models) in the wider society. Silma was happy with both her American and un-American look that she related to her clothing. Rabiya (23 years, female, US-born, identity: Iranian American) emphasised biculturalism:

I think to be American is really to be from somewhere else. I think to identify with two cultures is more American. I think to be American is to love the things we get to live in this country, like the free speech. I think that’s a huge part of being American, to be multilingual, to know both things. And I think another big part of being American is to appreciate what you have in this country, to an American immigrant at least. That’s what it meant to me, to appreciate what you have here, and to not forget where you came from. But to be an American, to me, is you live in a country and you’re proud to live in this country. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Nusrat (age 30, female, overseas-born, Pakistani origin, identity: American Muslim), who migrated with her parents to America at the age of six and visited Pakistan three times, said that she was not into the Pakistani culture. When I asked her if she knew about the traditional Pakistani wedding customs, for example, henna night, Nusrat said that she knew what it was but it did not interest her. Nusrat said:

I’m an observant Muslim, I pray five times a day, I fast during Ramadan, I generally do the things that I am required to do as a Muslim, but culturally I’m very American. So a lot of the cultural things from, you know, my parents’ generation doesn’t ring true. I remember when my cousins would get married, all the rituals around weddings for example, those are not familiar things to me. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Nusrat said that as she was growing up in high school she questioned her identity: ‘One of the things that became important to me through that process was religion’. She started a youth group and later in college was the head of the Muslim Students Association. And then when she first graduated from college, she went to Syria for a few months to learn Arabic. Some immigrants who migrated to America with their parents at a young age spoke of their ethnic and Islamic cultures. For example, Shakir of Afghan heritage recalled the hardship they faced in war-torn Afghanistan and later in their transitional period in Pakistan before they migrated to America on humanitarian grounds. In America, Shakir and his brother retained their ethnic culture. They played chess and read books and sometimes flew home-made plastic kites. Kite flying is very

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common in South Asia (for example, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh). In America, Shakir and his brothers made kites with plastic bags and pieces of wooden broomstick. They flew them from the top of their three-storey apartment building.147 As discussed in Chapter 2, many Muslim Americans said that being born and raised in America made them Americans. Some participants related their Americanness with its food. Muheet (male, 21 years, US-born, Trinidad and Tobago background, identity: American-Trinidad) made observations about the notions of American and un-American in terms of food: American to me is cultural, going out to clubs, food, McDonald’s, Burger King, eating the steaks and the burgers. Non-American to me is what we eat for dinner. We eat more of a West Indian type of food. Like for example, I went up to a West Indian restaurant called Joy’s. They sell a thing called double roti, curried shrimp, and stuff like that. That’s more of I would consider non-American compared to [American food]. My parents cook the Caribbean food, and they have quite a few places that we can eat there, too, as well. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Muheet defined American and un-American through his perceptions of food, saying that he mostly ate West Indian food. But through his life story it appeared that he was very much bicultural in his orientation. Muheet said, ‘I would consider myself American-Trinidad. I do speak with more an American accent than anything. When you grow up here, you pick up the accent and stuff like that.’ Muheet was employed in a full-time job in the wider society, and he was also a fulltime university student. On his sport activities, Muheet said, ‘I was part of the varsity soccer team. And I did play soccer and basketball, a little bit of Wiffle ball.’ Muheet continued, ‘The teams I support for football is Patriots. I like the New England teams, like Boston Celtics. And I do support the Miami teams as well, except for the football’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Sohail of Indian heritage (27 years, male, US-born, identity: American Indian), who spoke on the Indian culture of respect, later related his American-ness with the mainstream culture: If I’m going to joke around, if I’m going to relax and entertain myself … it’s going to be things that resonate, from within American culture that resonate most of me. I mean the idea of fun stuff like snowboarding, hiking, this sort of thing comes more from having grown up here. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Pervez of Pakistani American heritage (24 years, male, US-born, Pakistani/ mainstream American origin, identity: American) felt very American when he lived in the Middle East:

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I went to Saudi Arabia last year … what I really missed my home because three months away from home is the longest I’ve ever been. I missed the American holidays. You know Fall for us is apples and pumpkins and Thanksgiving and Halloween, Christmas and like over there, none of that. It gets a little bit cooler but it’s not the same you know. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Nafeesa (15 years, female, US-born, Syrian origin, identity: Arab American Muslim) related American-ness with American brand names and technology.

Being American, I guess when I compare myself to people overseas, like having American brand name stuff and having access to like technology and stuff over here ’cause you don’t have that back there. Just being American in ways like TV shows and everything, the stuff we watch, the stuff I listen to, you know the internet and buying American brands. I find that always being American. And then un-American I guess we watch TV shows from back home. I speak Arabic all the time, I mean we keep up with a lot of the Arab traditions back home. (interview, Florida, 2011)

Some participants related their American self with consumer goods. Lateefa (female, US-born, 18 years, European-Middle Eastern origin, identity: American Muslim) said:

I think to be American … I guess you’re with the whole cultural media aspect of like clothes and if you’re up to date on what’s going on with celebrities, and if you’re not American you’re basically the opposite I guess. (interview, Florida, 2010)

But Ruhee (30 years, female, overseas-born, Jordanian origin, identity: Arab American) had a different opinion: It’s just, growing up when I went to high school, it was very American to wear jeans for example. I personally did not like jeans. I like the sophisticated look … I think I wore jeans maybe twice during high school and whenever I would wear jeans my classmates would say, ‘Oh, wow, you’re wearing jeans!’ It’s not me, listening to Western music. It can also imply that you’re an American. Eating American food, you know, hot dogs, again for me, I’ve never tasted a hot dog but because I didn’t do these things does that mean that I’m not American? (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Ruhee was born in Jordan and was raised there until the age of 10. She attended a public school in America which she thought was ‘diverse enough where we did fit in’. Ruhee said that learning a different language (English) was a bit difficult ‘but

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in terms of fitting in I did not wear the hijab at that young age so in terms of physical appearance’. As Ruhee mentioned, she was not into the typical American culture or youth subculture such as wearing jeans. Later she said that she was different from her siblings: All my siblings love movies and they went to the movie theatre. For me I am a book worm. I love reading books. Growing up I liked mystery, I liked a lot of non-fictional books, learning about nature, learning about the human mind.

Ruhee further said, ‘I love nature … gardening and I love spending time with my family. Growing up I did listen to Arabic music … My brothers for example, they liked Western music. For me I liked the classical Arabic music.’ So it appears her bicultural skills included speaking the English language and reading. Emran (16 years, male, overseas-born, identity: I’m Egyptian blood, I was born in Egypt so I have a lot of Egyptian culture in me) said: Let’s say the American food, the language, their sports, the things that are around you, that’s how we change. Like in Egypt we play soccer, that’s the main sport we don’t go play basketball, American football, that’s the differences. Yeah that’s [soccer] an Egyptian thing, they don’t play that much soccer over here. (interview, New York, 2010)

Emran said that his mother was a Quran reader and ‘I memorise some Quran (Quranic verses)’. Emran exhibited his bicultural skills when he spoke of his food and entertainment. Emran said, ‘I eat the hamburger, I don’t eat that much Egyptian food … I listen to a lot of Egyptian music, but also listen to American music, like on my phone I have American and Egyptian music, I kind of balance them’. Emran continued describing his passion for music, ‘When you work out at the weight room and at the gym you always listen to music … to encourage to play harder, so when I’m working out and after I finish, I listen to relaxing music’. Emran was also a reader. He said, ‘I used to read John Steinbeck books. Now I’m reading Catcher in the Rye and the author’s name I forget, it’s something John [Jerome David Salinger].’ On sports, he did wrestling and watched world soccer. He said that he watched the World Cup soccer when Egypt lost to Algeria in November 2009. Shiraj (17 years, US-born, male, Egyptian origin, identified himself as, ‘I’m a Muslim’). While defining American and un-American, Shiraj said: Oh, being American … literally it means a person from America, a citizen of America or it can mean a person born in America … It gives you a sense of freedom if you go make a rally of what’s happening, suppose in Palestine. Then that’s you’re exercising your rights and that’s how you mean American. So being under the banner of Americans means you’re using the rights of being in America in a good way.

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And being un-American [refers to] anyone who’s just over here just to take advantage for their selves. I feel that’s selfish, you’re being selfish. (interview, New York, 2010)

Shiraj acknowledged that a sense of freedom and exercising one’s rights for a good cause was American but people who pursued their selfish ends would be unAmerican. Similar to some earlier participants, Shiraj knew his Muslim obligations when he said, ‘Some people they have bacon and or pork, I say, “No, I’m Muslim, man, I can’t eat” … and most of my friends they’re alright with that … I’m also like conscious of my religion’. Shiraj also spoke of receiving invitations from his friends to their Sweet Sixteen parties, ‘They have this biggest Sweet Sixteen parties … I’ve never gone to one, I’ve never had one, but I know that people, they probably have music’. Shiraj continued, ‘I had a friend ask me to come to their party so I thought I really would love to but I have to put my religion before everything and my religion says I can’t do this’. About his sports, Shiraj said, ‘Ah, sport, sometimes we play basketball after school probably it’s good to be basketball friends, it’s good we also have Muslims as the Prophet’s [PBUH] hadith says “We’re … a strong Muslim is better than the weak Muslim”’. Shiraj’s Muslim identity came out distinctively. He did not speak of his Egyptian identity but he mentioned it inadvertently when he said that he spoke the Egyptian language at home. Regarding his fondness of food, Shiraj said, ‘I’m in love with Egyptian food especially when I go to my father’s village. Over there they make everything like the soup, they got it all from the ground, the leaves and they cut it up and they serve it.’ Shiraj’s bicultural skills were conspicuous when he said that he took Latin language in his school, and he was involved with a ping pong club, swimming team and karate club outside his school. Shiraj said, ‘I have a black belt, first division, Alhamdulillah [All praise belongs to Allah]’. Shiraj watched football (soccer) especially the World Cup and baseball. Shiraj commented, ‘My favourite team is the Yankees who just won [the 2009 World Series]’ (interview, New York, 2010).

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have discussed the placement of first and second generation immigrants in their ethnic/Islamic community and the American society. Firstgeneration immigrants who were born and raised in their country of origin generally bring with them some of their cultural traditions. They also expect their children to retain their cultural heritage. The participants in this study were mostly second generation (mostly US-born and a few overseas-born who moved to America at a very early age). Through their definition of American and unAmerican some participants were appreciative of their Islamic or ethnic culture. Some of them were critical and even sarcastic about their parents’ culture or way of thinking. But most participants negotiated both mainstream American and their ethnic and Islamic cultures. The participants, however, did not discuss folk Islam.

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Perhaps American Islam which provides mosques and encourages the basic practice of Islam (salat, fasting, Eid celebrations, etc.) does not have the basic infrastructure of folk Islam, for example, shrines of revered Muslim Sufi saints (mazars, etc). I have also discussed the factors that may frustrate young Muslims, for example, too many restrictions from their parents, and peer pressure from mainstream Americans to ‘fit in’. Some young Muslims may not be immune to youth subcultures such as alcohol consumption and pre-marital sexual behaviour, though these activities are more common among their non-Muslim counterparts. My research also does not deny the possibility of radicalisation among young Muslims, for example, the Somali Americans who joined militant groups (2007–2008) or the contemporary case of ISIL, because culturally confused youth may choose a radical path. Therefore, this chapter emphasises the bicultural strength of Muslim immigrants. Immigrant parents with an affluent economic status are more likely to be bicultural and this has a positive impact on their children. However, some firstgeneration Muslim immigrants live in their host country with a sense of cultural loss. If society appears to be culturally hostile the immigrant parents may become more protective of their children, and try to keep them closer to their traditional culture. So the vicious circle of diaspora, marginalisation, Islamophobia and radicalisation needs to be addressed. Both collectivism and individualism have their merits but there needs to be a balance between the two. This will assist young Muslims to negotiate and manoeuvre between the two cultures.

Notes 1

2 3 4 5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12

13 14

15

Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny (eds), Growing Up Muslim: Muslim College Students in America Tell Their Stories (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014). Ibid. Shabana Mir, Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). Ibid., p. 3. Ibid. Marc Howard Ross, Cultural Contestations in Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 18. Ibid., p. 25. Frances Raday, ‘Culture, Religion, and Gender’, I.CON, 1/4 (2003): 663–715. See p. 666. Ibid, pp. 666-667. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 5. Ibid. Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, 3rd edn (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 10. Ibid., pp. 10, 16. Talal Asad, ‘Anthropological Conceptions of Religion: Reflections on Geertz’, Man, 18/2 (1983): 237–259. Ibid.

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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38

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Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 79. See also Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young British Muslims: Identity, Culture, Politics and the Media (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 6–7. Riadh El Droubie, My Muslim Life (London: Wayland Publishers, 2006). Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity (New York: HarperOne, 2002), p. 65. For further details, see Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 44–47. Ibid. Komil Kalanov and Antonio Alonso, ‘Sacred Places and “Folk” Islam in Central Asia’, UNISCI Discussion Papers, 17 (2008): 173–185. Ibid., p. 175. Farzana Mahbuba, ‘Folk-Islam and Muslim Women’s Gender Perceptions in Urban Bangladesh’ (PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, 2013), pp. 83–84. Shafiqur Rahman, Bangladeshi Diaspora in the United States After 9/11 (El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2011), p. 160. Ibid. Ibid., p. 153. Kimberly A. Greder and William D Allen, ‘Parenting in Color: Cultural Diverse Perspectives on Parenting’, in Bahira Sherif-Trask and Raeann R. Hamon (eds), Cultural Diversity and Families: Expanding Perspectives (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), p. 119. Tariq Modood, ‘“Difference”, Cultural Racism and Antiracism’, in Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood (eds), Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-racism (London: Zed Books, 1997), p. 158. Ibid. Ibid., p. 165. A saree is a garment that consists of a piece of material about 6 metres in length and 1.2 metres in width. It is wrapped around the waist, with one end draped over the shoulder, baring the midriff. Henna paste is a greenish colour when it is put on hands. It is left on the hands for a few hours until it is dry. Then after washing the hands the colour turns out to be bright reddish brown. David Matsumoto and Linda Juang, Culture and Psychology, 3rd edn (Belmont, CA: Thomson and Wadworth, 2004), pp. 134, 156. Ibid., p. 155. Ibid. pp. 135–154. Ibid. See also, Kabir, Young American Muslims. Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama, ‘Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation’, Psychological Review, 98 (1991): 224–253; Matsumoto and Juang, Culture and Psychology, pp. 301–302; Bahira Sherif-Trask, ‘Muslim Families in the United States’, in M. Coleman and L. Ganong (eds), Handbook of Contemporary Families: Considering the Past, Contemplating the Future (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004), pp. 394–408. G. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980).

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48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

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Valerie A. Lykes and Markus Kemmelmeier, ‘What Predicts Loneliness? Cultural Difference Between Individualistic and Collectivistic Societies in Europe’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45/3 (2014): 468–490. See also, Markus and Kitayama, ‘Culture and the Self’. Kim Ann Zimmermann, ‘American Culture: Traditions and Customs of the United States’, Live Science, 22 April 2013, www.livescience.com/28945-americanculture.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Peter Skerry, ‘American Culture and the Muslim World’, Society, 49/1 (2012): 61–68, see p. 61. Ibid., 62. Jaswant Guzder and Meenakshi Krishna, ‘Mind the Gap: Diaspora Issues of Indian Origin Women in Psychotherapy’, Psychology and Developing Societies, 17/2 (2005): 121–138, see pp. 123–124. Denise Helly, ‘Diaspora: History of an Idea’, in Haideh Moghissi (ed.), Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Identity (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 15. Nazli Kibria, Muslims in Motion: Islam and National Identity in the Bangladeshi Diaspora (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011), pp. 71–74. Ibid., p. 65. Bahira Sherif, ‘Islamic Family Ideals and their Relevance to American Muslim Families’, in Mark Hutter (ed.), The Family Experience: A Reader in Cultural Diversity, 4th edn (Boston: Pearson, 2003), p. 187. Yvonne Y. Haddad, Jane I. Smith and Kathleen M. Moore, Muslim Women in America: The Challenges of Islamic Identity Today (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 14. Ibid., pp. 84–85. Ibid. Ibid., p. 17. Sameera Ahmed, ‘Adolescents and Emerging Adults’, in Sameera Ahmed and Mona Amer (eds), Counseling Muslims: Handbook of Mental Health Issues and Interventions (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 253. Donald G. Unger, Teresita Cuevas and Tara Woolfolk, ‘Human Services and Cultural Diversity: Tenuous Relationships, Challenges and Opportunities Ahead’, in Bahira Sherif-Trask and Raeann R. Hamon (eds), Cultural Diversity and Families: Expanding Perspectives (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), p. 183. Ibid, pp. 183–184. See for example, American Muslims Nasheed, www.youtube.com/watch?v=drdoxie WSDw (accessed 15 February 2016). Rahman, Bangladeshi Diaspora in the United States After 9/11, pp. 158–159. Haddad et al., Muslim Women in America, p. 87. Ibid., p. 86. Mir, Muslim American Women on Campus, p. 130. Ibid., p. 132. Ibid., p. 146. Ibid., pp. 157–158. Ibid., p. 153. Haddad et al., Muslim Women in America, p. 87. John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think? (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), p. 22.

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71 72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79

80 81 82 83

84

85 86 87 88 89 90

91 92 93

94 95

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Ibid. Ibid. Shamsul Khan and Mehjabeen Ahmad, ‘The Case of Muslim Aged Care in the West’, Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging, 26/4 (2014): 281–199, see pp. 283–284. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Quran: Translation and Commentary (Johannesburg, South Africa: Solly Noor Group, 1993). Khan and Ahmad, ‘The Case of Muslim Aged Care in the West’, pp. 283–284. Haddad et al., Muslim Women in America, p. 94. Mona Siddiqui, Hospitality and Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2015), pp. 216–223. Ibid., pp. 35–38. Sura (IV) An-Nisa (Women), verse 36, cited in Siddiqui, Hospitality and Islam, p. 36. In Chapter 6, I will discuss some young Muslims’ hospitality initiatives towards homeless non-Muslim Americans. Rahman, Bangladeshi Diaspora in the United States After 9/11, pp. 186–199. Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘The Road to a Transcultural America: The Case of American Muslim Girls’, Journal of International Studies, 37/3 (2016): 250–264. Bahira Sherif-Trask, ‘Locating Multiethnic Families in a Globalizing World’, Family Relations, 62/1 (2013): 17–29, see p. 20. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., pp. 25–26. Shakir Quraishi, ‘Living Like a Kite’, in Garrod and Kilkenny (eds), Growing Up Muslim, p. 84. Mumtaz Ahmad, ‘Faith, Community, Identity: Muslims’ Search for Religio-Political Space in America’, in Samina Yasmeen and Nina Markovic (eds), Muslim Citizens in the West: Spaces and Agents of Inclusion and Exclusion (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 69–86, see p. 78. See also, Pew Research Center, Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream, 2007, www.pewresearch.org/2007/05/22/muslimamericans-middle-class-and-mostly-mainstream/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Mitt Romney, No Apology: Believe in America (New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 2011), p. 227. Ibid. Nadine Nabir, ‘The Rules of Forced Engagement: Race, Gender, and the Culture of Fear Among Arab Immigrants in San Francisco Post-9/11’, Cultural Dynamics, 18/3 (2006): 235–267, see p. 251. Naber, ‘The Rules of Forced Engagement’, p. 251. Ibid., p. 251. Ibid., p. 246. Saher Selod, ‘Citizenship Denied: The Racialization of Muslim American Men and Women post-9/11’, Critical Sociology, 41/1 (2014): 77–95, see p. 83. Ibid., p. 84. Ibid., pp. 78, 91. Paul Buchanan, The American Women’s Rights Movement: A Chronology of Events and Opportunities from 1600–2008 (Boston: Branden Books, 2009), p. 23. Ibid., pp. 84–85. Lawrence W. Samuel, The American Dream: A Cultural History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2012), p. 37. Buchanan, The American Women’s Rights Movement, p. 180.

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Anonymous, ‘Women of Power’, Scholastic News Edition, 5/6 (5 March 2012), pp. 4–5. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), p. 15, cited in Judith Ackroyd and Andrew Pilkington, ‘Childhood and the Construction of Ethnic Identities in a Global Age: A Dramatic Encounter’, Childhood, 6/4 (1999): 443–454, see p. 448. Stuart Hall, ‘Our Mongrel Selves’, New Statesman, 19 June 1992, p. 6, cited in Ackroyd and Pilkington, ‘Childhood and the Construction of Ethnic Identities’, p. 448. P. Gilroy, ‘The End of Antiracism’, in J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds), ‘Race’, Culture and Difference (London: Sage, 1992), pp. 49–61, see p. 53, cited in Ackroyd and Pilkington, ‘Childhood and the Construction of Ethnic Identities’, p. 449. Ackroyd and Pilkington, ‘Childhood and the Construction of Ethnic Identities’, p. 449. Ahmed, ‘Adolescents and Emerging Adults’, pp. 252–260, see p. 254. Saeed Rahnema, ‘Islam in Diaspora and Challenges to Multiculturalism’, in Haideh Moghissi (ed.), Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Identity (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 34. Ibid., pp. 35–36. Ibid. Ibid., p. 37. Stevan Weine, John Horgan, Cheryl Robertson, Sana Loue, Amin Mohamed and Sahra Noor, ‘Community and Family Approaches to Combating the Radicalization and Recruitment of Somali-American Youth and Young Adults: A Psychosocial Perspective’, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 2/3 (2009): 181–200. Ibid. Ibid., p. 191. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 192, 195. Pnina Werbner, ‘The Predicament of Diaspora and Millennial Islam: Reflections on September 11, 2001’, Ethnicities 4/4 (2004): 451–476, see pp. 461–462. Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘To be or Not to be an Australian: Focus on Muslim Youth’, National Identities, 10/4 (2008): 399–419, see p. 412. Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 91–94. Kibria, Muslims in Motion, pp. 38–39. Pew Research Center, Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism, 30 August 2011, http://people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslimamericans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/ (accessed 15 February 2016), p. 18. Ibid., p. 17. Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 47–50. Ahmed, ‘Adolescents and Emerging Adults’, pp. 252–260. Ibid., pp. 252–253. Ibid., p. 253. Ibid. Christine Hsu, ‘Muslims Least Likely to Engage in Premarital and Extramarital Sex, Study Suggests’, Medical Daily, 19 October 2012, www.medicaldaily.com/muslimsleast-likely-engage-premarital-and-extramarital-sex-study-suggests-243190 (accessed 15 February 2016).

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Sameera Ahmed, Wahiba Abu-Ras and Cynthia L. Arfken, ‘Prevalence of Risk Behaviors among U.S. Muslim College Students’, Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 8/1 (2014): 5–19, see p. 12. Ibid., p. 5. Abu-Ras Wahiba, Sameera Ahmed and Cynthia L. Arfken, ‘Alcohol Use Among U.S. Muslim College Students: Risk and Protective Factors’, Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 9/3 (2010): 206–220, see p. 216. Ahmed et al., ‘Prevalence of Risk Behaviors among U.S. Muslim College Students’, p. 6. Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: W.W. Norton, 1963). Ackroyd and Pilkington, ‘Childhood and the Construction of Ethnic Identities’, p. 447. See also, Kabir, Young British Muslims, pp. 79–111; Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 68–113. Kimberly A. Greder and William D Allen, ‘Parenting in Color: Cultural Diverse Perspectives on Parenting’, in Bahira Sherif-Trask and Raeann R. Hamon (eds), Cultural Diversity and Families: Expanding Perspectives (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), p. 119. Ibid., p. 120. Ibid, pp. 120–121. Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., p. 123 Ibid. Ibid., p. 124. See also, J. Szapocznik, W. Kurtines and T. Fernandrez, ‘Bicultural Involvement and Adjustment in Hispanic-American Youths’, International Journal of Intercultural Studies, 4 (1980): 353–365. Greder and Allen, ‘Parenting in Color’, p. 124. Ibid., p. 126. Sarah Schlabach, ‘The Importance of Family, Race, and Gender for Multiracial Adolescent Well-being’, Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies, 63 (2013): 154–174, see p. 157. A. Melucci, ‘Identity and Difference in a Globalized World’, in Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood (eds), Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism (London: Zed Books, 1997), pp. 58–69; Gary S. Gregg, Culture and Identity in a Muslim Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Gregg, Culture and Identity in a Muslim Society, p. 19. Melucci, ‘Identity and Difference in a Globalized World’, p. 64. Ibid., p. 65. Samuel Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). Seth J. Schwartz and Jennifer B. Unger, ‘Biculturalism and Context: What is Biculturalism, and When Is It Adaptive: Commentary on Mistry and Wu’, Human Development, 53 (2010): 26–32, see p. 28. Quraishi, ‘Living Like a Kite’, pp. 86–87.

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4

Is the media ‘un-American’?

When I discussed the concepts ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ with the participants in this study, they often mentioned media representations of what it is to be American. Nausheen (21 years, US-born) found the mainstream media to be ‘un-American’: A lot of [American] people think people from other countries [Muslims] shouldn’t be given American citizenship. Especially nowadays I’ve realised that with Muslim countries that they’re [also] really, actually cautious about letting people into America because they’re so scared of all the stuff that’s going in the media … the message that the media’s portraying to everyone … If they’re so much about freedom of speech and freedom of religion, freedom to practice [religion], why are they [the media] doing that? That’s where I think it would be un-American. (interview, Virginia, 2009)

This 21-year-old US-born female participant of Pakistani heritage (who identified herself as American-Pakistani) was bewildered by the notion American means freedom of speech and freedom of religion while at the same time some American media portray Muslims negatively. It has an impact on Muslims overseas who are cautious about migrating to or visiting the United States. Under the circumstances, Nausheen envisaged the American media’s actions as ‘un-American’. Another female interviewee in this study, Nadia (17 years, US-born), commented: For the most part, I think that they [the media] got it adequately. They’re not very discriminatory. But the thing is, they only portray the bad parts of Islam because that’s the thing that attracts people to the media. ‘These radicals did this. This guy, he’s a radical, he did this.’ They don’t really say how Muslims have helped in any way. They kind of depict Muslims overseas as people who are desperate. They can’t take care of themselves. And that’s not true. The thing is, they [the media] only do that, they only convey Muslims in that kind of way because people in America, who don’t know about Islam, are attracted to that kind of stuff. (interview, Florida, 2010)

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Nadia (who identified herself as 100 per cent American) spoke of her mixed heritage. Her father was of African American and Native-American heritage and her mother’s background was European. When Nadia said ‘They’re [the media] not very discriminatory’, she may have meant that the media does not make the news. It relays the news that has already happened to its audience, but when the news is related to Islam and Muslims, the media goes overboard. Nadia did not spell out the word ‘un-American’ but she meant that when the mainstream media attacks Muslim or their faith, Islam, that is un-American. Generally speaking, the media tends to mediate information based on real events but at the same time it may transmit the news to its audience in such a way that it can shape public opinion. When the media disproportionately represent Muslims as violent, disrespectful of the mainstream culture and a threat to the dominant society, it may remain in the unconscious self of the audience that ‘They’ (Muslims) cannot be one of ‘Us’ (Westerners). In media representation of a group or in any news item, the discursive whole that the text builds up is important. When readers read the text, they interpret it with the knowledge that they have previously acquired, in this case about the ‘Muslim Other’. So as readers read certain news items, they continuously move between different worlds of experiences, position themselves in the situation, negotiate their positions and situate themselves within a notion of the self.1 With regard to the media’s subjectivity, Stuart Hall observed that the media’s production and consumption is driven by the dominant cultural order, which favours certain connotative codes over others. These codes in the media produce and perpetuate power relationships among hegemonic media producers, the audience, and the language itself through the ‘attempt to fix meaning’.2 In other words, some mainstream media are likely to construct a group (in this case Muslims) negatively by bringing in commentators who frame their ‘connotative codes’ such as terror, Islamic terror and jihadism to mark the group as the ‘Other’. With its hegemonic power and under the practice of ‘connotative codes’, after a horrendous act by one person, some media tend to mark the entire community as a threat to the country. The media’s silence on non-Muslims’ acts of violence is also driven by the perception in the dominant cultural order that they are a lesser threat. The hegemonic discursive power is, however, not only confined to in the American context. In this chapter, I first discuss how some non-American (Western) media uses its discursive power in representing news about Muslims. Second, I discuss the observations of some academics on the American context. Third, I discuss how some print media represented news about Faisal Shahzad. Fourth, I examine whether the print media represented Jared Lee Loughner’s case with the same vigour as it did with Shahzad’s case. Finally, I examine whether the media representation of Muslims can be viewed as ‘un-American’.

The non-American (Western) context

In Europe, Karin Creutz-Kamppi’s research on Finnish newspapers on the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Danish cartoon controversy found an existing colonialist

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discourse. Creutz-Kamppi examined all articles – consisting of editorials, columns and letters to the editor – that mentioned Islam or Muslims from the period 10 December 2005 to 9 May 2006 covering seven Swedish-language newspapers. Creutz-Kamppi observed that the cartoons were not published in the newspapers in Finland and the demonstrations to protest against the cartoons in Finland were peaceful. However, through discourse analysis, she found that throughout her researched newspaper items, the rhetoric of ‘Us and Them’ – ‘Us’ being a European or ‘Western’ collective and ‘Them’ being Muslims – was distinct and clear.3 In her newspaper research, Creutz-Kamppi found four repeated Othering discourses: the discourse of violence; the colonialist discourse; the discourse of secularisation; and the discourse of clash of civilisations.4 For example, in the discourse of violence, there were references to Muslim ‘mobs’ (when discussing Muslim protests overseas), and ‘Sharia’ as a negative connotation. In the colonialist discourse, Western cultural superiority was expressed through the words that the Muslim world needs ‘doses of enlightenment, freedom of speech and democracy’.5 In the UK context, Elizabeth Poole pointed out that during the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against Rushdie for his murder, the outraged liberal establishment in Britain and beyond defended Rushdie’s right to freedom of speech.6 However, this freedom did not seem to be extended to Muslims to voice their opposition to Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, which they believed blasphemously insulted the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his family. The British media failed to show any sympathy for Muslims’ sentiment that the author had gravely offended their culture and religion.7 Instead, as Modood observed, the British media was flooded with accounts of allegedly irrational, fanatical and intolerant Muslims. There were calls for Muslims to assimilate in British academic, media and political discourse.8 In the Australian context, Poynting, Noble, Tabar and Collins noted that the Australian newspaper reportage on anything even remotely involving Muslims (from gang rapes, to refugees arriving as boat people and therefore being ‘queue jumpers’, to the 9/11 attacks in America) naturalises the dangerous Otherness of those of Arabic-speaking, Middle Eastern or Muslim background.9 This in particular can be observed by the way some print media have been Othering Muslims through published images and blaring headlines, as I have explained elsewhere.10 When news and images relating to Muslims are accompanied by a sensationalist and completely unrelated headline, it can only be considered to be prejudicial.

The American (Western) context

In the American (and British) context, Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin observed that the Muslim narrative in the media is guided by the practice of ‘agenda setting’, which creates a cognitive relationship between the ‘representation’ of the world and how people perceive it. They argued that the agendas that shape meanings are set by governments, media professionals, various corporations and sometimes by audiences. They also argued that the post-9/11 journalism and the reporting of the global War on Terror had agendas that supported state interests and policies.11

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Morey and Yaqin stated, ‘When it comes to Muslims, these dominant agendas have to do with radicalism, terrorism, and practices that are seen as a threat to the nationstates that even a globalized media still sees itself as primarily serving’.12 Evelyn Alsultany observed that the commercial media tends to represent Arab and Muslim identities as ‘terrorists, victims, and patriots’. The non-profit media tends to represent Muslims ‘as able to assimilate into the American society by virtue of possessing compatible values, patriotic devotion or toning down visual differences and accentuating ambiguous assimilative diversity, revealing the limits of diversity at this historical juncture’.13 Alsultany also observed that in the immediate post-9/11 period some TV dramas and series featured Arab and Muslim Americans as hardworking and often patriotic but as victims of racial and religious prejudice, for example, ABC Television’s dramas The Practice, NYPD Blue, 7th Heaven; NBC’s Law and Order, Law and Order SUV, The West Wing; Fox Channel’s Boston Public and CBS’s Education of Max Bickford and The Guardian.14 In an earlier book I reported that 78 per cent of my participants observed that the American media was unfair. Only 5 per cent of my participants held positive views about the American media.15 Alsultany noted that overall American commercial television and print media reports have become increasingly disparate: they sensationalise news where there is a hero (in this context mainstream Americans) and a villain or a problem (the Muslim Other).16 Even people who have been racially marginalised in American society become the saviour when there is a Muslim question. For example, on 4 October 2002, the Oprah Winfrey Show devoted an entire episode to the Amina Lawal case, called ‘Can We Save Amina Lawal?’17 In 2002 Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning, and Ms Lawal’s pregnancy was taken as proof of adultery. Worldwide condemnation of the case, and a campaign mounted by human rights organisations, eventually led to Ms Lawal’s acquittal. Winfrey’s show succeeded in getting many American women to support Lawal, which was important for Lawal’s acquittal, but her choice of words had colonial overtones. Winfrey considered Amina’s sentence to death was ‘barbaric, and all of us who consider ourselves civilized should not allow it to happen’.18 Winfrey concluded with this statement, ‘I continue to say if you’re a woman born in America, you are one of the luckiest women in the world’.19 Winfrey has done shows about violence against women in America, however, for her choice of words, ‘we’ and ‘us’ over the Amina Lawal’s episode, showed that Americans both white and non-white were one group against the Other Muslim group. Therefore, some critics wondered why Winfrey failed to discuss the gender issue, such as violence against women was a universal issue and an American issue too.20 Though Winfrey emerged as an extraordinarily successful black woman, this does not mean that America has overcome its history of racism and sexism. Perhaps, as social identity theory21 has indicated, when individuals consider a certain group as an out-group (in this case Muslims), in order to separate themselves from that group they make themselves an in-group by stereotyping the ‘Other’. In addition, in Winfrey’s case, perhaps, two factors – acceptance and recognition – played important roles in the formation of her mainstream American

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identity. Under the circumstances, she associated with the notion of ‘civilised’ and the ‘luckiest woman in the world’. However, as Stuart Hall stated, ‘It [identity] always remains incomplete, is always “in process,” always “being formed”’.22 In the movie The Butler Oprah Winfrey played the wife of the film’s title character (played by Forest Whitaker), a White House African American service worker who faced extreme challenges throughout the Civil Rights era. The movie revealed the historical institutional racism and exploitation against African Americans.23 It appears that when the debate was over white colonial hegemonic power against African Americans Winfrey chose to be sympathetic with her in-group (African Americans) against the out-group (the wider society). Wajahat Ali et al. have found that some well-established media outlets, such as the Fox News Empire, conservative magazine National Review and its website, right-wing radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage and Glenn Neck, the Washington Times newspaper, and the Christian Broadcasting Network have been stirring up fear among their audience. Anti-Muslim websites and popular radio talk-show hosts repeatedly promote anti-Muslim sentiment.24 Whether these antiMuslim or propaganda media outlets can be labelled as ‘un-American’ remains a debatable matter. One participant in this study, Majeed (20 years, male, US-born, Uzbekistani heritage, identity: American Muslim), commented, ‘Well, I think, we have our friend Bill O’Reilly [Fox Channel], defining that word; to be honest being American, being un-American it’s too vague … I don’t feel it’s necessary to define in any one way’ (interview, Massachusetts, 2009). Similarly, Nargis (16 years, female, US-born, identity: Pakistani American), remarked: I think those [American and un-American] are just characteristics of America. That doesn’t make it American in a sense, because any culture can have those things that can’t be American. It could be Brazil. To me, those are just characteristics that make America sound nice. I don’t really see American or un-American. I just see how it is. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Both Majeed and Nargis were sceptical about the terms ‘being American’ and ‘unAmerican’. Majeed observed that the term is mostly used by the right-wing conservative media such as Fox Channel and its shows such as the Bill O’Reilly show. Nargis thought that people of any cultural background such as Brazilians could have all the good characteristics of a nation such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and so on. But the American media propagates the term ‘being American’, or excludes fellow Americans for being ‘un-American’ just to make the relative ‘self’ unique. But some media can provoke an ‘un-American’ attitude among some Americans, as interviewee Marium (17 years, female, US-born, Sudanese background) who identified as African American commented: Ever since that thing that happened with the guy who lives in Worcester about targeting malls and everything … the week later or the same week, me and my

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friend so we’re taking the train home and … and then a group of people were like, ‘Oh my God Muslims on the train, Oh my God Muslims on the train!’. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

This interviewee (who wore the hijab) was referring to the arrest of Tareq Mehanna, a former volunteer teacher at a Muslim school in Worcester in the Boston area.25 In 2008 Tareq Mehanna, an American-born Muslim of Egyptian background, graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, where his father was a professor. Mehanna lived with his parents in Sudbury. In October 2009 Mehanna was arrested in Sudbury, Boston on charges that he was planning a ‘violent jihad’ against US politicians and American troops in Iraq and conspired to shoot randomly in shopping malls. He is alleged to have conspired with two other men. The media had highlighted this news to such an extensive extent26 that people who were visibly Muslims became a target of repercussions. For example, on 6 November 2009 the Boston Herald published a photograph of Tareq Mehanna with two other people whose faces were covered with black bars for anonymity, though one anonymous person’s lips were not covered.27 All three people in the photo appeared to be jubilant. The Boston Herald reported, ‘Federal prosecutors have released a photo they say shows Sudbury terrorism suspect Tarek Mehanna, far right, grinning and pointing skyward at Ground Zero, where terrorists used two hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11 2001, to topple the World Trade Center’.28 It then reported that, ‘A federal grand jury … returned a 10-count indictment against Mehenna and co-defendant Ahmad Abousamra with charges including conspiracy to support terrorists’.29 The Boston Herald further reported that the indictment claimed Mehanna and Abousamra watched jihadi videos and discussed ‘the glory of dying on the battlefield for Allah’.30 The indictment held that these two people also tried to enlist themselves in terrorist training camps and that Tareq Mehanna ‘distributed a video celebrating the mutilation of the U.S. soldiers’ remains in Iraq. Abousamra is believed to have fled to Syria’.31 In 2011 Tareq Mehanna was convicted on charges that he conspired to kill Americans and in April 2012 at the age of 29 he was sentenced to 17.5 years of federal prison.32 In this context, I am not arguing about the decision of the judge and jury. The point is that when newspapers draw a sketch of a possible terrorist with photographs and a report, some mainstream Muslims (such as the interviewee who was marked as a Muslim due to her hijab) can encounter harassment and backlash because of their visibility. On media representation of Muslims, a participant in this study, Qamar (22 years, female, US-born), observed that the American media maintained a double standard: Just recently with the IRS [Inland Revenue Service] bombing, nobody called him a terrorist, nobody called him a suicide bomber, nobody started questioning his religion. They just assumed he’s this disgruntled employee or disgruntled American and he wrote this whole six-page manifesto about what he was going to do and nobody said that he was planning a terrorist attack.

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They just dealt with him within the bounds of an American. And it’s a really harsh double standard where, if it had been a Muslim, of course it would have been: where was he training and what’s his family doing and what are his connections in the community and how can we prevent this terrorist attack from happening again? So definitely a double standard. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Qamar was of Indian heritage and identified as Muslim American. To describe the media she preferred the phrase ‘double standard’ instead of ‘un-American’. Correspondingly, a cartoon published in the Muslim Observer (Figure 4.1) depicts a similar theme: that some mainstream media maintains a double standard. Within a period of ten months five horrendous incidents occurred. On 31 May 2009 Scott Roeder murdered the abortion doctor George Tiller. On 5 November 2009 US Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 soldiers and wounded 30 others. On 6 November 2009 Jason Rodrigues, an unemployed former office worker, opened fire in his old office, killing one person and injuring five people. On 18 February 2010 Joseph Andrew Stack crashed a plane into the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building where 190 employees were working. On 4 March 2010 John Patrick Bedell shot and wounded two Pentagon police officers at a security checkpoint in the Pentagon station in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC. The officers returned fire, and shot him. He died on 5 March 2010.33

Figure 4.1 Homegrown Terror

Source: The Muslim Observer, 15 March 2010. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

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In my previous book I examined how some media have represented the crimes committed by people of Islamic faith, for example Nidal Hasan, while they did not pay much attention to the crimes committed by some non-Muslims, for example Jason Rodrigues. On 28 March 2010 nine members of a Christian militia group, Hutaree (meaning ‘God’s warrior’), in Michigan were indicted after a federal investigation into an alleged plot to kill a police officer, and then attack the funeral with bombs in the hope of starting an uprising against the government. They were arrested following raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. I focused on the American media and found that only 2 per cent of the American media included ‘Christianity’ in the headlines in their reporting.34 Anthony Dimaggio compared reporting on the May 2009 murder of abortion doctor George Tiller by Scott Roeder and the Fort Hood shooting by Nidal Hasan in November 2009. He found that Islam was more than twice as likely to be associated with Nidal Hasan than Christianity was associated with Scott Roeder.35 In his research Dimaggio found that news reports on Nidal Hasan’s Fort Hood shooting created ‘a strong association between Islam and terror’. He found that there were 178 cable stories (or 39 per cent of all stories) that mentioned Fort Hood alongside discussion of the ‘Muslim’ faith and ‘terror/terrorism’. On the other hand, with regard to Tiller’s case there were just seven cable stories (or 5 per cent of the total) that included discussion of the ‘Christian’ faith and ‘terror/terrorism’. Dimaggio observed that in the three weeks following the Fort Hood case in the 178 cable stories there were references to ‘Islamic terror’ or ‘Muslim terror’ 20 times as compared to discussion of ‘Christian terror’, which was never mentioned once in the three weeks following the Tiller murder.36 Dimaggio commented, ‘The lesson here is clear: discussion of Islam as a terrorist faith appears literally on a daily basis in cable news, while discussion of Christian terror is considered beyond the pale’.37 Horgan observed the distinction between criminal acts involving murder, or violence committed for personal reasons for example, rape, and the political dimension to the terrorist’s behaviour. Horgan commented, ‘terrorism involves the use, or threat of use, of violence as a means of attempting to achieve some social or political effect’.38 Doak et al. further added that homegrown terrorism is not a new phenomenon in the United States. Radical individuals and groups conducted terrorists acts even before the American Revolution. For example, in 1773, in response to the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, the Boston Tea Party protested by throwing tea into Boston Harbour. The assassinations of Presidents Lincoln (1865), McKinley (1901), and Kennedy (1963) can be considered acts of terrorism. The assassination of the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King in 1968 is also considered an act of terrorism. Other acts of terrorism have included horrendous incidents such as, in 1915, a German sympathiser protesting against American involvement in World War I by detonating a bomb in the US Senate. In 1920 anticapitalist activists exploded a bomb in Wall Street, killing 38 people and injuring 41. In 1940 two New York policemen were killed by a bomb explosion in the British Pavilion of the World’s Fair. In 1963 a Ku Klux Klan member set off a bomb in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed

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four young girls attending Sunday School class.39 But in recent times, whenever an act of terrorism is carried out by a few Muslims, some media tend to label Muslims or associated ethnic groups with one brush as the Other. Arjana noted that historically in the Christian–Muslim or East–West dichotomy Muslims (particularly Muslim men) were portrayed as monsters, as if ‘all Muslim men are naturally violent’.40 In the American context, Arjana observed that ‘The portrayal of Muslims in the print media, television and movies as the antithesis of good Americans is not only common – it is the norm’.41 In contemporary films and movies Muslims are shown as villains and cruel, and therefore torture can be the only solution. Ironically, this was automatically reflected in real life when some American soldiers tortured some Muslims in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. Arjana stated: The soldiers set up the pyramid of naked bodies, for example took extra care to make sure that ‘each man had his penis touching the buttocks of the man below’. Great care was taken in the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. Much like the lynchings of African-Americans, the crimes of Abu Ghraib became a public and visible image … The relationship of the crimes detailed at Abu Ghraib in photographs – 1,800 or so images of naked, tortured, sodomized, bloody, and dead Iraqis – were interspersed with ‘selfies’ of the soldiers performing sex acts on themselves and others. Abu Ghraib was essentially a set for snuff films, pornographic movies in which real people are murdered … The idea that the soldiers had the right to torture and have fun, after having to put up with Muslims all day long, reveals the power of the imaginary monsters.42

Arjana concluded that Muslims have been so dehumanised in public discourse that they are treated just as bodies; therefore, ‘Muslims are not just represented as monsters – they are monsters’.43

Faisal Shahzad’s homegrown terrorism

On 1 May 2010 Faisal Shahzad, aged 31, attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square in Manhattan, New York. On 8 January 2011 Jared Loughner, aged 22, killed six people (including a child) and injured 13 others (including Arizona Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords). The shooting occurred when Congresswoman Giffords was talking to two constituents at a ‘Congress on Your Corner’ event outside a grocery store. In this section and the next, I examine some print media’s framing of both events. On 1 May 2010 a naturalised US citizen originally from Pakistan named Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb in New York’s Times Square and on 3 May 2010 Shahzad was arrested. It is important to note that the person who alerted the police of the failed Times Square bomb plot was Alioune Niass, a Singalese Muslim street vendor. But he did not receive mainstream media attention.44 Only CBS reported:

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As far as the readers of the New York Times are concerned – not to mention the New York Post and the Daily News – Niass doesn’t exist. Nor does he exist for President Obama, who telephoned Lance Orton and Duane Jackson, two fellow vendors, to thank them for their alertness in reporting the SUV. The New York Mets even feted Jackson and Orton as heroes at a game with the San Francisco Giants.45

CBS further reported that Niass had not seen the car drive up because he was attending to customers. Niass was taken by surprise when he saw smoke coming out of the car. Niass told the Times, ‘I thought I should call 911 … but my English is not very good and I had no credit left on my phone, so I walked over to Lance, who has the T-shirt stall next to mine, and told him’.46 Immediately Lance alerted a police officer nearby. Then the police called 911. So Lance got the press, and Orton and Jackson, who also reported the SUV, were celebrated as ‘heroes’. The London Times interview with Niass was posted on the internet, and there have been calls for recognition of his ‘heroism’ too.47 These three men, Niass, Orton and Jackson, all acted admirably. The two other vendors did what any citizen is expected to do ‘on spotting a smoldering car illegally parked on a busy street’. But when it came to give recognition to these three heroes, Niass was selectively excluded.48 Niass proved himself to be a good American. Niass believed that the terrorists were apostates, irreligious deviants. In an interview with Democracy Now (an independent radio and television news programme) when Niass was asked what he thought of how Muslims were perceived by New York police and law enforcement when investigating terrorism cases, Niass replied, ‘That’s not religion, because the Islam religion is not terrorist. Because if I know this guy is Muslim, he do that, if I know that, I’m going to catch him before he run away [sic].’49 Niass expected some recognition for being a vigilant and dutiful American citizen.50 Critics observed that Niass (and Orton and Jackson) alerted the police to the attempted Times Square bombing but the mainstream media turned a blind eye to the Muslim vendor who saved New York from a major disaster, while the media may be keen to focus on news that ‘A man led away in handcuffs from a Boston-area home. Who is he? What is his role? Was he a money man? … Suspicious packages. Oddly parked trucks. Tips. Streets closed. Bomb squads cautiously approaching ordinary boxes or vehicles …’51 Noting the media hype, Zaid Jilani, of Pakistani heritage, expressed his sadness in his opinion piece published in the Atlantic Journal-Constitution on 20 May 2010. Jilani said that after the failed bomb attempt by Faisal Shahzad he was hurt to see The Washington Post published Express newspaper ‘splashed the image of Faisal Shahzad … across its front page alongside the sensationalist headline “MADE IN PAKISTAN”’.52 Jilani wrote: As the Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants, the last thing I wanted to see was the press sensationalizing the birthplace and ethnic identity of Shahzad,

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leading Americans to believe that Pakistanis or Muslims as a whole approved of vile acts like this attempted attack in Times Square.53

Jilani was surprised that the mainstream media selectively ignored Alioune Niass’s contribution to American society. The radio show Democracy Now only tracked down Niass after the UK Times online reported that, while two Vietnam vets were credited with discovering the bomb and the American press praised them, it was Niass who first spotted the bomb and alerted his fellow vendors to notify the police.54 Jilani commented: Unfortunately, stories like Niasse’s that feature Muslims helping fight terror are rarely found in the nation’s newspapers. Most Americans do not know, for instance, that there have been at least six other major terror attacks in the United States prevented due to intelligence provided voluntarily from Muslim communities.55

Jilani commented that soon after ‘many in the media latched onto this narrative that demonized Muslims’.56 For example, radio host Neal Boortz tweeted, ‘The Time Square Bomber is a Muslim! Shocker! Who would have believed it?’57 Soon after the ‘CNN contributor Erick Erickson commented that it “really is pathetic that you are more likely to see the word “racist” and “Republican” together in the newspapers these days than “terrorism” and “Islam”’.58 Jilani concluded that there may be disagreements among Muslim Americans about how to best tackle the problem of terrorism, ‘for example, most Pakistanis oppose drone strikes that tend to kill many civilians and create propaganda for extremists’. But one thing is certain: ‘We Muslim Americans oppose mass murder like that attempted in Times Square just as much must as the rest of their countrymen. Aliou Niasse speaks for us, not Faisal Shahzad [sic]’.59 Academics Angie Chuang and Robin Chin Roemer analysed newspaper coverage of the attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad by applying theories of Orientalism and representations of the Other.60 Chuang and Roemer noted that the car bombing attempt was unsuccessful and it failed to detonate because it was quickly discovered. But the idea that a ‘would-be terrorist came so close to striking one of the most prominent US landmarks alarmed the public and generated intense news coverage, in which Shahzad’s identities as a Pakistani American and a Muslim American was noticeably featured’.61 Chuang and Roemer observed that before Shahzad’s attempted bombing and arrest the media gave extensive coverage to Nidal Hasan, Najibullah Zazi and the Al-Shabaab’s influence on Somali Americans as ‘homegrown terrorists’ who were labelled as both Muslim American and immigrant Americans.62 Chuang and Roemer performed a content analysis of 197 articles in the five US newspapers with the highest circulation in 2010 and the highest proportion of readership: Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post (using the Factiva, LexisNexis and ProQuest Newsstand databases).63 Most of the coverage that mentioned Shahzad appeared in

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the week following the 1 May bombing attempt and arrest, and 80 per cent of the articles analysed appeared in the month of May. Initial news coverage included a focus on the failed bombing, the search for Shahzad and his boarding of a flight to Dubai. About 97 out of 197 articles studied focused on the broader legal, domestic and foreign policy impacts of Shahzad’s actions. The other half of the news stories focused on Shahzad’s background, life, radicalisation, bomb construction, bomb attempt and his court appearances. Later, the reports included Shahzad’s housing and financial records, his landlord, employment records, former US classmates and acquaintances in Pakistan.64 Chuang and Roemer observed that some of Shahzad’s descriptors included ‘Pakistani-born American citizen’, ‘American man of Pakistani descent’, ‘a Connecticut man originally from Pakistan’, ‘a Pakistani man’, ‘a Pakistani’, ‘a Pakistani who also held American citizenship’, ‘a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani heritage’, ‘naturalized Pakistani immigrant’, ‘Pakistani American’ and ‘U.S. citizen from Pakistan’.65 However, Chuang and Roemer observed that the overall trajectory of newspaper representations of Shahzad was from an apparent insider/American to an alienated outsider/Other/radicalised Muslim, with all of the associated Orientalist stereotypes. He appeared to conform to the model of an acceptable and successful citizen as deemed by the dominant culture, but he was unable to escape the media’s tendency to manifest him as Oriental, which kept him on one side of the firm boundaries between the self and Other, insider and outsider.66 As Stuart Hall said, the media produces power relationships within the discourse of the dominant culture,67 and this was exemplified in Shahzad Faisal’s case – the media would own him because of his ‘American’ qualities (for example, he was educated in the United States, wore a shirt and tie to work, and jogged), and disown him because of his ‘increased adherence to Islam’.68 In my content and discourse analysis of some print media on the representation of the naturalised American citizen Faisal Shahzad, I found a constant shift from an Islamophobic media culture to an ethnocentric media culture or vice versa or the presence of both in the same news item.69 TIME (Magazine)

The American weekly magazine TIME connected Shahzad to his ethnicity through its headlines and it refrained from investigating his history of employment further. TIME in its eight-page coverage (17 May 2010, pp. 14–21) reported Faisal Shahzad’s attempted Times Square bombing, and how disastrous the incident would have been if it had been successful. On page 15 the page heading was SPECIAL REPORT │ TIMES SQUARE, and its headline ran ‘Broadway bomber’ with a sub-headline or caption, ‘College, job, suburban house: Faisal Shahzad seemed to be pursuing the American dream. But the feds allege that he somehow got swept up in the ambitions of Pakistani militant groups.’70 It mentioned that Shahzad lived in an affluent suburb, ‘an almost picture-book American suburb with white picket fences, colonials with front porches, kids trotting off to school buses and golden retrievers prancing on perfectly trimmed front yards’. It brought in the

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‘us’ and ‘them’ rhetoric when it quoted a local woman’s opinion who did not mind the traditional Pakistani clothing worn by Shahzad’s wife. TIME stated, ‘One neighbor, Helen Cavallaro, remembers Shahzad’s wife would wear “traditional clothes” but says that “didn’t bother us at all”’.71 It implied that they lived in ‘our’ suburb and their clothing did not bother us. TIME then reported, ‘Then something happened. The couple apparently could not keep up with mortgage payments and other loans. In June, Shahzad quit his job and their house went into foreclosure.’72 TIME next reported Shahzad and his family moved to a working-class suburb with graffiti all over the place.73 However, TIME failed to investigate what happened. Did Shahzad become a militant Muslim overnight? Was he laid off from work? Was he made to feel like the ‘Other’ in his workplace? Did he really quit his job or was he first in the firing line? What other loans did Shahzad have? Was he still paying off student loans? Why did he not achieve his American dream? TIME later justified the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and drone attacks in Pakistan, stating that ‘drones in Pakistan – have killed many would-be terrorists, those who continue to operate do so more independently’, and gave the examples of US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan in Fort Hood, Texas who killed 13 people, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted to blow up a flight as it approached Detroit in December 2009.74 It appeared to me as a reader that all Pakistanis were terrorists and that the drones have only killed terrorists and that there have never been any innocent civilian casualties. The page heading on page 19 was ‘SPECIAL REPORT │ THE TERROR THREAT’ with the headline ‘From Pakistan to the world’, and the sub-headline or caption, ‘No longer satisfied with targeting India, Pakistan’s extremist groups are taking direct aim at the U.S. and its allies’. The report quoted a top counterterrorism official, ‘when I hear of a terrorist plot, I can count back from 10, and before I get to zero, someone will bring up the P word’.75 This report also informed readers about ‘Pakistan’s Deadliest Terror Groups’: Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let), Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP), Jaish-e-Muhammad, Harakat ul Mujahideen and Lashkar Jhangvi.76 In addition to its reports or news content, TIME managed to generate concerns through images. With the page heading ‘SPECIAL REPORT │TIMES SQUARE’, and the headline ‘Broadway bomber’ on page 14, TIME had an illustration of Faisal Shahzad in Times Square.77 Pages 16 and 17 had eight photos including the busy Times Square, Faisal’s van, the bombing device and Faisal’s home in an ‘almost picture-book American suburb’ that was lost to foreclosure.78 On the next pages, under the headlines ‘SPECIAL REPORT │ THE TERROR THREAT’ and ‘From Pakistan to the world’ TIME published photos of five militant masked Muslims holding machine guns.79 The caption read, ‘Fighters with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan gather April 23 in the north of the country. The TTP has threatened to mount attacks on U.S. soil.’ The subsequent pages had this headline over photographs of alleged terrorists: ‘Rogues gallery. Lured to jihad in Pakistan’.80 TIME displayed 12 illustrations and photos of alleged terrorists. Through the photo captions it reminded readers of the threats posed by some alleged terrorists who were also US

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citizens or residents. For example, Faisal Shahzad had confessed to the attempted Times Square bombing. David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana had confessed to plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper. Headley also confessed to helping LeT plan the Mumbai attacks in 2008.Virginia Jihad Network (Masaoud Ahmed Khan, Seifullah Chapman, Hamad Abdur Raheem and others) were convicted in 2004–2005 of conspiring to provide assistance to LeT in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were jailed on terrorism-related charges. And the Virginia Five youths (Waqir Hussein Khan, Ramy Zamzam, Umar Farooq, Ahmed Abdul Mini and Aman Hasan Yamer) were arrested in Pakistan for allegedly seeking jihad training.81 Overall, in its coverage (17 May 2010, pp. 14–21) TIME managed to generate fear among some readers as it published the photos of the alleged and convicted terrorists (most with Muslim names), and mentioned the terrorist groups in Pakistan now working globally.82 As would be expected, some readers (TIME, 7 June 2010, p. 4) were influenced by TIME’s reporting. One reader, George Davis, criticised TIME for giving the terrorists such a lot of coverage, saying, ‘We might be encouraging would-be terrorists with the promise of romanticized press coverage’.83 Davis was correct in his observation because immediately after the Times Square incident Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed credit for the failed bombing. 84 A couple of American non-Muslim readers expressed concerns over legal immigrants who wanted to harm Americans. A couple of American Muslim readers were concerned about Muslims’ reputation and a backlash against Muslims in America. However, a Muslim from Pakistan, Syed Naheer Ameer, wrote:

TIME’s article on the Times Square incident is rather biased. There was a great deal mentioned about the tragic loss of life that could have occurred if the explosion had taken place on May 1, but little about the many deaths suffered by civilians at the hands of drone missile attacks in Pakistan. Is a Pakistani life not worth the same as that of a U.S. citizen? You should be bridging the gap between Muslims and the West instead of heightening tensions.85

The US drone attacks continued to generate debate. In 2014 the Obama administration argued for the necessity of drone attacks as a measure against possible Al-Qaeda attacks on US soil. In contrast a 2014 Human Rights Watch report noted that many innocent civilians are being killed in such attacks.86 Figure 4.2 comments on civilian casualties. Newsweek

On 17 May 2010 another American weekly news magazine, Newsweek, published an image of Faisal Shahzad’s face with this headline: ‘Terror in Times Square and the 53 Hour Manhunt, By Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball’. Thomas and Hosenball’s report began with an image of a clock with the headline ‘53 hours in the life of a near disaster’.87 The extensive report informed readers that terrorists may have affluent backgrounds.88 For example, Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11

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Figure 4.2 Drone City

Source: The Muslim Observer, 13 February 2014. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

hijacker, was the son of a Cairo lawyer and the grandson of a doctor. The alleged underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is the son of a wealthy Nigerian diplomat. Faisal Shahzad’s father was a high-ranking official in Pakistan’s air force.89 Faisal was reported to have attended an Islamic school in Pakistan, and later he was sent to the United States for further education. After his business degree he was employed. Later, he faced a financial crisis, and his house went to foreclosure. Like Major Hasan, he told the US investigators that he had watched the fiery videos of Anwar al-Awlaki (who was American-born with a Yemeni background). But the choice of words in Newsweek is noteworthy:

Americans demand that the government keep them safe from the Shahzads of the world. Yet it is not always easy to spot an alleged terrorist in the making, at least not at first. Shahzad had received rigid Islamic schooling in Pakistan, instituted by the Pakistani government in the 1990s … Last week NEWSWEEK interviewed Shahzad’s cousin Zulfikar Ali. A bank employee in Peshawar, who said that in recent months Shahzad didn’t seem like the same person he knew when he was younger … Ali wondered whether Shahzad’s embrace of militancy could have been a revolt against his father’s military-like strictness.90

Newsweek has labelled the name ‘Shahzad’, which creates doubt in one’s mind that all people whose name is Shahzad could be possible terrorists. The report

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suggested that Shahzad’s Islamic school and his father’s military-like strictness could have pushed him towards terrorist acts. A reader could imagine that Newsweek managed to go to Pakistan and explore Shahzad’s background history but why did Newsweek fail to explore his workplaces in the United States? Newsweek reported:

Shahzad got a job as an analyst at Affinion Group, a financial marketingservices company, in 2007 – just as the market bubble was about to burst. He became an American citizen. He appeared to develop money troubles. Friends noticed that he began talking more about Islam, and he frequently traveled back and forth to Pakistan. Last year he and his young family suddenly abandoned their house, leaving behind rotting food and toys. The house went to foreclosure.91

Whether the economic downturn had any impact on Shahzad’s turn towards terrorism has not been investigated either by TIME magazine or Newsweek. However, both magazines gave enough publicity to terrorists by their wide coverage of Faisal Shahzad. Other newspapers through their images, headlines and news reporting portrayed Faisal Shahzad’s case as a Pakistani or Muslim problem. USA Today: racialising an ethnic/national group

The media focus shifted from Arab to Muslim and now ‘Pakistan/Pakistani’. On 7 May 2010, under the headline ‘Pakistani Americans’ “worst fears” confirmed’, USA Today had a sympathetic report on the Pakistani Americans who were concerned about a backlash after the Pakistani American Faisal Shahzad’s failed Times Square terror attack. Anjum Alden, managing editor of PakUSOnline, a website for Pakistani immigrants in the United States said, ‘When (Faisal Shahzad’s) name was released to the public, our worst fears were confirmed … Once again, Pakistan is in the forefront of the negative limelight’. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city ‘will not tolerate any bias or backlash’ against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers.92 What might confuse a reader is that USA Today dated 7 May 2010 was sympathetic to Pakistani Americans, but its issue on 10 May 2010 marked Pakistanis as the ‘Other’ with its headline ‘Pakistani Taliban tied to car bomb’, associated with Faisal Shahzad’s image.93 The New York Times: religion and ethnicity marked

On 5 May 2010 The New York Times showed an image of Attorney General Eric Holder with five other officials. On the left hand corner of the image were two television screens with a photo of the bearded face of Faisal Shahzad. The photo caption ran ‘Attorney General Eric Holder at a news conference in Washington. Federal authorities said Faisal Shahzad learned bomb-making in the tribal area of Pakistan that is a haven for militants.’94 Under the image and photo caption was the

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headline in italics ‘An Immigrant and Suburban Father Who Gave No Warning Sign’. This headline was the continuation of the report from page 1.95 From emphasising religion then ethnicity and now visibly Muslim immigrants, the newspaper marked a family man. Such representation is likely to turn other visibly Muslim people into ‘possible suspects’. On 9 May 2010, on the cover page of The New York Times, the headline ran (in italics) ‘Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea’. Underneath it was written ‘ANWAR AL-AWLAKI, a radical American-born Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen’.96 Under these two headlines was the image of Anwar al-Awlaki (which appeared in a video tape on Al-Jazeera Television). Under Anwar al-Awlaki’s image was a headline: ‘From Condemning Terror to Preaching jihad’.97 The report was associated with three photos with captions: ‘Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, held in the Dec. 25 attempt on a jet; Faisal Shahzad accused of trying to set a bomb in Times Square’. It reported how a peace-loving Americanborn cleric Anwar al-Awlaki became radicalised, now lives in a hide-out in Yemen, and has inspired ‘Western militants’ (Nidal Hasan, Umar Abdulmutallab and Faisal Shahzad). The New York Times reported that, though Anwar al-Awlaki lived in the United States for 21 of his 39 years, he posted on his website: ‘America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil. I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim’.98 It further reported that Anwar al-Awlaki ‘cheered on the Fort Hood gunman’ and had a role in Umar Abdulmutallab’s attempted airline bombing on December 2009.99 US intelligence officials said Faisal Shahzad told the investigators that he was inspired by al-Awlaki’s online lectures on jihad. The detailed report on al-Awlaki continued on pages 14 and 15 and showed that Shahzad’s act was Islam-related. However, the headline on page 6, ‘U.S. Urges Swift Action in Pakistan after Failed Times Square Bombing’, marked Pakistan as being part of the problem.100 The report also mentioned ‘Islamic militancy’, and thereby Islam was marked. It reported that, after Faisal Shahzad’s failed bomb attack, the Obama administration warned Pakistan that ‘it must urgently move against the nexus of Islamic militancy in the country’s lawless tribal regions’. On page 14, the report was associated with al-Awlaki’s image, which showed a bearded Muslim man wearing a topi. The photo caption read: ‘Anwar al-Awlaki’s mix of scripture and vitriol, and his equal command of English and Arabic, has helped lure young Muslims into a dozen plots.’ Under the photo caption, the headline ran, ‘The Evolution of a Radical Cleric’. Under this headline, al-Awlaki’s statements from 20 July 2001 to 17 March 2010 were quoted under different bold headlines. For example, under the headline, ‘ON ISLAM AND GOVERNANCE’, al-Awlaki’s sermon at Friday prayers in the United States Capitol, 20 July 2001 was cited in The New York Times as follows: ‘This is how, by taking [the Prophet Muhammad] as a role model, the image of the messenger gives an example of somebody who was extremely successful as a head of state. Nevertheless, he never had to compromise his integrity.’101

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Another headline quoting al-Awlaki was ‘ON THE WAR IN IRAQ AND OTHER PERCEIVED ASSAULTS ON ISLAM’ and al-Awlaki’s statement on 2003 at the East London Mosque was cited in The New York Times as follows:

The Ummah [global Muslim community] is watching while Iraq is being devoured. It’s not going to stop there, because it’s going to spill over into Syria and Allah knows where. In your own city, and in this country, many people have been arrested. You know if you talk about Guantanamo Bay and all this – there’s a Guantanamo Bay in this country. It’s an insult to Islam. Allah will revenge for himself, but the thing is, we cannot allow such things to happen and just watch.102

Another al-Awlaki speech (dated 17 March 2010, an audio statement posted to his website) was cited in The New York Times as follows:

I, for one, was born in the U.S. I lived in the U.S. for 21 years. America was my home. I was a preacher of Islam involved in nonviolent Islamic activities. However, with the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim, and I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim.103

On pages 1 and 14 The New York Times discussed al-Awlaki’s childhood, upbringing, education and his history of radicalism. On page 14, The New York Times continued that al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico in 1971 but he spent his adolescence in Yemen, ‘where memorizing the Koran was a matter of course for an educated young man, and women were largely excluded from public life’.104 On page 15 there was an image of the Denver Islamic Society, and in front of the building a few young men (including visibly Muslim men) were standing. The photo caption read ‘IN DENVER, AN EPISODE THAT HINTS OF THINGS TO COME’. Under this bold photo caption, there was another caption that read: An elder said he argued with Anwar al-Awlaki, a part-time imam at the Denver Islamic Society in the 1990s, after Mr. Awlaki tried to encourage a Saudi student to travel to Chechnya to join jihad against the Russians. The elder said Mr. Awlaki left two weeks later.

With all the in-depth news on al-Awlaki on pages 1, 14 and 15, the profiling of young Muslims in the image in front of the Denver Islamic Society was inappropriate as it marked them as the ‘Other’, and that they may all be future ‘possible suspects’.105 The blurring of news about al-Awlaki’s radicalisation with the photos of the young visibly Muslim men standing in front of the Denver Islamic Society once again indicated the racial profiling strategy of the press. The press wants to sensationalise news so that it sells well, but should that be at the cost of other peaceloving Muslims?

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The Boston Globe: ethnicity/Pakistan marked

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On 4 May 2010 headlines such as ‘Pakistani-American is arrested in NYC bomb case’ marked Shahzad with his ethnicity.106 On 7 May 2010 a cartoon titled ‘A HEARTY THANKS TO THE NYPD AND FBI AND ASV’ included sketches of several people (NYPD, FBI, Mayor Bloomberg, the vendor and the veteran).107 The vendor is credited in the cartoon where it was written ‘ALERT STREET VENDORS’. The vendor was holding an ‘I love [with a heart-shaped symbol] NY’ T-shirt.108 However, Alioune Niass, the Singalese Muslim who first alerted other vendors, was absent from the cartoon. But on the same page, in the editorial section, there was a column with the headline ‘Pakistan’s paranoid press’,109 which was critical of the Pakistani media that viewed news about the Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad as ‘a conspiracy to harm’ Pakistan.110 The editorial commented: This sort of thinking is all too common in Pakistan. It serves as both cause and effect of American’s low standing in Pakistani public opinion. It also plays into the hands of violent groups that recruit susceptible youth to conduct terrorist operations, whether in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, or the United States.

The editorial finally stated:

Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders … must do more. They cannot go on ignoring Taliban-type propaganda disseminated in both state-run and independent media. The fight against terrorism is their fight, even more than it is America’s; they must lead the charge, in public, against the conspiratorial thinking that is eating away at the foundations of the Pakistani state.111

Of course, conspiracy theories are not a solution to national security problems in either country (the United States or Pakistan). But when the US media constantly labels ‘Pakistan’, it racially profiles Pakistanis/Pakistani Americans as the ‘Other’. There has been a constant shift in the headlines from religion to ethnicity and vice versa. On 9 May 2010 the Boston Sunday Globe had this headline, ‘From imam in US to voice of holy war from Yemen’.112 In that report it had an image of Anwar al-Awlaki and the photo caption ran, ‘Anwar al-Awlaki has declared war on the United States from his hide-out in Yemen’.113 Headlines such as ‘From imam in US to voice of holy war from Yemen’ are not helpful. The report was about the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, but the title ‘imam in US’ is likely to implicate all imams in the US.114 The Boston Globe also represented President Obama as the ‘Other’. Under the headline, ‘US says Pakistan Taliban behind NYC plot’ was the photo of President Obama with the photo caption: ‘President Obama addressed the nearly 1,100 graduates of Hampton University, a historically black college in Hampton, Va’. Underneath the photo was the appropriate headline, ‘Obama urges Hampton graduates to be role models’.115 At first glance, Obama’s photo with the Pakistan Taliban headline appeared to associate the President with the ‘Other’.

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Boston Herald: trial by the media

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The cover page of Boston Herald dated 14 May 2010 with this headline in a big and bold font ‘TERROR HITS HOME’ had a small image of Faisal Shahzad and another image of a person whom the POLICE ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) were putting in a car. Through the images it appeared that both persons were involved in the bomb plot in Times Square. The photo caption on the cover page ran: UNDER ARREST: In this image from a video shot by Barbara Lacerra, a man is taken into custody by the U.S. immigration police yesterday on Waverley Avenue in Watertown. A source says this man and another Bay State man arrested yesterday are suspected of being part of a money trail leading to Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, inset above.116

The cover page headline, image and photo caption show that the media has assumed the Boston suspects were guilty before they were convicted. In other words, it was a trial by the media. The inside report on pages 4–5, ‘TIMES SQ. PROBE NETS 2 IN MASS. RAIDS: FEDS INVESTIGATE MONEY TIES TO NYC SUSPECT’, mentioned that the arrested suspects, a Boston cab driver and a Brookline petrol station attendant, may have provided money to Shahzad.117 The reports were associated with the images of Faisal Shahzad, and people who knew the alleged suspects, including a FBI agent carrying a plastic bag containing US dollars. The report did not label the suspects as Islam or Muslim but by quoting Malik Khan, president and vice-president of the Islamic Center of Boston, the report indicated that it was a Muslim-related issue.118 The editorial ‘When terror hits home’ concluded: ‘It is, of course, scary to think that those who live and work among us might wish us harm. It’s not how anyone wants to live. But as citizens our job is what it has always been – to remain vigilant’.119 The Washington Post: racial and religious profiling

The news items in The Washington Post from 4 to 7 May 2010 appeared to be racial and religious profiling through news reporting and images. In its editorial ‘Wide awake in Times Square’ The Washington Post120 reported that two people, Lance Horton121 and Duane M. Jackson, were the vendors and disabled Vietnam veterans who tipped off Police Officer Wayne Rhatigan about a Nissan Pathfinder that was left parked and running on a side of a street just off Broadway, Times Square, New York. The vehicle contained propane, gasoline, fire crackers and homemade detonating devices. The materials did not ignite; otherwise it would have caused heavy casualties. The editorial also reminded readers of the intended explosion of the Northwest flight bound for Detroit on Christmas Day in 2000 by Abdulmutallab, ‘as he tried to light explosives sewn into his underwear’. It then quoted Mr Horton that since the 2001 attacks Americans have been urged to ‘see something, say something’.122

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In the editorial, three people were credited: Lance Horton, Duane M. Jackson and Officer Wayne Rhatigan for their vigilance. Alioune Niass was not mentioned. It referred to the US Department of Homeland Security’s slogan ‘If You See Something, Say Something’, designed to raise public awareness of signs of terrorism and terrorism-related crime.123 Arguably, by the same token, Abdulmutallab’s father Alhaji Umaru Mutallab should have been credited in the editorial because he alerted the US embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, earlier of his son’s suspicious behaviour.124 Under the editorial was a cartoon (by Tom Toles) which was a sketch of a car placed in the middle of high-rise buildings with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad steering the car, and saying, ‘I’M HERE!’.125 In the back seat were a gas cylinder and a box with the labels ‘GAS’ and ‘FIREWORKS’ respectively. There was also a clock on the back seat. The car’s registration plate was ‘AHMADINEJAD’. It appeared that the possible terror attack was a plot by the Iranian president. A couple of days later, it was found that the terror attack was plotted by Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani American. On 6 May 2010, The Washington Post, under the headline ‘U.S. to send Pakistan a detailed request for assistance in bomb probe’,126 indicated that Shahzad’s case was related to Pakistan. The report under this headline was an informative report on the ‘bomb probe’. It also provided various views on Shahzad’s case. Some views indicated conspiracy theories –whether Shahzad was capable of doing it or if Shazad’s case may have been ‘trumped up in the United States’.127 The report, however, was associated with an image of a visibly Muslim boy. It had a photo of a boy’s back (perhaps 6–8 years) wearing shalwar (trousers), kurta (shirt) and a topi (cap) with the caption, ‘A boy looks through the gate of the ancestral home of the family of Faisal Shahzad in northwestern Pakistan. Shahzad is reportedly continuing to cooperate with U.S. authorities.’128 In America, many Muslims wear Pakistani/Islamic clothing, so such photos would only create reasonable doubt among the readers about the innocence of a Muslim wearing such clothing. Thus the press has already created a terrorist profile with the photo of this boy. Finally, The Washington Post informed its readers that it was ‘religion’ that led to the failed terror attack. In ‘Suspect made “gradual” shift’, with another title underneath, ‘RELIGION AND ANGER’, and another heading underneath it, ‘Radicalization began years ago, officials say’, The Washington Post129 reported that Faisal Shahzad’s radicalisation was ‘cumulative and largely self-contained’. This implied it was not a usual thing for people to become radical after they have direct contact with a radical cleric or through conversion to militant Islam. According to the U.S. intelligence reports, ‘It wasn’t suddenly, [Shahzad said], “I found God, and this is right path”’. The report further suggested that Shahzad’s transition was a gradual thing that started of religion and anger.130 Daily News: ‘Little Pakistan’ marked

On 10 May 2010 the cover page of the Daily News had this headline: ‘TIMES SQUARE FALL OUT’. Underneath it was a bigger and bolder headline:

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‘PAYBACK TIME’. Underneath was written ‘Pressure grows for Obama to turn up heat on Pakistan PAGE 4–7’ associated with the images of President Obama and Faisal Shahzad.131 Like other print media, the Daily News gave publicity to terrorists with its headline and images. On page 4, it had a big and bold headline, ‘TALBAN LINKED TO TIMES SQ. BOMBER’. On page 5 there was an image of Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, who has ‘promised attacks on US in response to CIA drone attacks’.132 The other headlines, ‘Hil & Holder blast Pakistan being soft on terrorists, Osama’ (p. 4) and ‘Gloves are gonna come off in Pakistan’ (p. 5), labelled Pakistan as the problem. It reported that Attorney General Eric Holder asserted, that the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was no lone wolf and the Pakistani Taliban ‘was behind the attack’. It reported that Osama bin Laden, AlQaeda and its affiliate Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan continued to be a threat to the USA and that Pakistan was not doing enough to eliminate terrorism.133 Under its headline, ‘“Little Pakistan” worried about backlash’, the Daily News reported that Pakistanis living in Brooklyn’s Cooney Island Ave were fearful of a possible backlash like the one they faced after 9/11.134 New York Post: press insecurity or genuine concern

On 4 May 2010 the New York Post had the headline ‘Pakistani US citizen “trying to flee US”’. There was an image of Shahzad’s car, and the photo caption ran, ‘DEATH CAR – This Nissan Pathfinder was parked outside a busy theatre and rigged to explode’.135 Like other newspapers, it had a similar report on Faisal Shahzad, noting that he was a naturalised US citizen and his place of residence was in the United States. It reported that authorities were speculating whether the Taliban in Pakistan was responsible for the [attempted] attack. It further stated, ‘Still, a source connected to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency had told the Post that the Pakistani Taliban also had put out an audiotape taking “full responsibility” for the attempt – 24 hours before it even occurred’.136 It then reported that authorities were exploring whether the failed bomb plot might have targeted Viacom, which owed Comedy Central. ‘Comedy Central’s show “South Park” recently depicted the Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit, and had received threats because of that’.137 The New York Post mentioned that two street vendors noticed that the Nissan Pathfinder’s interior was emitting smoke and they notified NYPD officers who immediately evacuated the area. It stated that one of the vendors, Duane Jackson, said President Obama phoned him personally and thanked him for his vigilance. ‘He said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate what you did, the whole country does and New Yorkers”, a beaming Jackson told Fox News’.138 While there was news of possible connections between Shahzad and other terrorists of Islamic faith, and the news of the vendor Duane Jackson, there was no mention of the Singalese Muslim vendor Alioune Niass/Aliou Niasse who first alerted other vendors of the smoke. I looked in the New York Post website’s ‘search’ directory to see whether Niass’s name appeared in the New York Post’s later editions but the name did not come up.

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Later that day, there was another headline in the New York Post that again marked Pakistan: ‘Times Square suspect received bomb training in Pakistan’. It reported that Faisal Shahzad, aged 30, admitted that he received training in the tribal region of Waziristan, a Pakistani Taliban stronghold near the border of Afghanistan.139 It reported that authorities were trying to determine whether Shahzad had any ties with ‘another Pakistani American, David Headley, who pleaded guilty in Chicago in March to his involvement in the November 2008 Mumbai bombings’. The New York Post reminded its readers of other horrendous acts by Muslims: More than a dozen people with American citizenship or residency have been accused over the past two years of attempting or carrying out attacks on US soil. Among them are Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, a US-born Army psychiatrist of Palestinian descent, charged with fatally shooting 13 people last year at Fort Hood, Texas and Najibullah Zazi, a Denver-area airport shuttle who pleaded guilty in February to a plot to bomb city subways.140

Thus, the overall print media framing of Faisal Shahzad’s case focused on his ethnicity and sometimes on his religion. In October 2010 Shahzad was sentenced to life imprisonment for his Times Square bombing attempt.141 In other newspapers it was reported that moments before his sentence was announced Shahzad told the court, ‘Brace yourselves’, the defeat of the US is ‘imminent and will happen in the near future’.142 At the hearing Shahzad called himself a ‘Muslim soldier’ who was avenging the death of innocent Pakistanis in US drone strikes. He also said that the Pakistani Taliban had funded his bomb plot and trained him in bomb making in the lawless western border region [Waziristan] while he was in Pakistan.143 In January 2011 a shooting and killing incident took place in Tucson, Arizona. In the next section, I examine whether that incident was represented with the same vigour, by implicating the perpetrator’s religion and ethnicity.

Jared Lee Loughner: the media’s change in tone

On 8 January 2011, after Jared Lee Loughner shot and killed six people (including a nine-year-old girl) in Tucson, Arizona and injured 13 others (including Arizona Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords), Glenn Beck in his show (Fox News) was sympathetic to the victims and apparently overprotective of the conservative leaders who were considered by some people to be inadvertent instigators of the Tucson, Arizona shooting incident. Beck commented: This man [the Arizona perpetrator] wasn’t a right-wing nutjob. But he also was not a left-wing nutjob. He was just a nutjob. There are people who are nuts and will do violent things and they will do them in somebody else’s name because they’re nuts. There’s also people like the 19 hijackers who took down the world trade center in the name of Allah. Is Allah responsible? Or, hey, how about the religion that these guys go to?

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No, no, no, no, no, no – we are told by the media. These 19 hijackers – no, no, no.144

Other media outlets also had a sympathetic tone towards Jared Lee Loughner. For example, after the shooting incident the New York Post refrained from mentioning Jared Lee Loughner’s race or faith. On 9 January 2011 it ran more general headlines, such as ‘Mad man shoots pol point-blank’.145 On 10 January 2014, under the headline ‘The lunatic’s veto’, the New York Post reported, ‘Loughner had posted internet videos showing the burning of an American flag and his preferred reading list included, “The Communist Manifesto” – hardly the stuff of Tea Party orthodoxy’.146 Immediately after Loughner’s shooting incident, critics speculated that he may have been influenced by Tea Party supporters. It was still too early for the media to know whether Loughner acted alone or was associated or inspired by any right-wing groups but the New York Post tried to present the Tea Party in a good light. It also commented, ‘But it is absurd to suggest that Palin was advocating actual violence. And it’s no coincidence that most of those who say so have been harsh critics of her views since she burst into national prominence in 2008’. Sarah Palin is a supporter of the Tea Party Movement. After the Tuscon Arizona shooter’s incident, the New York Post’s reporting on Muslims still continued its tone that Muslims are a problem. On 15 January 2011 the New York Post with the headline ‘Mosque SHEIK-UP’ (underneath another headline ran: ‘Imam replaced at Ground Zero center’) reported that the chief religious figure on the Park51 Mosque project, Imam Feisal Rauf, would be replaced by Imam Abdallah Adhami. It speculated that relations between Imam Rauf and Sharif El Gamal, the president and chief developer of Park51, were not good. In other words, there were internal rifts among the Park51 leaders.147 Then the report connected the new Imam Adhami, who was an architect, with Imam Siraj Wahhaj of Brooklyn. It reminded readers that Wahhaj was alleged to be a coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attack. It stated, ‘Wahhaj also was a character witness in the trial of convicted terror plotter Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman’.148 It stated that the new imam also designed Wahhaj’s Brooklyn mosque, Masjid al Taqwa, and thereby instilled reasonable doubt about Adhami as a possible threat. The New York Post attempted to connect Imam Wahhaj with radicalisation and thereby Adhami’s record will not be good through his association with Wahhaj. Conversely, the same issue of the New York Post represented the Tuscon shooter Jared Loughner in a sympathetic tone. In his opinion piece, ‘Time to Fight the “Madness Lobby”’, Rich Lowry suggested that the cause of Loughner’s shooting was mental illness. Lowry stated, ‘the massacre isn’t so mysterious: Someone displaying all the symptoms of untreated schizophrenia killed people’. Lowry was critical of the mental-health system.149 His opinion piece was associated with a passport size photo of Loughner, and the caption ran, ‘Loughner: Face of our mental-health “system”’.150 The New York Post gave Lowry space for his opinion piece because he spoke the newspaper’s language such as ‘madness’ and ‘lunatic’ or ‘psycho’,151 whereas Muslims and the Park51 mosque were revealed as problems.

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Other media also represented Loughner as a ‘lone actor’ who was ‘mentally unbalanced’. Drugs and gun laws were also brought into the mainstream media’s discussion.152 For example, the editorial in The Christian Science Monitor suggested if Congress had not allowed the assault-weapons ban to expire in 2004 then people like Loughner would not have been able to purchase the high-capacity ammunition clips used with the gun.153 Congress may take tough measures for security but ‘it would defeat the purpose of the First Amendment – free speech, free assembly, the right of the people to petition the government over grievances’.154 The editorial of The Christian Science Monitor commented: One issue getting little attention is the role that drugs might have played in this case. Not much has come out about that yet, but Loughner reportedly used marijuana, and hung with a group in high school who smoked pot every day. He was turned down by the Army in 2008 because he failed a drug-screening test.155

The Christian Science Monitor emphasised that this incident reveals the need for ‘more action on issues such as mental health, gun violence, and drug use’. The tone of the news media was sympathetic to Loughner and his mental-health issues. After the Arizona shooting The Christian Science Monitor ran headlines such as ‘Arizona shooting: an isolated case with broad ramifications’.156 But after Nidal Hasan’s shooting incident on 5 November 2009, The Christian Science Monitor had this headline: ‘Fort Hood shooting suspect: a man of contradictions’.157 In 2013 with another headline, ‘With Nidal Hasan bombshell, time to call Fort Hood shooting a terror attack?’, The Christian Science Monitor reported that Nidal Hasan admitted that he attacked Fort Hood in defence of ‘the leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban’. It also reported that the Fort Hood incident was not characterised ‘as a jihadist attack in part to give the Obama administration political and policy cover’.158 The point in this case is that both Nidal Hasan and Jared Loughner’s shooting incidents were acts of terrorism but The Christian Science Monitor already chose Hasan to be ‘a man of contradictions’ and Loughner’s case to be ‘an isolated case’. The Christian Science Monitor also chose to comment on the Obama administration’s flawed judgement on Fort Hood, but it selectively remained silent on gun laws that could have prevented the Arizona shooting incident. The cartoon (Figure 4.3) depicts that if Jared Lee Loughner were a Muslim, or had a Muslim-sounding name, he would have been marked as the ‘Other’. Research has shown that the media representation of the ‘Muslim Other’ may not be uniform. Various factors such as race, class, religion, gender and sexuality can play a key factor in its representation of a certain person or group. For example, in November 2001 US-born and raised John Walker Lindh (also known as ‘the American Taliban’) was captured and imprisoned by the Afghan Northern Alliance (a group in opposition to the Taliban) and later found by the US military. Jose Padilla, US-born of Puerto Rican heritage (also known as ‘the Dirty Bomber’), was arrested in Chicago in May 2002, on suspicion of plotting a radiological bomb, and for conspiring with Al-Qaeda to execute a terrorist act on US soil.159

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Figure 4.3 The Islamic Threat?

Source: The Muslim Observer, 29 January 2011. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

Alsultany noted the choice of words of Newsweek on Lindh. Lindh’s conversion to Islam was portrayed as a ‘trajectory away from his American identity’.160 For example, his madrassa teacher in Pakistan said that Lindh was a ‘model student’: ‘The American had no interest in girls or parties or world events’; ‘Lindh … grew up surrounded by upper-middle-class affluence in California’. On the other hand, this is how Newsweek portrayed Jose Padilla: [Padilla] wasn’t one of those quiet, sweet kids the neighbors just can’t believe got into trouble with the law. Growing up on Chicago’s tough West Side in the late ’70s and early ’80s, young Jose was a known street thug and Latin Disciples gangsbanger with an expanding rap sheet.161

Alsultany observed: ‘The government and the news media have constructed a politics of affective worthiness that delineates persons worthy and unworthy of human feeling, inflected by the politics of race, class, religion, gender, and sexuality’.162 Similarly, Kimberly Powell noted that there were 11 terrorist events on US soil between October 2001 and January 2010.163 In her media analysis, Powell found

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a pattern of media representation of international terrorism in which Muslims/ Arabs/Islam working in organised terrorist cells against a ‘Christian America’ was more worrying compared to domestic terrorism, which was revealed as a minor threat that occurs in isolated incidents by troubled individuals.164 For example, in November 2001 when Bruce Ivins mailed letters containing anthrax spores, killing five people and making 17 people ill,165 the news media reassured readers that the anthrax-laced letters were not international terrorism so it was not the ‘real threat’ posed by Osama bin Laden and his network. In other words, bioterrorism was a lesser threat than international terrorism.166 Similarly, in the news media Luke Helder, the pipe bomber who placed pipe bombs in mailboxes in the Midwest in May 2002, was depicted as smart and sensitive: ‘He was an intellect, a real smart guy’.167 CNN news coverage on Helder described him as ‘an intelligent young man with strong family ties’.168 Powell observes that CNN not only portrayed him as intelligent but also personalised him by associating him as a member of a family. While none of Luke Helder’s devices detonated in Nebraska, six bombs exploded in two other states, wounding four postal employees and two elderly residents. Federal authorities said that the incident amounted to domestic terrorism.169 News media was sympathetic to Helder; for example The New York Times stated: ‘experts said Mr. Helder’s rambling writings on death, government, the environment and religion suggested that he was psychologically troubled, perhaps schizophrenic, and seeking attention’.170

Is the media ‘un-American’?

One participant on this study, Jamal (30 years, male, overseas-born), said this on the concept of ‘un-American’:

What is un-American? I think a lot of things; try to take advantage of people, try to stereotype people, try always to think you are better than others who are working hard to really improve yourself, just because your colour or your origin you think you are better than others – I think this is un-American and un-Islamic at the same time. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Another interviewee, Fazlul (27 years, male, overseas-born), commented:

I view America as a very positive place and what I feel is positive and what I know is positive, I look at those examples but at the same time those negative examples persist and the majority unfortunately fall into those negative, they have a lot of stereotypes and it’s only because of the majority of society. This is a human condition, you know you hate the people everyone else hates, you enslave the people everyone else enslaves, you don’t want to stand up. That’s un-American to go against what everyone else is doing. (interview, Florida, February 2010)

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Jamal, of Algerian background, who identified as African American, felt that ‘unAmericans’ are those American people who stereotype other people because of their origin or colour. He thought that such an attitude was also un-Islamic. Whereas Fazlul, of Pakistani heritage who identified as ‘more American’, felt that ‘un-Americans’ would be the majority of Americans who would not stand up for members of minority groups. Mainstream Americans tend to believe in stereotypes against Muslims. In other words, for the terrorist acts of a few Muslim extremists, American Muslims would be viewed as the ‘Other’. In the above discussion on the framing of Faisal Shahzad and Jared Lee Loughner’s cases, I found different layers of media representations. The media was keen to mark Shahzad through his religion and ethnicity as a bigger threat but dismissed Loughner’s case as a mental-health issue. Other research has found that some perpetrators were viewed with more compassion than others (for example Lindh and Padilla) because of their respective race and origin. Some analysts, however, observed that the right-wing media such as Steven Emerson’s radio talk show or Glenn Beck’s television show may have had an impact on Jared Loughner in Arizona (who shot Democrat Rep. Giffords). These media outlets have been vocal against the Democrats such as President Obama as well as against Muslims. For example, the Rush Limbaugh show is broadcast by more than 600 radio stations nationwide and it has more than 15 million listeners a week. He caricatures President Obama and his messages cast suspicion on his religious identity. Limbaugh has called Obama ‘Imam Obamadinejad’ and suggested that President Obama was into building a Caliphate and that he might think of himself as the twelfth Imam.171 Mike Savage hosts ‘The Savage Nation’. More than 350 radio stations broadcast his show to about 9 million weekly listeners. Savage overtly expresses anti-Muslim sentiments. For example on 17 April 2006 Savage told his listeners that Americans should ‘kill 100 million Muslims’.172 In October 2007 Savage said, ‘I don’t wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I’m sick of you.’173 He later suggested that American Muslims should be deported.174 Later, in an interview with the Associated Press, Savage claimed that his comments were taken out of context by the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and that he was talking about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his dangerous and violent brand of Islamic extremism, not about the religion in general.175 Glenn Beck’s radio show is broadcast by more than 400 stations and syndicated by premiere Radio Networks. Beck tends to equate Muslims with terrorism. In December 2010 he speculated about the number of Muslims in the United States who were terrorists, saying, ‘Let’s say it’s half a per cent of the U.S. population. That’s being generous. What’s that number? What is the number of Islamic terrorists? I think it’s closer to 10 per cent.’176 It is interesting to note that most mainstream media (including some talkback radio programs) constantly overlook the fact that there are some non-Muslims in American society who have resorted to violence. For example, in January 2010 a study conducted by a research team from Duke University and the University of

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North Carolina based on 120 in-depth interviews with Muslims in four American cities found similarly small numbers of domestic terror plots and incidents since 9/11. The report identified 139 Muslim Americans who have been prosecuted for planning or executing acts of terrorist violence since September 11, 2001, an average of 17 a year. The Duke-UNC study observed that the level of 17 individuals a year is small compared to other violent crime in America but not insignificant. It further noted that home grown terrorism is a serious but limited problem.177 Another study, the Rand report, Would-Be Warriors: Incidents of Jihadist Terrorist Radicalization in the United States since September 11, 2001, also found that since 11 September 2001 there have been terrorist incidents, or attempts of terrorism, but the news media have blown them out of proportion.178 The Rand report stated that all 46 incidents of Americans or long-time US residents being radicalised and attempting to commit acts of terror since 9/11 involved 125 people. However, in the 1970s the United States survived on average around 70 terrorist incidents a year. From January 1969 to April 1970 alone, the United States survived 4,330 bombings, 43 deaths, and $22 million of property damage.179 In October 2010 a study by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions, a research consortium in North Carolina, found that from 1999 to 2009 in the United States there were 17 Al-Qaeda-inspired plots undertaken, 20 plots initiated by white supremacists and 17 by violent anti-government militants. Recent attacks included the 2009 shooting of a guard at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the murder by ‘sovereign citizens’ in 2010 of two Arkansas police officers at a traffic stop. In January 2011 a bomb laced with rat poison was found in a backpack along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Spokane, Washington. In December 2012 four anarchists were sentenced from six to 11 and a half years for a Cleveland bomb plot.180 Academic Risa Brooks commented that the foiled Cleveland bomb plot is a reminder of the diversity of US homegrown terror, so terrorism is not restricted to people of Islamic faith. 181 In February 2015 three university students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Deah Shaddy Barakat and his wife, Yusor Mohammad, and her sister, Razan Abu-Salha, were allegedly shot dead by their neighbour, Craig Stephen Hicks. The police have been investigating whether the shooting was based on a quarrel over the parking lot. However, some Muslims believe that it was a hate crime.182 Critics observed that the North Carolina shooting of three Muslims did not get much mainstream media coverage. Many social media user mourners shared images and memories of the three victims, and pointed to some media portrayals of all Muslims as terrorists or otherwise dangerous and un-American as partly to blame for the victims’ deaths. Others questioned whether the three student deaths would generate a fraction of the news coverage of the deaths of the victims in the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015, or the coverage that one would expect if a Muslim man had murdered three non-Muslim, American students.183

Conclusion

In this chapter, the participants framed the word ‘un-American’ in different ways.

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Two interviewees (Nausheen and Nadia) considered the media to be ‘unAmerican’; two respondents (Majeed and Nargis) were sceptical of the term, but Majeed thought that the words ‘American’ and ‘un-American’ were the products of the conservative Fox Channel; and one participant (Marium) was distressed by her profiling as a Muslim (which my research has found could have been an impact of the media framing of Muslims); one interviewee (Qamar) considered the media maintained a double standard; and finally two respondents (Jamal and Fazlul) defined the term ‘un-American’ in terms of stereotyping. So the meaning of ‘unAmerican’ varied from agencies (the media) to people’s attitudes (stereotyping and vilification) towards Muslims. Under the First Amendment American citizens have the right to express their views without hindrance by the law or decree of authorities. However, freedom of speech also brings responsibility. If the media selectively labels one’s religion and ethnicity if the perpetrator is of Islamic faith, but sympathises with non-Muslim perpetrators, it has shown its double standard and hence is ‘un-American’. However, it would be unfair to taint all media as ‘un-American’ in one brush. Media outlets such as Democracy Now and CBS who reported Alioune Niass’s contribution at Times Square were exceptions to the norm.

Notes 1

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8

9 10 11

See also Karin Creutz-Kamppi, ‘The Othering of Islam in a European Context: Polarizing Discourses in Swedish-language Dailies in Finland’, Nordicom Review, 29/2 (2008): 295–308. Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction’, in Stuart Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Processes (London: Sage, 1997), p.10. See also Angie Chuang and Robin Chin Roemer, ‘The Immigrant Muslim American at the Boundary of Insider and Outsider: Representation of Faisal Shahzad as “Home grown” Terrorist’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 90/1 (2013): 89–107, see pp. 91–2. Creutz-Kamppi, ‘The Othering of Islam in a European Context’, pp. 298–299. Ibid., p. 299. Ibid., pp. 299–304. Elizabeth Poole, Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims (London: Tauris, 2002), p. 136. Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘Free Speech: Creating the “Us and Them” Debate’, in Erich Kolig (ed.), Freedom of Speech and Islam (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 163–186. Tariq Modood, ‘Muslims and the Politics of Difference’, in Peter Hopkins and Richard Gale (eds), Muslims in Britain: Race, Place and Identities (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), pp. 193–209, see p. 204. Scott Poynting, Greg Noble, Paul Tabar, and Jock Collins, Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other (Sydney: Sydney Institute of Criminology Series, 2004), pp. 11–51. Nahid Kabir, ‘Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Australian Media, 2001– 2005’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 26/3 (2006): 313–328. See also, Kabir, ‘Free Speech: Creating the “Us and Them” Debate’. Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin, Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation After 9/11 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), p. 63.

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Ibid. Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11 (New York: New York University Press, 2012), p. 161. Ibid., p. 3. Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 114–147. Ibid., p. 74. ‘Can we save Amina Lawal’? Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS, 4 October 2002. Cited in Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, p. 88. Cited in ibid., p. 91. Ibid., p. 91. See Henri Tajfel (ed.), Human Groups and Social Categories (London: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Richard Jenkins, Social Identity, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 2008). Stuart Hall, Polity Reader in Cultural Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), p. 122. ‘Oprah Winfrey’s Oscars Snub shocks Academy Award Nominations’, The Huffington Post, 16 January 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/oprah-oscars-snub_n_ 4595412.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes and Faiz Shakir, Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2011). Lee Hammel, ‘Mehanna Gets 17 Years in Terrorism Case’, Telegram, 12 April 2012, www.telegram.com/article/20120412/NEWS/120419817/0 (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Fanaticism Hit Home’, Editorial, Daily News, 10 November 2009, p. 22; ‘Many Rallied for Alleged Terrorists’, Boston Herald, 13 November 2009, p. 3. ‘Terror Suspect all Smiles at Ground Zero’, Boston Herald, 6 November 2009, p. 7. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘Tarek Mehanna Sentenced in Boston to 17 years in Prison on Terrorism-Related Charges’, 12 April 2012, www.fbi.gov/boston/pressreleases/2012/tarek-mehanna-sentenced-in-boston-to-17-years-in-prison-on-terrorism -related-charges (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Pentagon Shooter had his History of Mental Illness’, NBC News, 5 March 2010, www.nbcnews.com/id/35716821/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.U4Es5_mSz1c (accessed 15 February 2016). Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 123–143. Anthony Dimaggio, ‘Fort Hood Fallout: Cultural Racism and Deteriorating Public Discourse on Islam’, 4 December 2009, http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/fort-hoodfallout-cultural-racism-and-deteriorating-public-discourse-on-islam-by-anthonydimaggio/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Ibid. John Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism (London, New York: Routledge 2014), p. 11. Robin Doak, Daniel Oehlsen, Charles Piddock, Susan Taylor, Richard Worth and Nel

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Yomtov, The Media Source Presents: Homegrown Terrorism (USA: Source Interlink Media Publication, 2014), pp. 7–11. Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 11. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 181–183. Ibid, p. 183. ‘Muslim Vendor Gets no Credit in Helping to Foil Times Square Bomb Plot’, Democracy Now, 6 May 2010, www.democracynow.org/2010/5/6/muslim_vendor_ gets_no_credit_in# (accessed 15 February 2016). Stephan Salisbury, ‘America’s Muslims: Guilty until Proven Innocent?’, CBS News, 24 May 2010, www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-muslims-guilty-until-proveninnocent/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Muslim Vendor Gets no Credit in Helping to Foil Times Square Bomb Plot’. Ibid. Salisbury, ‘America’s Muslims: Guilty until Proven Innocent?’ Zaid Jilani, ‘Shahzad doesn’t Speak for Me’, Atlantic Journal-Constitution (The GA), 20 May 2010, p. A19. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Cited in ibid. Cited in ibid. Ibid. Jilani uses a different spelling for Aliou Niasse. He also spelt Faisal Shahzad as one word. Chuang and Roemer, ‘The Immigrant Muslim American’. Ibid., p. 90. Ibid, p. 90. Ibid., p. 95. Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., p. 97. Ibid., pp. 91–92. Hall, ‘Introduction’, p.10. Chuang and Roemer, ‘The Immigrant Muslim American’, p. 99. My newspaper analysis differs from most scholars’ research because I have analysed the news items mostly from the hard copies of print media. Through this research method, I have observed the impact of images and headlines on the readers. ‘Broadway bomber’, TIME, 17 May 2010, p. 15. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 18. ‘From Pakistan to the World’, TIME, 17 May 2010, p. 19. Ibid. Ibid., p. 14.

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‘Broadway Bomber’, pp. 16–17. ‘From Pakistan to the World’, pp. 18–19. ‘Lured to Jihad in Pakistan’, TIME, 17 May 2010, pp. 20–21. Ibid. TIME, 17 May 2010, pp. 14–21. George Davis, Williston, VT, US, TIME, Letters to the Editor, 7 June 2010, p. 4. ‘Pakistan’s Deadliest Terror Groups’, TIME, 17 May 2010, p. 21. Syed Naheer Ameer, Karachi, TIME, Letters to the Editor, 7 June 2010, p. 4. Human Rights Watch, A Wedding that Became a Funeral: US Drone Attacks on Marriage Process in Yemen (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2014), www.hrw.org/ sites/default/files/reports/yemen0214_ForUpload_0.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). See also, Kimberly Dozier, ‘Obama Officials Weigh Drone Attack on US Suspect’, AP, 10 February 2014, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-suspect-possibly-targeteddrone-attack (accessed 15 February 2016). Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, ‘53 Hours in the Life of a Near Disaster’, Newsweek, 17 May 2010, pp. 24–25. Ibid., pp. 26–30. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 26. Oren Dorell and Martha T. Moore, ‘Pakistani Americans’ “Worst Fears” Confirmed’, USA Today, 7 May 2010, p. 2A. USA Today, 10 May 2010, p. 1. The New York Times, 5 May 2010, p. A24. ‘An Immigrant and Suburban Father who Gave no Warning Sign’, The New York Times, 5 May 2010, pp. 1, A24. The New York Times, 9 May 2010, p. 1. Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet, ‘From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad’, The New York Times, 9 May 2010, p. 1. Ibid. Ibid. Jane Perlez, ‘U.S. Urges Swift Action in Pakistan after Failed Times Square Bombing’, The New York Times, 9 May 2010, p. 6. Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet, ‘The Evolution of a Radical Cleric’, The New York Times, 9 May 2010, p. 14. Ibid. Ibid. Shane and Mekhennet, ‘From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad’, p. 14. Ibid. William K. Rashbaum and Mark Mazzetti, ‘Pakistani-American is Arrested in NYC Bomb Case’, The Boston Globe, 4 May 2009, p. A6. The Boston Globe, 7 May 2010, p. A18. Ibid. ‘Pakistan’s Paranoid Press’, Editorial, The Boston Globe, 7 May 2010, p. A18. Ibid. Ibid. Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet, ‘From Imam in US to Voice of Holy War from Yemen’, The Boston Sunday Globe, 9 May 2010, p. A10. Ibid.

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The Boston Sunday Globe, 9 May 2010, p. A10. ‘Obama Urges Hampton Graduates to be Role Models’, The Boston Globe, 10 May 2010, p. A8. Boston Herald, 14 May 2010, p. 1. Boston Herald, 14 May 2010, pp. 4–5. The headlines appeared in a similar font in the newspapers. Ibid. Editorial, Boston Herald, 14 May 2010, p. 14. Editorial, ‘Wide Awake in Times Square’, The Washington Post, 4 May 2010, p. 22. In other media, it is spelt Orton. Editorial, ‘Wide Awake in Times Square’. ‘“See Something, Say Something” Unfamiliar to Most Americans’, Gallup Politics, 23 December 2013, www.gallup.com/poll/166622/something-say-somethingunfamiliar-americans.aspx (accessed 15 February 2016). Dana Hughes and Nadine Shubailat, ‘Dad of Alleged Bomber Abdulmutallab called “Heroic,” Invited to Congress’, ABC News, 11 January 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/ Politics/bomber-umar-farouk-abdulmutallabs-dad-called-heroic-invited/story? id=9535201 (accessed 15 February 2016). The Washington Post, 4 May 2010, p. 22. ‘U.S. to Send Pakistan a Detailed Request for Assistance in Bomb Probe’, The Washington Post, 6 May 2010, p. A 9. Ibid. Ibid. See also, The Washington Post, 6 May 2010, p. A 9; US Department of State, ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2012/209989.htm (accessed 15 February 2016). Greg Miller and Jerry Markon, ‘Suspect made “Gradual” Shift’, The Washington Post, 7 May 2010, p. 1. Ibid. Daily News, 10 May 2010, pp. 4–7. The headlines appeared in a similar font in the newspapers. Ibid., p. 5. The headlines appeared in a similar font in the newspapers. James Gordon Meek and David Saltonstall, ‘Hil & Holder blast Pakistan being Soft on Terrorists, Osama’, Daily News, 10 May 2010, p. 4. ‘“Little Pakistan” Worried about Backlash’, Daily News, 10 May 2010, p. 6. The headlines appeared in a similar font in the newspapers. Murray Weiss, Dan Mangan, Tim Perone and SA Miller, ‘Bomb Suspect Busted at JFK – Pakistani US Citizen Trying to Flee US’, New York Post, 4 May 2010, p. 4. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. S. A. Miller, ‘Times Square Suspect Received Bomb Training in Pakistan’, New York Post, 4 May 2010, http://nypost.com/2010/05/04/times-square-suspect-receivedbomb-training-in-pakistan/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Chad Bray, ‘U.S, News: Times Square Plotter Gets Life Term’, Wall Street Journal, 6 October 2010, p. A4. Catherine Philp, ‘Life in Jail for “Home-grown” Times Square Bomber’, The Times (London), 6 October 2010, p. 29. Ibid.

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‘Beck for January 10, 2011’, Glenn Beck Program, Fox News, http://0-global.factiva. com.library.ecu.edu.au/ha/default.aspx (accessed 9 September 2011); Glenn Beck, ‘Beck Responds to Giffords Shooting Blame Game’, http://carlraylouk.blogspot. com.au/2011/01/monday-january-10-2011-beck-responds-to.html, (accessed 9 September 2011); Guy Benson, ‘Jared Loughner Sure Reminds Me of Glenn Beck’, CNN, 13 January 2011, http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2011/01/13/ bill_maher_that_nutjob_jared_loughner_sure_reminds_me_of_glenn_beck (accessed 15 February 2016). See also, Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 135–136. Candice M. Giove, ‘Mad Man Shoots Pol Point-Blank’, New York Post, 9 January 2011, p. 4. Anonymous, ‘The Lunatic’s Veto’, New York Post, 10 January 2011, p. 22. I discuss the Park51 mosque in Chapter 5. Carl Campanile, ‘Mosque Sheik-up: Imam Replaced at Ground Zero Center’, New York Post, 15 January 2011, p. 11. Rich Lowry, ‘Time to Fight the Madness Lobby’, New York Post, 15 January 2011, p. 19. Ibid. Nick Martin, ‘Psycho with a “Killer Smile”’, New York Post, 11 January 2011, http://nypost.com/2011/01/11/psycho-with-a-killer-smile/ (accessed 15 February 2016). The Monitor’s Editorial Board, ‘Arizona Shooting: An Isolated Case with Broad Ramifications’, The Christian Science Monitor, 10 January 2011, p. 17. In 1994 the bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It prohibited 19 types of military-style assault weapons. The Monitor’s Editorial Board, ‘Arizona Shooting’. Ibid. Ibid. Peter Grier ‘Fort Hood Shooting Suspect: A man of Contradictions’, The Christian Science Monitor, 6 November 2009, p. 4. Patrik Jonsson, ‘With Nidal Hasan Bombshell, Time to Call Fort Hood Shooting a Terror Attack?’ The Christian Science Monitor, 5 June 2013, p. 11. Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, p. 123. Ibid., pp. 110–111. See also Evan Thomas, ‘American Taliban: A Long Strange Trip to the Taliban’, Newsweek, 17 December 2001, pp. 30–36. See p. 30. Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, p. 122. ‘From Taco Bell to Al-Qaeda: How Accused “Dirty Bomb” Plotter Jose Padilla Traveled from Gangland Chicago to Osama Bin Laden’s backyard’, Newsweek, 24 June 2002, pp. 34–35. See p. 34. Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, p. 126. Kimberly A. Powell, ‘Framing Islam: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of Terrorism since 9/11’, Communication Studies, 62/1 (2011): 90–112, see p. 96. Ibid., p. 91. Ibid., pp. 96, 98. Ibid., p. 98. Jodi Wilgoren, ‘Student, 21, is Arrested in Nevada in 5-State Bombing Spree’, The New York Times, 8 May 2002, p. A1. See also Powell, ‘Framing Islam’, p. 99. Powell, ‘Framing Islam’, p. 99. Ibid., p. 98. Michael Jonofsky and Jodi Wilogren, ‘Bomb Suspect Gave Few Hints of Violent Plan’, The New York Times, 9 May 2002, p. AI. See Powell, ‘Framing Islam’, p. 101.

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Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 92. See also, ‘The Top Talk Radio Audiences’, Talkers Magazine, 11 March 2011, www.talkers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/audience chart_may14.jpg (accessed 21 December 2015). See also, ‘Suggestions: Barack Obamadinejad’, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 21 October 2010, www.rushlimbaugh. com/daily/2010/10/21/suggestion_barack_obamadinejad (accessed 15 February 2016). See also, Rush Limbaugh, ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show’, 29 March 2011, www.rushlimbaugh.com/ (accessed 21 December 2015). ‘Savage Advocated “Kill[ing] 100 million” Muslims; Called Alleged Duke Rape Victim a “Drunken Slut Stripping Whore”’, Media Matters for America, 19 April 2006, http://mediamatters.org/video/2006/04/19/savage-advocated-killing-100million-muslims-ca/135443 (accessed 15 February 2016). See also, Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 93. Bruce Tomaso, ‘Radio Host Sues CAIR for Using Clips of his Anti-Islam Rant’, The Dallas Morning News, 8 December 2007, http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/ 2007/12/radio-host-sues-cair-for-using.html/ (accessed 15 February 2016). See also, Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 93. Tomaso, ‘Radio host sues CAIR’. See also, Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 93. Tomaso, ‘Radio Host Sues CAIR’. Cited in Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 96. National institute of Justice, David Schanzer, Charles Kurzman and Ebrahim Moosa, Anti-terror Lessons of American Muslims (Columbus, Ohio: BiblioGov, 2012). Brian Michael Jenkins, Would-Be Warriors: Incidents of Jihadist Terrorist Radicalization in the United States since September 11, 2001, Occasional paper, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation 2010 (accessed 15 February 2016). Stephan Salibury, ‘America’s Muslims: Guilty until Proven Innocent?’, CBS News, 24 May 2010, www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-muslims-guilty-until-proveninnocent/ (accessed 21 December 2015). Bill Morlin, ‘4 Anarchists Sentenced in Cleveland Bridge Bomb Plot’, Salon, 17 December 2012, www.salon.com/2012/12/06/4_anarchists_sentenced_in_cleveland_ bridge_bomb_plot/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Risa Brooks, ‘Homegrown Terror isn’t Just Islamist’, CNN, 3 May 2012, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/03/opinion/brooks-bridge-homegrown-terrorists/ (accessed15 February 2016). Aamer Madhani, ‘North Carolina Murders Revive Islamophobia Concerns’, USA Today, 16 February 2015, p. A2. Kia Makarachi, ‘Police: Three Muslim Chapel Hill Students Murdered by 46-YearOld Man’, VF News, 11 February 2015, www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/02/chapelhill-shooting-muslim-lives-matter (accessed 15 February 2016).

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5

Modern-day McCarthyism

Certain national and international events concerning Muslims have raised the question of McCarthyism. As I discussed in Chapter 2, some groups were considered as the ‘Other’ when they posed a racial or security threat. Under that ‘Othering’ practice sometimes mainstream Americans also came under government scrutiny. In the 1950s Senator Joseph McCarthy employed Senate-sanctioned hounding of Americans suspected of communism or socialism.1 McCarthy’s suspects included mainstream Americans who were viewed as communists, excommunists and communist sympathisers. About one-third of the witnesses were ‘grilled in closed-door hearings’.2 The accused people were mostly celebrities. They tried to avoid public sessions. However, McCarthy humiliated them by stepping into the hallway after the witness left from the closed session, and giving his version of what had happened in the executive session. Critics said that this was McCarthy’s way of controlling public perceptions. Critics considered that McCarthy’s closed-door hearings were clearly un-American acts.3 In this chapter, I discuss the continuation of the practice of McCarthyism by different actors (politicians and other people with vested interests) and agencies (political parties, think tanks, law enforcement and national security agencies and the media) over American Muslims. This study considers the word ‘un-American’ with its ‘historical link with the McCarthy-era political witch-hunt for domestic enemies’.4 I examine a series of national and international incidents generally involving Muslims in America and in some cases Muslim countries where the words American, un-American and McCarthyism have been implied. I first discuss the views of some participants of this study on what it means to be American or unAmerican. Second, I examine some politicians’ rhetoric that targeted American Muslims. Third, I discuss the surveillance of American Muslims by US law enforcement agencies. Finally, I examine participants’ perception of the Bush and Obama administrations within the framework of the American and un-American debate and evaluate the prevalence of modern-day McCarthyism.

American and un-American debate

Some participants in this study were sceptical about the term ‘American’. They observed that under the First Amendment American citizens have the right of

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freedom of speech but Muslims would not be heard. Arwa (24 years, female, USborn) observed:

To be American, I think you have to contribute to society and uphold your rights. They have given you things such as voting and I think that is the American thing to do … But as a Muslim for me, I would want to bring Muslim issues to the forefront and America does allow you to do that … that is American too. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Arwa, of Guyanese heritage who identified as Muslim American Guyanese, observed that limited freedom of speech for American Muslims was American. Similarly, Rahima (26 years, female, overseas-born, identity: Bangladeshi Muslim) observed, ‘People say democracy is American and free speech is American. Free speech I doubt is American now because you can’t speak out, you have to speak what they want to hear’ (interview, Maryland, 2010). Ilyas (17 years, male, overseas-born, identity: American Lebanese) observed, ‘It’s not really free [speech] as they say, though. You can’t say anything against the government. Yeah, like terrorist stuff, which I agree with 100 per cent though. But you can’t say that’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Arwa noted that the American government or Americans in general do not want to hear about Muslim issues. Rahima doubted whether free speech was granted to American Muslims at all, while Ilyas observed that there is no freedom of speech for Muslims. Some participants wanted to discuss whether terrorists acts were justified because to them they could be an act of freedom fighting, for example the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But they feared that the current atmosphere in the United States did not allow free and frank discussions to a certain group of people, in this case Arab and Muslim Americans. Daniel (19 years, male, US-born, Pakistani background) who identified as ‘only Muslim’ brought the notion of liberalism to the fore: To be American is someone who stands by the ideals that America was founded on, as ideals not as the watered-down principles they might have become throughout history. And so to be un-American is to oppose those ideals. People have defined it as either being blindly supporting of the government, blindly supporting of our military perhaps, or blindly liberal. I don’t believe that that’s American at all. I believe that yes, liberalism is part of the American persona, but if we’re liberal enough to the point that it’s horrible and detrimental to our populus than that’s not American at all, that’s harmful to our freedom, and that in itself would be un-American. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Like Daniel, most participants in this study observed (as I also discussed in previous chapters) that to be American meant only positive things, such as freedom of speech, land of the free, safety and security, patriotism and loyalty. And ‘unAmerican’ was associated with negative things. But Daniel cautioned that, ‘If we’re

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liberal enough to the point that it’s horrible and detrimental to our populus than that’s not American’. Naveed (18 years, male, heritage Afghan, identity: Muslim) observed the democracy has been in Islam since its inception.5 He gave the example how the Khilafat under the khalifahs, Khalifah Abu Bakr (May God Be Pleased With Him) and successors valued the democratic ethos and gave voice to the people.

I’m not pretty sure of what the politicians say because they play with words such as American and un-American. I mean if you’re patriotic in the sense that just approach the government, I personally don’t agree with being blindly patriotic. Just like in Islam when the khalifah was chosen, the khalifah the first thing he said was that if I do something wrong …you correct me. I believe that even in a democratic society if someone in the position of power is doing something wrong the people should correct them and that’s only beneficial to the people. (interview, Virginia, 2010)

Fatima (45 years, female, mainstream American convert, identity: American) also noted the egalitarian values in the Islamic faith. However, she was disappointed at how some Americans (politicians) were keen to construct the Muslim Americans as the Other. Fatima noted:

Because real Americans are open-minded, care for other people. This country is about, in my opinion, helping everybody having a fair shot, everybody being born in the same level, which is the same as Islam. Because in Islam everybody is exactly the same. You all come out of your mother the same way…. quality of your character. And that’s actually what America was supposed to be based on.

Fatima continued:

So there’s not much difference between what Islam says and what America says, which is why they spend so much time trying to keep Islam in the corner and hidden. And as if we’re the ‘Other’. And as if we’re not part of this place. Because once people start to realize that Islam says that everybody is equal, that everybody is equal under God. Then you don’t need anybody to be between you and law; you can be right with the law yourself. You don’t need priests. You don’t need rabbis. You don’t need even an imam, you don’t need anything. You just need yourself, a willingness to believe in something bigger than yourself, which most Americans do. Most Americans are religious, by the way. And pretty conservative … and can act ‘un-American’ (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

As also discussed in Chapter 2, some participants observed that when Muslims in America cannot exercise their right to free speech, then it can be termed both

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‘American’ and ‘un-American’ acts. A few participants also noted that democratic practices were also in Islam, so America’s democratic values were not innovative.

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The new McCarthyism

On the American Muslim question, the term ‘modern-day McCarthyism’ or ‘unAmerican’ has been used in various contexts which I discuss under several sub-headings. Rabia was a participant in this study of Indian heritage who identified as an American Indian Muslim. She was taken by surprise by my question, what is it to be American and un-American. Rabia’s (22 years, female, US-born) impromptu answer was just a guess:

Hmm, I haven’t really thought about that, I guess being American is kind of upholding the ideals of the country and being un-American I guess would be all of those things that the politicians talk about – you know Muslims supporting terrorism. (interview, Florida, 2010)

I (the author) acknowledge that a security threat is posed by some Muslim militants (as much as it is posed by non-Muslim extremists) but to label all Muslims as a problem is prejudicial and hence un-American. In 2014, a study by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions of 86 terrorist plots in the United States between 1999 and 2009 found that less than half (40) were either carried out by Al-Qaeda or inspired by that terrorist network. The remaining 46 plots were plotted and executed by Americans from the political left and right, including white supremacists, anti-government radicals, animal rights activists, and anti-abortion advocates. The domestic or home-grown terrorists were either US citizens or legal residents based in the United States. They used bombings, shootings, poison attacks or other violent acts to further their social and political objectives.6 In this study I found that in every opportunistic moment some politicians attempted to generate fear against the ‘Muslim Other’. They bring forth the ‘us’ and ‘them’ debate and often in their conversation they place the State of Israel as a model state (as discussed next). Question of assimilation

After the 7 July London bombings, some American politicians capitalised on the situation for their own political gain by creating fear and suspicion. On 19 July 2005 Republican state representative to the Georgia legislature Mark Burkhalter published an opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution stating that the London bombers were long-time immigrants and were home-grown terrorists. State Rep Burkhalter commented, ‘The reality is that more and more of these budding killers live among us from London and Berlin to New Jersey and even Georgia – where some of the Sept. 11 attackers temporarily resided’.7 Burkhalter then cast doubt over whether new immigrants to the United States (possibly

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Muslim immigrants because the 9/11 attackers belonged to the Islamic faith) were patriotic. State Rep. Burkhalter stated:

Too many of our new immigrants don’t know a thing about American history, values or culture. In some cases they are only here to earn money to send back to their countries. Others are here to plot evil against us for embracing free markets, free speech, free assembly and freedom of religion. In a speech to Congress in the early days of our nation, James Madison [US President 1809–1817] said that Americans should welcome immigrants who truly desire to join our society and assimilate. But, he said, it should reject those who want to operate as independent subcultures.8

State Rep. Burkhalter was also critical of Latino immigrants. He emphasised that in order to become ‘loyal residents’ immigrants should be offered language training. He used Israel as a model state when he said, ‘In Israel, immigrants are offered 500 hours of language training to encourage them to embrace the Israeli way of life’.9 Burkhalter’s reference to Israel revealed that he believed the US government should follow its ally’s policy of enforced assimilation. To him ‘we’ and ‘our’ meant Israel and the United States are one group versus the ‘Other’, the Latinos and Muslims. State Rep. Burkhalter’s opinion piece was applauded by one reader, Lance Martin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who commented: Every immigrant should be required to learn English and take classes on American history and culture for being allowed to be a part of our country. The refusal by some groups to even try to fit in with our society, and our government’s desire to appease them, has put us all at risk.10

However, another reader, Shyam Sriram, was critical of Rep. Mark Burkhalter’s ‘irresponsible language’. Sriram commented, ‘By using the phrase “budding killers” he [State Rep. Mark Burkhalter] provided justification – from an elected official – to the growing jingoism-inspired vigilantism that pervades America, and especially Georgia, in a post-Sept.11 time’.11 Sriram asked:

Are they ‘budding killers’ because they speak Urdu at home and not English? Or because they choose to live among other families of the same community in Clarkson, rather than be persecuted and derided for their dress and language in a more ‘American’ setting like Cobb County?12

Sriram agreed with Rep. Burkhalter that sometimes immigrants are not keen to take formal American citizenship, ‘but the answer does not lie in forced assimilation or “patriotic instruction” tied to state benefits. Such policies are dangerous and ultimately, dare I say, un-American.’13

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Congressional hearings

The political attacks on American Muslims continued. Muslims were sometimes considered unassimilable or susceptible to terrorism. On 10 March 2011 the Homeland Security Committee for the United States House of Representatives had the first congressional hearing on ‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response’. The second, third and fourth hearings continued until December 2011.14 Opponents of the hearing dismissed it as ‘hysteria and an irresponsible call to political correctness’ and it did not consider any impending threat from the Muslim community. Opponents discredited the hearings as ‘a modern-day form of McCarthyism designed to stoke fear against American Muslims’ (Figure 5.1).15 On 6 March 2011 the New York Post had this headline: ‘Rep. King: Muslims aren’t helping in terror fight’.16 It had Peter King’s image, and the photo caption ran, ‘House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., says Muslims in the U.S. not helping in the fight against radicalism’.17 In a media interview, Congressman Peter King (R-New York) raised concerns that Muslims in the United States were not cooperating enough with law enforcement agencies to counter radicalisation. Though Rep. King said, ‘The overwhelming majority of Muslims are outstanding Americans, but at this stage in our history there’s an effort

Figure 5.1 Congressional Islamophobia.

Source: Muslim Observer, Thursday 15 February 2011. Copyright Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

The cartoon depicts the power of one group over the other. Some American Muslims have now become victims of modern-day McCarthyism.

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… to radicalize elements within the Muslim community’.18 Rep. King asserted that Al-Qaeda terrorists were targeting Muslim youth in the United States. The New York Post reported that the first Muslim elected to the House, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) said that it was proper to investigate radicalisation, but he thought that it was wrong to single out one religion.19 Yet with its headline and photo caption, the New York Post marked American Muslims as the ‘Other’ and a threat to US security. Paradoxically, the day before the commencement of Peter King’s hearings, a former American soldier, Kevin William Harpham, who had ties to a neo-Nazi white supremacist group, was arrested for planning a terrorist attack on a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Washington.20 Saghaye-Biria observes that ten years after the Twin Towers attacks, ‘Muslims continue to be victims of prejudice and discrimination at all levels of American society: the public, the media, the experts and the government’.21 Ali et al. found that Islamophobia is deeply embedded in American political discourse, reinforcing fear of Islamic shariah, fear that Islam will dominate the West and that the Quran promotes violence against non-Muslims.22 The first congressional hearings, ‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response’ singled out ‘radicalised’ Muslim Americans as a terrorist threat against America.23 In his speech Peter King emphasised the importance of Muslim Americans’ contribution to America, but his statement ‘Our country’ brought in the ‘us’ and ‘them’ debate when he stated: I have repeatedly said the overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans are outstanding Americans and make enormous contributions to our country. But there are realities we cannot ignore. For instance a Pew Poll said that 15% of Muslim American men between the age of 18 and 29 could support suicide bombings. This is the segment of the community Al-Qaeda is attempting to recruit.24

Peter King held that Al-Qaeda was still recruiting and using people living legally in the United States. These included: New York City Subway bomb plotter Najibullah Zazi; Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan; Colleen LaRose known as ‘Jihad Jane’; Times Square bomb plotter Faisal Shahzad; Mumbai plotter David Headly; Little Rock Recruiting Center Shooter Carlos Bledsoe; and dozens of individuals in Minneapolis associated with the Somali terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab.25 Congressman Peter King framed the hearings to reaffirm that the threat of Islamic terrorism in the United States was real. King believed that 80–85 per cent of mosques in the United States were controlled by Islamic fundamentalists and that the enemy was living amongst ‘us’.26 Peter King was critical of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and asked Muslim leaders to reject CAIR, ‘which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorist financing case involving the Holyland Foundation’.27 Overall 14 representatives at the hearings added to Congressman King’s fear-mongering discourse, and 11 representatives

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supported the discourse in favour of American Muslims led by ranking member Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi).28 The representatives who spoke for the American Muslims pointed out that the hearing’s focus should be broadened to include the threat posed by white supremacist fundamentalist groups in the United States. They also mentioned that the shooter at the Holocaust Memorial Museum on 10 June 2009, was a nonMuslim.29 They hoped that the hearings would not increase hate crimes or religious profiling, and worried that America’s image abroad is of a nation at war with Islam and cautioned that the hearing may end up similar to those run by Senator Joe McCarthy. 30 American Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison admitted that some Americans who were Muslims were violent extremists such as Anwar al-Awlaki, Faisal Shahzad and Nidal Hasan, but these individuals did not represent the Muslim community. Rep. Ellison said: Stoking fears about an entire group for a political agenda is not new in American History. During World War II, the United States government interned the Japanese-Americans and spied on German-Americans. During John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign his opponents portrayed his – portrayed a dire future for an America with a Catholic president. We now view these events of our past as a breach of our treasured American values.31

Rep. Ellison gave examples of Muslims who were model citizens, for example, Mohammed Salman Hamdani, aged 23, a paramedic and a police cadet who died while rescuing fellow Americans on 11 September 2001.32 Congressman Ellison broke into tears as he explained Hamdani’s story, and commented, ‘Some people spread false rumours and speculated that he was in league with the attackers only because he was Muslim’.33 However, Congressman King preferred to hear the voices that would advance his fear-mongering campaign and who spoke against CAIR. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) discredited CAIR as the voice of mainstream Muslim Americans.34 Some Muslims’ voices also added to the fear-mongering campaign of Congressman King. Dr Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy observed that there was a polarisation on the issue that was paralysing America’s response to the problem of Muslim radicalisation, and second that the problem is a Muslim problem and Muslims were responsible for it.35 Similarly, Abdirizak Bihi, director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center and uncle of Burhan Hassan, the 17-year-old Somali-American who was recruited to Somalia and killed in the war, held mosques responsible for brainwashing some 20 Somali teenagers into going back to Somalia to fight the civil war there.36 Melvin Bledsoe, father of convert Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, also known as Carlos Leon Bledsoe, who was responsible for a shooting at a Little Rock army recruiting office in 2009, killing a military official and wounding another, held the imam of the Nashville mosque responsible for brainwashing his son.37

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The counter narrative was that critics accused the committee’s chairman, Rep. Peter King, of implying that ‘all Muslims are guilty of terrorism by association’. Earlier in January 2010 a report from Duke University and the University of North Carolina argued that mosques and other Muslim community institutions were working to root out political fundamentalism. That is why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed instructed his 9/11 hijackers to steer clear of American Muslims, their mosques and their institutions.38 Critics further pointed out that a study carried out by a consortium of North Carolina university researchers found that many of those who brought Muslim American terror suspects to the attention of US authorities were also Muslim Americans. The North Carolina university researchers stated, ‘The largest single source of initial information (48 of 120 cases) involved tips from the Muslim-American community’.39 Civil rights activists were critical of Rep. Peter King who chose to ignore the acts of terrorism committed by non-Muslim Americans. They observed that King had pushed for terrorism investigations since the 9/11 Twin Towers attacks and had pointed to ‘instances of violence by Muslim Americans as a reason for looking into whether Muslim Americans have been indoctrinated against the United States’.40 Rep. King often cited the 2009 Fort Hood Texas shootings but he selectively ignored the January 2011 Arizona shooting by Jared Lee Loughner, who was not a Muslim.41 It appears that the congressional hearing had political overtones: the Democrats versus the Republicans on the American Muslim question. However, it also appears Peter King’s hearing had overtones that were affected by budgets and funding. The government funding cut may have been the driving force for the hearing. About a year earlier, on 13 May 2010, the Daily News had this headline on its cover page: ‘TERROR OUTRAGE!’.42 Underneath this headline it was written, ‘Two weeks after Times Sq. dodges bomb, feds cut New York’s security funds’. It appeared the newspaper’s reporters were outraged by the federal government’s cuts to security funds. The inside report had this headline: ‘FEDS: WHAT TIMES SQUARE BOMB?’. It quoted Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, who said, ‘The President seems more interested in raising money for political campaigns than providing New York the money it needs to defend itself against Islamic terrorism’.43 By using the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’, King equated a religion (Islam) with terrorism. Rep. King’s congressional hearings echoed perceptions of scholars such as Bernard Lewis who have always portrayed Islam and Muslims as the problem. Lewis and some of his fellow scholars believe that some Muslim communal leaders and religious dignitaries have been unwilling to condemn terrorist acts unequivocally.44 The title of Peter King’s hearing, ‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response’, earned Rep. Peter King comparisons to 1950s Communist-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy for the way he broadly targeted Muslims for their alleged links to un-American activity.45 In March 2011, during King’s Congressional hearings, some print media reported on the anxiety of some American Muslims. The public began queuing before 6 pm to get a seat in the meeting room. One attendant, Zak Dahlawi, whose

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mother is an American and father a Saudi, said, ‘I am personally invested in this proceeding’. His parents viewed this proceeding as ‘harking back to McCarthy’.46

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The CAIR case

Analysts observed that Peter King’s attack on CAIR has historical roots. CAIR was established in 1994. Since its establishment it has aimed to promote positive images of Islam and Muslims in the United States through media relations, lobbying, education and advocacy. After 9/11, its initiatives included ‘National and Worldwide Condemnation of Terrorism’ and ‘Not in the Name of Islam’ campaigns – both were done to show the wider society that American Muslims denounce terrorism. CAIR was one of the 120 Muslim groups to support a fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, against terrorism and extremism.47 Despite CAIR’s efforts in condemning terrorism and educating the public about Islam, conservatives have attacked CAIR and accused it of supporting terrorism, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah. CAIR officials said that they were critical of Hamas and Hezbollah but they refused to join the Bush administration’s blanket condemnation of these groups. CAIR also asked the Bush administration to stop shipments of weapons to Israel and CAIR also opposed the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington. Under the circumstances, it was difficult for CAIR to work with the government on certain occasions.48 An anonymous participant in this study spoke about the intimidation they receive from some Jewish groups for being associated with CAIR: CAIR adopts a street, maybe two blocks from here and what we do with ‘Adopt-a-Street’ [program] is we put signs up on the street and it has their name. It says Council on American Islamic Relations. A group called Americans against Hate – it’s actually led by a Jewish group – they actually are protesting this CAIR participating in the program because they believe that CAIR is related to Hamas.49

The interviewee spoke of the fear that goes through his mind, being a Muslim and a government employee: Unfortunately I’m in kind of a predicament because I work for a government organisation, I’m Muslim, they don’t know that I have to be the liaison with the town and this group. I get these callers from America against Hate trying to rustle up an argument about the sign at work, so it’s very stressful for me right now dealing with that, but you know I’m on the basis of, it’s freedom of speech in America. Until you’re proven guilty you’re innocent. So CAIR right now doesn’t have the right, but there are certain things that this group is putting out that CAIR is related to Hamas. And to me that’s kind of scary because I’ve kind of been a proponent of CAIR, one, having them be part of my program, two, I used to know the CAIR staffs, I would help them with certain special events, so I’m hoping they’re not related to terrorist organisations in any way.

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I don’t know how to prove that or disprove it but currently right now there’s no indictment against them, but they are on the terrorist watch list for the United States Department of Defense. (anonymous, May, 2010)

The apprehensions the interviewee expressed about what it feels like to be associated with a Muslim organisation that is under constant scrutiny is credible. On one hand some Muslims want to be involved with the noble work these organisations are doing, but on the other hand they fear they would be marked as the Other in their workplace or in the wider society. The blame game continued

On 15 April 2013 two Chechen immigrant brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, are alleged to have built the two pressure cooker improvised explosive devices that detonated near the Boston Marathon’s finish line. It killed three Bostonians and wounded more than 260 other marathon spectators.50 Two months after the Boston Marathon, on 12 June 2013, Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) said the supposed silence from Muslim leaders on terrorism was ‘deafening’, adding that it was ‘sad, but perhaps most importantly it’s dangerous’. Rep. Pompeo listed a number terrorist acts committed by Muslim extremists, including the 1993 World Trade Center attacks and several more recent failed plots. Rep. Pompeo blamed Muslim leaders for not doing enough to prevent these actions. Critics say that Muslim organisations such as CAIR have condemned all bombings.51 Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing CAIR condemned terrorism. In the aftermath of Boston, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society began organising a workshop to prevent further Muslim youths from being radicalised on the internet. Similarly, the Muslim Public Affairs Council in collaboration with the New America Foundation commenced working on the issue of tackling extremism and promoting moderate Islam in an age of digital radicalisation.52 In 2011 the Pew Research Center survey of the US Muslim community found that 64 per cent of American Muslims felt there was little or no support for extremism in their communities.53 Instead, Muslims found themselves targets of increased violence and harassment after Boston.54 Vested interests

Various agencies are constantly at work in promoting anti-Muslim and anti-mosque sentiment, including talk-back radio programs, politicians, conservative think tanks and others. They are motivated by their respective agendas. They have constantly tried to create suspicion that President Obama is a Muslim, mosques are places of sedition and mainstream Muslim organisations are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. These American agencies also promote their bias towards Israel and against the Palestinians. It appears that US foreign policy (in the Middle East, and

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especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) has been a driving factor behind such anti-Muslim campaigns. It should be noted that throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict many Palestinian Christians have been compassionate to the Palestinian cause, for example the late Edward Said was a Palestinian Christian. Also, some Republican politicians’ criticisms of President Obama’s administration have a political orientation. An interviewee, Saiful (overseas-born, 30 years, male, Pakistani heritage, identity: American), commented:

I think the local politics give the biggest impact to society, but as far as like Presidential elections, in my opinion I think they’re all puppets. The real people making the decisions, you don’t see and I agree with it to some extent, I mean the people that are really making the decisions are the people doing the campaign contributions. You know the ones that pay for, you know, Barack Obama to say certain things because we’re giving this much to your charity or to your political campaign or whatever. Vested interest, you know. This is un-American. (interview, Florida, 2010)

This participant, Saiful of Pakistani heritage, identified as American. He thought that the funders of politicians’ election campaigns have certain agendas and vested interests. That selfish interest of the funders should be viewed as un-American. However, another participant, Ashraf (17 years, male, US-born, Palestinian background, identity: Arab American), commented, ‘To be American you could simply put it all the rules of a corrupt government’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Yet another respondent, Fehmida (18 years, female, US-born, identity: American Bengali Muslim), expressed her confusion about the term American:

Right now, I’m kind of confused about what I think America is, what it’s supposed to be, democracy and everything. But I see American people not being American right now. With all the discrimination and everything going on, I feel like I’m actually more American than the other people around, where they pride themselves on democracy and freedom and equality, but that stuff does not happen. When we were little in elementary school, they’d make us write essays about freedom, and how in America we’re so lucky that we’re equal. Then I thought that was all fine, that we were equal. But as I started growing up and seeing everything around me, it’s like America’s not – it’s still racist, it’s still not equal. People need to start accepting that, but everyone goes around saying that America’s the best place to live because it’s so equal. And it’s really not as equal as everyone says it is. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Among these three interviewees, Saiful thought that vested interests in politics were ‘un-American’. Ashraf related Americans (or the American government) with

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corruption, while Fehmida was confused about the notion of American, which she found very different from the ideology she was taught (equality and freedom) in elementary school. So for her to be American did not mean to be equal; it meant to be racist. Some research has found that several American outlets have been promoting hate, for example the white nationalist site Stormfront.org. But under the First Amendment such sites are protected when it comes to freedom of expression.55 This is catch-22 of the First Amendment. Sometimes freedom of expression can be divisive and promote hate, but people can get away with it. Yet the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP) noted that negative publicity about Muslims Americans by various outlets was disturbing. For example attacks by think tanks have been unhelpful to American democracy and national security. The CAP stated, ‘Our Constitution upholds freedom of religion for all Americans. Contending that some religions are not part of the promise of American freedoms established by our founders directly challenges who we are as a nation’.56 In 2011 the CAP conducted an in-depth investigation on Islamophobia in the United States. The CAP defined Islamophobia as ‘an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion from America’s social, political, and civic life’.57 The CAP found that only a small, tightly networked group of ‘misinformation experts’ were attempting to mislead and generate fear about Islam and Muslims among ordinary Americans through effective advocates, media partners and grassroots organisations. It found that five people and their organisations were sustained by funding from some key foundations.58 The five people who generate fear through politicians and the media were identified as: Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy; David Yerushalmi at the Society of Americans for National Existence; Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum; Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America; and Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. These experts travel in different states and work with or testify before state legislatures and call for a ban on the non-existing threat of shariah law in America and proclaim that the vast majority of mosques in the United States are harbouring Islamist terrorists and sympathisers. On the impact of this small group of people who hold extreme views against Muslims in America, the CAP observed, ‘This small network of people is driving the national and global debates that have real consequences on the public dialogue and on American Muslims’.59 For example, in 2014, a Pew Research Center survey conducted from 30 May to 30 June among 3,217 adults found that American Muslims were rated only a 40 on the cold (negative) side of the Pew ‘Warm-Cold’ thermometer scale compared to the warmest (positive) part of the scale: 63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for Evangelical Christians.60 The seven foundations that have been funding these so-called experts are: Donors Capital Fund; Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation; Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust; Russell Berrie Foundation; Anchorage Charitable Fund; William Rosenwald Family Fund; and

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Fairbrook Foundation. It is estimated that more than $40 million flowed from the foundations to the ‘misinformation experts’ over ten years.61 Recalling the respondent Saiful’s concern about ‘vested interests’, the funders appear to have certain interests behind their grant donations. The CAP discussed some of the extreme views of some media people. For example, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, also a columnist at the Washington Times, tried to create doubt over Obama’s faith as a Muslim or a former Muslim. In 2009, after President Obama’s Cairo speech, Gaffney wrote an article titled, ‘America’s first Muslim President?’, in which he incorrectly alleged that there is ‘mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself’.62 He further pointed out, ‘Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to “the Holy Koran”.’63 Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum were targeting Arabs and Muslims even before 9/11. In 1995 when the non-Muslim Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City building, Steven Emerson predicted on the 19 April CBS Evening News that it was done by Muslims or Middle Eastern extremists. It showed a ‘Middle Eastern trait’ because it ‘was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible’.64 Emerson made this prediction even before the FBI had any leads about this act of terrorism. Daniel Pipes publicly endorsed Emerson’s comments and supported Emerson’s incorrect claim that Muslims were responsible for the Oklahoma bombings.65 In 2002 Pipes launched Campus Watch, an organisation whose stated purpose was to expose the analytical failures and political bias of the field of Middle Eastern studies. Daniel Pipes’s critic, Eyal Press, observed, Campus Watch’s ‘first act was to post McCarthy-style “dossiers” on the Internet singling out eight professors critical of American and Israeli policies’. Some scholars requested Campus Watch to add them to the lists so that they could contribute to the Middle East debate but Pipes rejected their request and labelled them ‘apologists for suicide bombings and militant Islam’.66 In his book, Militant Islam Reaches America (2003), Daniel Pipes warned his readers of the threat of ‘militant Islam’ infiltrating America.67 His views on Muslim immigrants were more negative than on all other immigrants. He stated that ‘Muslim customs are more troublesome than most’.68 However, in 2007 the Pew Research Center reported that Muslim Americans were largely assimilated, happy with their lives and moderate with respect to many issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.69 Agencies of provocation

In 2007 several campuses across the country held Islamo-Facism Awareness Week. There was an online guide for student organisations to host the week-long programme and provide speakers. The guide publicised myths and conspiracy theories and created doubts about mainstream Muslim organisations as fronts for Muslim extremists.70 Rasheed, a research participant (19 years, male, US-born,

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Pakistani background, identity: Muslim American), was critical of this event at his university:

Two years ago there was a national campaign by somebody to have IslamoFascism Awareness Week essentially as a response to Islam Awareness Week which takes place once a year all over the nation. And so this [Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week] is essentially, in our perspective, an attempt to slander in a way and incite anger against Islam and Muslims across the globe, and this is an event banned at many campuses. It was organised by some anti-Islam group trying to provoke anger. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)71

Rasheed was referring to ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’, which was observed in 114 college and university campuses in the week of 22–26 October 2007. The organisers aimed to protest against the violent oppression of women in Islam and advertised in campus newspapers and circulated pamphlets on that issue. They also showed documentaries such as Obsession and Suicide Killers, and organised panel discussions and talks by controversial speakers such as former Senator Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter, Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Daniel Pipes. Other participants in this study also mentioned Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and were distressed by the Islamophobic attitude of this group. I (the author) was told by a student in San Francisco (when I attended a conference there in 2009) that during Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week some students on their campus held up the Hamas flag and threw shoes at it. The Hamas flag is green in colour and has the Shahada (first pillar of Islam) written on it. As Rasheed said, it was done to provoke a reaction from Muslims.72 In their book, The Religion and The People, Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Churchill justified the term ‘Islamo-fascism’ and suggested that it should be linked to Nazism and Bolshevism, led by the Germans and the Russians respectively. They observed that many Muslims find the word offensive but ‘Today we find a third such totalitarian perversion – this time, not of a country, nor of an ideology, but of a religion, Islam’.73 Lewis and Churchill were sceptical about Muslim migration to the West. They envisaged ‘a potential fifth column’ immediate target of attack ‘is the Western world, previously known as Christendom. If and when they dispose of that enemy, they will surely turn to the rest of the world, the house of the unbelief and, therefore, of war’.74 Apart from Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, there has been a concerted effort by some Americans to provoke Muslims, for example, by burning the holy Quran (Figure 5.2) or releasing the YouTube film clip The Innocence of Muslims. On 20 March 2011 Terry Jones, pastor of a church in Gainesville in Florida, presided over a mock trial of the Quran inside his church where an assistant pastor burnt a copy of the book. This incident led to a violent protest in Afghanistan, resulting in the death of 24 people, including UN workers. President Obama condemned the incidents, calling Terry Jones’s actions ‘an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry’ while labelling the Afghan reaction ‘outrageous, and an

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Figure 5.2 Terry Jones Followers.

Source: Muslim Observer, Thursday 13 April 2011. Copyright Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

This cartoon depicts provocation by Pastor Terry Jones, and Muslims in Afghanistan being easily provoked.

affront to human decency and dignity’.75 On 14 June 2014 on Flag Day, Terry Jones planned a rally outside a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. The purpose of the rally was to protest against shariah law, which he said threatened freedom of speech in the United States. Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr called his cause ‘unAmerican’, but noted that Jones had the right to free speech.76 In February 2012 once again violence erupted in Afghanistan after Americans were allegedly seen dumping Muslim books, including the Quran, into a garbage pit where waste is burnt at Bagram Air Field, the main American military base in Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghans protested on the streets, leading to several deaths. Some Afghans shouted ‘Death to America’. Soon after, in a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama apologised for American troops having burnt a number of Qurans at Bagram Air Field.77 A few months later in October 2012 the trailer of a short film The Innocence of Muslims was posted on YouTube. The film depicted Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a ‘womanising fraud, murderous fool and child molester’.78 A Coptic Egyptian living in California is allegedly the maker of this film. When the short version of the film was eventually circulated on the internet, a wave of protest rose from the Muslim world (including some Muslims residing in the Western world).79 In the mass demonstrations some people were killed both by the demonstrators and by the

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authorities that were trying to control the unrest. The material damage was considerable. Because of worldwide anger, the producer of the film went into hiding. But the film was supported by some Christian extremists (including Pastor Terry Jones) in the United States.80 On 3 May 2015, anti-Islamic blogger Pamela Geller in conjunction with the right-wing, American Freedom Defense Initiative hosted a provocative contest for cartoon depictions of Prophet Muhammad at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas. Two Muslim gunmen drove up to the Center and opened fire. However, the security officers shot and killed the gunmen. Caricatures of Prophet Muhammad are generally offensive to many Muslims.81 But Pamela Geller considered such provocation was her First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Politicians desperate to win Election 2012

In contemporary American politics sometimes politicians selectively ignore ethical aspects of their responsibilities when they launch their fear-mongering campaigns against a certain group. (Figure 5.3).

Figure 5.3 Islamophobia for Office.

Source: Muslim Observer, 23 February 2012. Copyright Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

This cartoon depicts the concerted efforts of some politicians in ‘Othering’ American Muslims.

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Rick Santorum

In April 2011 former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania began a campaign for the 2012 Republican Party nomination for president of the United States. In his election statement, Santorum said, ‘We’re … not being honest with the American public as to who the enemy is … and why they hate us.’ He then said, ‘This president has sanitized every defense document, everything. The word radical Islam doesn’t appear anywhere. Why?’ Santorum explained, ‘Because we’re trying to fight this politically correct war and not being honest with the American public as to who the enemy is, how virulent they are and why they hate us and what we must do to stop them’.82 Obviously, presidential candidate Rick Santorum was critical of the opposition candidate President Obama and his administration. But by implicating radical Islam, he generated fear of the Muslim Other. Mainstream Muslims have been critical of extremist Muslims but such political statements generalise all Muslims under one banner. Newt Gingrich

In early 2011 the Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) also began his election campaign. Newt Gingrich’s statement that he would only support Muslim presidential candidates if they ‘would commit in public to give up Sharia’ was criticised by Muslim American organisations and academic experts on Islamic law. Corey Saylor, Legislative Director of CAIR, commented, ‘Newt Gingrich’s vision of America segregates our citizens by faith. His outdated political ideas look backward to a time when Catholics and Jews were vilified and their faiths called a threat’.83 The fear-mongering stunt of some politicians was not successful because President Obama was re-elected in 2012. However, this sort of negative publicity further tarnishes the images of Muslim Americans who follow the Islamic shariah in their daily lives, for example offering prayers five times a day and fasting during the month of Ramadan. In desperation to win the presidential candidate nomination, both Senator Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, described ‘Islam’ as a threat to the country. Later, both politicians suspended their campaign and endorsed the former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney to run for presidency of the United States in a bid to win the 2012 presidential election. Mitt Romney cherished similar ideology – Islam as the dangerous ‘Other’ Mitt Romney

When I (the author) was a visiting fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies from 2009 to 2011, I had the opportunity to attend Mitt Romney’s talk at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. I listened keenly to his political history but when he began talking about Al-Qaeda and radical Islam I lost interest in his talk. Of course, security is an important issue, but if the focus is only on security

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rather than economy, health and education that does not carry any depth. The 2012 election result revealed that fear-mongering tactics are not always successful in the long run.84 In 2010, in his book No Apology: Believe in America, Romney outlined his case against Obama for the 2012 election. Romney considered Obama an apologist for America whereas Romney would instead ‘proudly defend her’. Romney claimed that Obama was too weak in American foreign policy; in defense spending; in the War on Terror; and in almost everything. Romney envisaged that China and Russia pose threats to the United States but are lesser threats than ‘violent jihadists’. Romney acknowledged that many Muslims are peaceful and reject ‘militant jihad’, many Muslims have been killed by ‘radical jihadists’ and many Muslim countries are allies of America and trying to combat terrorism. However, in his discussion on Islamists, Romney created a suspicion about Muslims in general. When leaders such as Romney talk continuously about Muslim extremists, it is difficult for readers to retain sympathy for mainstream Muslims who are victims of both Muslim extremists and the prejudice of some sectors of mainstream American society.85 Michele Bachmann

Scapegoating and scaremongering against Muslims continued. On a separate incident, in June 2012, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and four other Republicans apparently found themselves in possession of ‘evidence’ of what is referred to as ‘deep penetration’ of the US government officials affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Rep. Michele Bachmann sent letters to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, State, Defense, and Homeland Security urging him to investigate supposed Brotherhood influence in their organisations. The letter the State Department received expressed concerns that the deputy chief of staff for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ms Huma Abedin, had three family members with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The letter also expressed concern that Ms Abedin may have been influencing American foreign policy decisions for the benefit of the Brotherhood. Critics were not convinced by Rep. Bachmann’s argument. They observed that Ms Huma Abedin is married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was known for being a strong pro-Israel voice in Congress before his resignation in a sexting scandal a few years ago.86 So under no circumstances would Ms Abedin be aligned to the Muslim Brotherhood through her family. Muslim American Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and many of his Democratic colleagues, many media commentators, and some high profile Republicans, including Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), have criticised accusations against top State Department and Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin. However, Mitt Romney declined to condemn Representative Bachmann’s ‘witch-hunt’ against Muslim Americans in the federal government.87 The chorus against Ms Abedin continued. On 8 August 2012 former Federal Prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy gave a 90-minute talk at the National Press Club sponsored by the conservative Center for Security Policy, which was the source

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cited by Bachmann (R-Minn) in her letter challenging Huma Abedin’s loyalty. Huma Abedin’s mother, brother and her late father are all academics and are active in the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). They were alleged to have contacts with Abdullah Omar Naseef, a major Muslim Brotherhood figure involved in the financing of Al-Qaeda. Naseef was listed as an assistant editor of IMMA’s quarterly journal between 1996 and 2008.88 Critics observed how an affiliation with a journal (the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, JMMA), ‘which publishes articles such as “The North African Heritage of the Hui Chinese”, and “Muslim Mudejar Women in Thirteenth-Century Spain” bring doubt on Huma Abedin’s loyalties to the United States’.89 In this context, I (the author) must say that the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is a peer-reviewed academic journal which has so far published my three articles on young Muslims’ identity and Muslims’ representation in the Australian media.90 This journal is educational and assists in cross-cultural understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims. Critics pointed out that Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s personal aide, helped Mrs Clinton with suits and handbags and logistics rather than being a policy maker.91 Critics also observed that on 5 August 2012 Wade Michael Page, a white supremacist 40-year-old army veteran, killed six people at a Sikh temple at Wisconsin but Andrew C. McCarthy ignored the incident and instead focused on stigmatising Ms Huma Abedin.92 Critics considered Michele Bachmann and her colleagues were drawing close to ‘1950’s anti-Communist crusader Joe McCarthy’ because she advocated ‘reviving McCarthy’s old House Un-American Activities Committee for the purpose of rooting out Muslim subversion’.93 Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) sent a letter back to Rep. Bachman stating that a careful review of his 16-page response revealed that she failed to provide any credible evidence for her claim and that she relied on discredited sources. However, Rep. Bachmann refused to back down from these sorts of allegations.94 The letter (Abedin attack) controversy benefited Rep. Bachman politically. In 2012 election, though Bachman retained her seat by a narrow margin, she raised 1 million dollars in 25 days after the controversy began.95 The road to the Presidential Election 2016

Global politics have shifted drastically since the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) terrorist group (also known as ISIS or Daesh) in 2014. In the Muslims’ holy month of Ramadan, which commenced on 27 June 2014, the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIL called on all Muslims to obey him. The Islamic State argues that all Muslims, including the jihadist factions, must acknowledge the caliph as their leader, otherwise they will be living in sin. However, the notion of collective religious obligation to the traditional Islamic law is contested within the broader Muslim ummah.96 ISIL has resorted to horrendous crimes such as the beheading of American journalist James Foley. It has also been indoctrinating young Muslims through social media to join them. In September 2014 Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami stated:

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If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict.97

ISIL have been successful in recruiting young Muslims from many different countries. As of July/August 2015, it is estimated that more than 200 Americans have travelled or attempted to travel to Syria to fight for ISIL.98 On 13 November 2015 some Muslims resorted to terrorism as part of the organised ISIL group and coordinated attacks in Paris which killed 130 people. On 2 December 2015 a ‘lone wolf’ couple, US-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife overseas-born Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and wounded 21 people at a party in San Bernardino in California. Before the shooting, Tashfeen Malik made a ‘pledge of allegiance’ to the Islamic State in a Facebook post. After the San Bernardino shootings, on 5 December 2015 President Obama stated:

It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror … We know that ISIL and other terrorist groups are actively encouraging people – around the world and in our country – to commit terrible acts of violence, often times as lone wolf actors … We know that the killers in San Bernardino used military-style assault weapons – weapons of war – to kill as many people as they could. It’s another tragic reminder that here in America it’s way too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun … For example, right now, people on the No-Fly list can walk into a store and buy a gun. That is insane. If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun. And so I’m calling on Congress to close this loophole, now. We may not be able to prevent every tragedy, but – at a bare minimum – we shouldn’t be making it so easy for potential terrorists or criminals to get their hands on a gun that they could use against Americans.99

On 6 December 2015 President Obama addressed the nation and stated:

ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world – including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology. Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim.100

President Obama’s concern about the terrorist threat posed by ISIL, which he described as ‘part of a cult of death’, and his worry about easy access to guns is depicted by Australian cartoonist Alan Moir. The cartoon also raises an important

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Figure 5.4 Who do we obliterate?

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 2015. Copyright Alan Moir.

question – does American society now need gun control laws? In Australia, after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996, Prime Minister John Howard dramatically restricted Australia’s gun ownership laws and, with the support of the states, banned semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns. In July 2015, a report on terrorist attacks in the United States found that between 1970 and 2014 about 2,646 terrorist attacks were carried out in the United States (including Puerto Rico, which is a US territory). Excluding attacks in Puerto Rico, during this period there were 2,400 attacks in the United States and 324 attacks involved firearms.101 The attacks using firearms continued in 2015. In October 2015, after a mass shooting inside an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, both President Obama and Democratic presidential contender Hilary Clinton spoke in favour of gun control laws. Ms Clinton presented the Australian-style gun confiscation ‘that was a buyback program’ as a good example. She explained that the Australian government ‘offered a good price’ for ‘buying hundreds of thousands of guns, and then they basically clamped down going forward …’ They were thus able ‘to curtail the supply’ of guns and ‘set a different standard for gun purchases in the future’.102 As the global situation has become more intense, the rhetoric of two Republican presidential contenders focused on the ‘Muslim question’ (as discussed in the following two sections). Ben Carson

Political rhetoric that Islam is incompatible with the US Constitution keeps coming

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back time and again. In September 2015, Republican African American presidential contender Ben Carson said on Meet the Press on the NBC: ‘I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.’ Carson’s critics considered his views ‘un-American’ and ‘unconstitutional’ because Article VI of the Constitution specifies that ‘no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States’.103 Donald Trump

After the San Bernardino shootings in December 2015, the Republican presidential leading contender Donald Trump called for all Muslims to be blocked from entering the United States. He said that it would be a temporary move in response to terrorism and set the example of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s authorisation of the detention of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during World War II. Trump was widely criticised. For example, former Vice President Dick Cheney commented: ‘this whole notion that somehow we need to say “no more Muslims” and just ban a whole religion goes against everything we stand for and believe in’.104 Cheney condemned Trump’s idea as ‘un-American’. Some Muslims in the United States also considered Trump’s rhetoric ‘un-American’. For example, Kassem Allie of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan commented: ‘He’s using fear-mongering reminiscent of Nazi Germany and Stalin’.105 The Democratic presidential contender, Hilary Clinton, in her criticism of Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric commented, that Trump ‘is sending a message to Muslims here in the United States and literally around the world that there is a “clash of civilisations”, that there is some kind of Western plot or even “war against Islam”’, which then ‘fans the flames of radicalisation’.106 Trump also called for the deportation of 11 million undocumented Hispanics, and said that if he became the president he would build a wall along the border with Mexico.107As discussed earlier, during the 2012 election campaign, some presidential contenders tried to use fear-mongering tactics about Muslims and Islam. But for the 2016 election campaign Trump has taken the Islamophobic debate further, calling for ‘no more Muslims’. He also wants to exclude the 11 million undocumented Hispanics in America. On the other hand, it should be noted that in 2014 President Obama said that he would grant nearly 5 million illegal immigrants amnesty from deportation, and legalise their status. However, the Republican Party remained strongly opposed to this proposition.108

Policing – Muslim McCarthyism?

In my previous publication, I have discussed the impact of the Patriot Act on Muslims in America. The Patriot Act encompassed the entire nation. In September 2005 a US federal court upheld the law that allows the state to imprison anybody – Americans and non-Americans – indefinitely without any charge in the interest of national security.109 Critics observed that detention without charge was just ‘the most obvious case of Mr Bush returning to the dark era of McCarthyism. Like the

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1950s with the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee and “Reds under the beds”’, post-9/11 Washington was behaving ‘like a frustrated beast not being able to capture its prey … Al-Qaeda operatives, etc’.110 Along with unspecified detentions, racial profiling and a general reduction of civil liberties, ‘the Bush administration was bent on destroying America’.111 One participant in this study, Ameer of Pakistani background (20 years, male, US-born, identity: American Muslim), recalled: There is that American spirit that we’ve been founded with and that we, at least we of the 90s, those of us who grew up in the 90s, it’s part of that spirit that we inherited through all the cartoons that we watched, from all of the media that we got. Because during the 90s there was a strong push for you know, the pride in the America that we have, and like it was something that you could see and all of the media that was fed to young children in those days or to children during those days. (interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Ameer pointed out the difference between patriotism in the 1990s which was a natural connection to America but after 9/11, patriotism has become an enforced phenomenon. In his general definition of American and un-American, a respondent in this study, Qaiyum (20 years, male, US-born), observed:

I think being American is following the values of America. And the more I learn the more I find out that the values of America they’re actually Muslim values. And when you start learning about the history, you start learning that the founding fathers based a lot of their ideas on Muslim ideas. And you learn, Thomas Jefferson who wrote all these papers and Declaration of Independence, he used to read the Quran so a lot of these values, that could be American, it’s very easy by being diverse and following these values that we have. And I guess that being un-American is the opposite. To me being unAmerican is negating these values which I see most of, for example we could say that Caucasian people here who value racism and basically don’t value liberty, they’re un-American even though they would call themselves American. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Qaiyum was of Palestinian heritage and identified as Palestinian. He equated American values with Islamic values. He also referred to Thomas Jefferson possessing a copy of the Quran, which may have influenced his writing on American values.112 Some participants like Qaiyum believed that Americans infringing the rights and liberty of the minorities were ‘un-American’ acts. Two incidents – New York Police department’s (NYPD) stop-and-frisk practice and NSA and FBI’s surveillance of Muslim Americans once again brings forth the American and un-American question. It reiterates ‘the McCarthy-era political witch-hunt for domestic enemies’.113

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‘Stop-and-frisk’ programme

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Nationwide the Patriot Act brought misery to many American Muslims but in New York Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, took it a step further. He introduced the practice of stop, question and search – commonly known as stopand-frisk – which added to the misery of many minority New Yorkers, including Muslims (Figure 5.5). This once again generated debate on whether this practice could be defined as ‘American’. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), since 2004 the total number of NYPD stop-and-frisks has increased every year with the exception of 2007. Since 2002 over 5 million people, the majority being people of colour, have been stopped by the police. In 2010 people who were stopped and searched were 92 per cent male and 87 per cent African American or Latino.114 On 2 August 2013 a US District Court Judge pronounced that the NYPD intentionally ‘violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of New Yorkers with its contentious stop-and frisk’ policy.115 The police department defended the

Figure 5.5 NYPD Terror.

Source: Muslim Observer, 3 September 2013. Copyright Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

This cartoon depicts that the NYPD were in denial that Muslims can be loyal Americans too!

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policy, stressing that there has been a reduction in murders over the last 10 years since Mayor Bloomberg came into office. The NYPD deputy commissioner Paul Browne said that due to a 2011 search the police recovered 8,263 weapons including 819 guns. But the executive director of New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, commented: The kind of work that needs to be done requires deploying police officers in communities with the mandate to serve their communities, to get to know the communities, be on foot patrols, to try to ferret out crime based on suspicious behavior, not based on the color of people’s skin and based on the statistics in the community. Crime statistics are important but crime statistics don’t provide a justification to stop you or me in particular.116

The Civilian Complaint Review Board, the body responsible for holding the police department accountable, stated that the practice of NYPD stop-and-frisks generated 1,985 complaints in 2010 and in 2011 about 1,720 complaints. Critics said that in New York’s African American and Latino communities, the police criminalise young people, which fosters a sense of fear and distrust towards the police. Lieberman noted that in 2010 there was a disproportionate concentration of NYPD stop-and frisks among men of colour. She said that in 2010, 7.2 per cent of African American and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 were searched by 41 per cent of police. For example, a 25-year-old African American man living in the Bronx was first stopped at the age of 12 when he was hanging out near an NYPD area. At that time motorcycles were being stolen from a police garage, and officers accused Jones of the crime. Jones was handcuffed, taken to the NYPD zone, questioned and released without charge. Since then Jones dealt with police several times. Many of those encounters resulted in beatings.117 Muslims were deeply affected by the NYPD surveillance unit. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the NYPD’s Demographics Unit – or the Zone Assessment Unit – was developed with the CIA’s assistance. The Demographics Unit was the brainchild of CIA officer Lawrence Sanchez, who helped establish it in 2003 while working at the police department and on the spy agency’s payroll. The initial goal was to identify the mundane locations where a wouldbe terrorist could blend into society. Plain-clothes detectives looked for ‘hotspots’ of radicalisation that could give the police a lead about terrorist plots. Plainclothes detectives were instructed to talk to employees at Muslim-owned businesses and ‘gauge sentiment’ about America and its foreign policy. Through surveillance of mosques, cafés and hookah lounges, it was expected that the plain-clothes detectives would uncover terrorist ‘hotspots’. However, through maps and photographs, the police could only discover ‘where the Albanian men played chess, where Egyptians watched soccer and where South Asians played cricket’.118 The Demographics Unit used broad intelligence-gathering techniques. The plain-clothes detectives also infiltrated Muslim student groups on college campuses and collected names, phone numbers and addresses of the people who attended the

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Muslim groups. The police designated mosques as ‘terrorism enterprises’. This allowed them to collect the number plates of every car in mosque car parks, videotape Muslims attending the mosque, and record sermons or khutba by wearing hidden microphones.119 In 2012 a police chief from the NYPD testified that the Demographics Unit, later renamed the Zone Assessment Unit, had not generated any leads in the last six years.120 In 2013 Ahmed Jaber resigned from the police department’s advisory board to protest against the surveillance tactics. After NYPD disbanded the Demographics Unit, Jaber said, ‘This is the first time we’ve felt that comfort sitting with them’.121 The NYPD surveillance unit drew heavy criticism from civil rights groups, who filed lawsuits against the NYPD and stated that the NYPD have harmed national security by sowing mistrust of law enforcement in Muslim communities.122 The New York City’s move to drop an appeal of the federal Judge’s August ruling that the controversial stop-and-frisk practice violated the Constitution were perceived as positive signs of changes in the way the city should operate. The former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the former Commissioner Ray Kelly were replaced by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton.123 In this context, I (the author) now recall that when I interviewed an imam in a mosque in New York in 2009, I was secretly told by an informant that the mosque had hidden cameras. So as I conducted the interview, I felt that we were being watched. When news about the NYPD surveillance reached the public domain, I thought, ‘Oh, the informant was right after all!’ It is also an irony that New York Mayor Bloomberg supported Muslims’ Park51 (Ground Zero) mosque initiative in 2010 but initiated the ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy in New York in 2002. In 2014, when I was in New York for my research work, a Muslim leader told me that the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk programme may have ceased but now the NYPD is hiring Muslims to spy on Muslims. The legacy of surveillance appears to be continuing.124 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked an NSA spreadsheet called ‘FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) recap’ that showed about 7,500 email addresses monitored between 2002 and 2008 including addresses that appeared to belong to foreigners and Americans suspected of ties to Al-Qaeda’.125 The NSA and FBI covertly monitored emails of prominent American Muslims such as Faisal Gill, an attorney and former senior policy director with the Department of Homeland Security; Asim Ghafoor, a civil rights attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases; Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor of international relations at Rutgers University; Agha Saeed, a former political science professor at California State University who is also an advocate of Muslim civil liberties and Palestinian rights; and Nihad Awad, the executive director of the CAIR.126

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All five prominent Muslim Americans denied any involvement in terrorism or espionage. As a matter of fact, Faisal Gill wondered why he was monitored when he was a Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. Faisal Gill commented: I was a very conservative, Reagan-loving Republican … If somebody like me could be surveilled, then [there are] other people out there I can only imagine who are under surveillance. I went to school here as a fourth grader – learned about the Revolutionary War, learned about individual rights, Thomas Jefferson, all these things …That is ingrained in you – your privacy is important. And to have that basically invaded for no reason whatsoever – for the fact that I didn’t do anything – I think that’s troubling. And I think that certainly goes to show how we need to shape policy differently than it is right now.127

Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive Director CAIR has worked with the US officials at highest levels. For example, he served on Vice president Al Gore’s Civil Liberties Panel in 1997. In 1994, Awad publicly supported Hamas before the Hamas’s campaign of suicide attacks against civilians and later in 1997 Hamas was placed on the State Department’s terrorist list. Awad said that his statement in support of Hamas was made before Hamas’s terrorist activities. In 2007, the Justice Department named CAIR as one of more than 300 ‘unindicted co-conspirators’, in its controversial prosecution of the largest Muslim charity, Holy Land Foundation which was convicted of providing material support to Hamas. CAIR has not been charged with any wrongdoing.128

Legacy of McCarthyism

In this section I examine how some participants in this study perceived President George W. Bush and President Barack Hussein Obama and their administrations. The participants thought some comments and actions of both presidents were unAmerican. President George W. Bush

One participant in this study, Sohaib (20 years, male, US-born) commented:

I mean what he [President Bush] was saying about speaking out against your country or your government, but yeah, we live in America and we have the freedom of speech and so we can say whatever we want and we can express our views, but I think ever since 9/11, I mean especially for us as Muslims, it’s been very limited. I mean ever since 9/11, we have had the worst administrations in office ever reported in American history. But at the same time, I think the entire Muslim population in America felt limited to what they could say because even if you just said one thing against

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America, you know the government would say that this person is speaking out against our policies or our values or anything like that and so he must be labelled as a terrorist. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Sohaib of Egyptian background, who identified as American Muslim, was critical of the US administration and thought that Muslims’ freedom of speech was restricted after 9/11. Sohaib also observed that after 9/11 President Bush was against Muslim countries. Another respondent in this study, Shaharyar (35 years, male, overseas-born), stated: You see, unfortunately, President Bush brought the saying, ‘either you’re with us or against us’. I think that is very much against the very culture of America. America has thrived on this principle of individual liberties – to think and to act according to your own sentiments and your own wishes. So no dissent is un-American, unless you do something that is treasonous. Committing treason is very un-American [anti-American]. If you do something to harm your country, I think that’s ‘un-’ in any country. You cannot harm your country. (interview, Florida, 2010)

The interviewee, Shaharyar of Kenyan background, identified as American. He was critical of President Bush for his divisive comment. After 9/11, US President George W. Bush branded Iran (along with North Korea and Iraq) as the ‘axis of evil’.129 Though Bush included the non-Muslim country North Korea in his rhetoric of ‘axis of evil’, Sohaib perceived Bush’s rhetoric was a collective threat against ‘us’ Muslims. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks against the United States, President George W. Bush asked a question: ‘Why do they hate us?’ Then he made a statement, ‘You’re either with us or against us.’130 President Bush was desperate to get the support of other countries in the War on Terror. However, Shaharyar confused the term un-American with anti-American. Though the word ‘un-American’ has generally been associated with Joseph McCarthy’s period, some participants of this study referred it to characteristics that are not consistent with American customs, principles or traditions. One interviewee, Aasia (20 years, female, Indian origin, identity: South Asian Kashmiri), thought, ‘Un-American is someone that doesn’t hold US citizenship’. Aasia then added, ‘Like we all stand for democracy when in reality our governmental system’s really flawed. The electoral system in general that’s kind of not very democratic’ (interview, Maryland, 2010). Aasia made a general statement but there were controversies over the 2000 election, as I discussed in my previous book.131 Some non-Muslim Americans considered that the ‘Bush/Cheney presidency’ election result in 2000 was ‘un-American’.132 Some also pointed out that Bush came to power in the disputed 2000 election as a ‘compassionate’ conservative who was proud of his Christian beliefs.133

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In the 2004 election, many American Muslim voters turned away from presidential candidate George W. Bush. In 2000 a post-election CAIR survey of 1,774 American Muslims found that 72 per cent voted for Republican Bush, 19 per cent for Independent Ralph Nader and 8 per cent for Al Gore. But in 2004 there was a sharp drop in support for Bush. The 2000 election occurred before 9/11. Since the 9/11 Twin Towers attacks, certain policies were not viewed positively by some American Muslims, For example the USA Patriot Act, the detention and deportation of many Muslims, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.134 In 2004, out of the 1,161 responses from Muslim voters, CAIR reported that 54 per cent said that they were voting for Democrat John Kerry, 26 per cent supported Ralph Nader and only 2 per cent said that they would vote for President Bush. The rest were undecided.135 Fifty-five per cent of the same Muslim American voters said that they had voted for President Bush in 2000. Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesperson, observed that this sharp drop indicated a silent protest against Bush because of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s broader policies in the Middle East.136 One participant in this study, Sandra (35 years, female, overseas-born, Pakistani heritage), was critical of President Bush’s derogatory language:

I really have not liked Bush. It’s his comments, every single thing. Him coming up in front of the media, saying ‘Paki’. I’m sorry, that is an offence. That shows that in his chambers talking to people instead of saying this, he’ll be, like, Pakis, Niggers, this. I mean, that’s not the right way of doing it. But when you talk about being an American, I sometimes don’t understand what America is all about. They talk about patriotism, they talk about freedom of speech. There is no freedom of speech is there? (interview, Maryland, 2010)

In January 2002 President Bush used the term ‘Paki’ when he was taking about the tense geopolitical situation between India and Pakistan. He said ‘We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis there’s a way to deal with their problems without going to war’.137 Sandra (multiple identities: Pakistani British American woman) spent many years in the UK before moving to the US. In the UK ‘Paki’ is a derogatory slang word and is often used as a racial label against South Asians.138 Therefore, Sandra was offended when President Bush used this term. However, the White House issued a statement of clarification stating President Bush did not mean any disrespect to the Pakistani people when he referred to them as ‘Pakis’.139 Yet in this respect, President Bush’s apology to the Pakistani community would have mitigated the anger of many people of Pakistani origin. Many Muslims were critical of the Patriot Act introduced by the Bush administration. For example, Rehana (25 years, female, overseas-born, Afghan origin, identity: Afghan) said: Yeah, it’s a special security search, and I go through the special security search

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which I’m sure you know it’s like all those things like they check your carryon, your documents and all that. So if sometimes you get to see a nice person, and then they are very nice, they say excuse me it just happens … But sometimes if you face a very rude person, and that there was one of the days that with my mum I would get to see a very rude guy, and I keep telling him we’re going to miss the flight, and I say I don’t have trouble with you guys are doing your work, but what I want you … do our search first, and just do the other people’s later on. And then he says I don’t care if you miss your flight, this is not my fault. So I was very, very mad. (interview, Massachusetts, 2010)

Rehana was not upset about the security search but she was upset by the ‘rude’ attitude of some security officers, which she considered un-American. Some non-Muslim Americans also believed the prevalence of ‘new McCarthyism’ led to the harassment of any American who dared to criticise the US administration. In his article ‘Brace yourself for the new McCarthyism’, Ted Rall shared his story of being treated as the ‘Other’.140 Ted Rall wrote that for his freedom of speech and expression he has received many hate letters and death threats. From 11 September to November 2001, Ted Rall wrote eight columns and drew 24 editorial cartoons examining various aspects of 9/11 and its aftermath. Ted Rall said: Like all New Yorkers, I grieve for the dead and remain shocked by the magnitude of our loss. But I have the same job to do as I did back in August: express my ideas and opinions. And my opinions still include the firmly held belief that President George W. Bush was illegally installed via a judicial coup d’etat. I honestly think that our bombing of Afghanistan is misguided and hypocritical. And I still believe in a freedom-loving America where opposing opinions don’t vanish in the glare of a 93 percent popularity.141

Tell Rall commented that some of his fellow cartoonists ‘have taken to mocking all things Arab, towing the official Pentagon line, and cranking out what I consider to be propaganda, I’ve continued to skewer the president and his policies. I consider it is my patriotic duty to do so’. He further said, ‘Insulting American politicians and American policies doesn’t make me anti-American. It makes one an integral part of the American process.’142 Ted Rall speculated that his phone was tapped, and he thinks it was an absurd assault on his civil rights. His mother was worried because of his free speech and asked him to be less critical of Republicans otherwise he might lose his job. Rall concluded: We’re living in dangerous times, and this neo-McCarthyist trend towards blacklists, the sentencing of dissent, and government attacks on personal freedom represents as ever greater threat to our country than terrorism. Nothing, after all, is more fundamentally un-American than keeping your mouth shut.143

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One interviewee, Baseera (18 years, female, US-born, Bangladeshi origin, identity: American Bengali Muslim) noted:

Being American, there’s a definition, the literal, like … democracy how we’re supposed to treat everyone the same. But you see a lot of un-American behaviour, especially the way we go about with foreign policy, how we are in other countries. That’s very un-American. But the way they describe it is like, Oh, we’re protecting America, thus being American. And I guess it’s really just the way you look at it. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Baseera observed that the term ‘American’ is subjective, for example, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq could be ‘un-American’ to some Americans because it is restricting other people’s freedom, while to the colonisers it could be ‘American’ because they are justifying the occupation. Another participant of Guyanese background, Murad (35 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Muslim), was confused by the terms American and un-American because of their conflicting nature. Murad said, ‘I don’t know what it is to be un-American, because in America you can burn the flag’ (identity, Florida, 2010). The First Amendment right to free speech gives an American the right to burn the American flag. For example, during the Vietnam War, some Americans burnt the US flag in protest against the war.144 Another participant, Faizul (24 years, male, overseas-born, Bangladeshi background, identity: Muslim) commented: I don’t know if I’m going to concern myself and be American. If we are going to go out there [Afghanistan and Iraq] and spread democracy, we can’t even help our own neighbours out here. That’s totally un-American to me. I don’t know what American to me because I haven’t been represented to it yet. (interview, Michigan, 2010)

Faizul noted that there were many domestic issues in America. The American government had been ignoring those issues and that was un-American. The Iraq War

On 17 September 2002 when President George W. Bush indicated a possible US military intervention in Iraq on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction,145 there were anti-war rallies in many states of America. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that on the weekend of 5 and 6 October 2002 there were about 8,000 protestors in San Francisco and more in other states. The protestors were mainly from the wider society; however immigrant Americans also had a voice.146 On 6 October 2002 the president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, who attended a demonstration at Union Square, said:

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This is the beginning of a solid anti-war movement. Now, there is an urgency to strengthen our movement, to say no to war. It’s high time to realise that exercising your right to freedom of expression does not make you unAmerican.147

The New York–based organisation Not in Our Name organised two dozen rallies in cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Fresno and Minneapolis. Not in Our Name’s ‘pledge of resistance’ was recited in assorted languages: ‘We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names … Another world is possible, and we pledge to make it real.’148 There were many protests and rallies against the possible war against Iraq. However, the Bush administration believed (and propagated) that Iraq had acquired weapons of mass destruction. Polls indicated support for military action against Iraq, with a majority of people polled favouring multilateral backing through the United Nations.149 On 20 March 2003 Iraq was invaded by the United States and its allies. Some Americans hailed President Bush while some were critical of the US invasion of Iraq in the letters to the editor pages of the newspapers. One reader critical of President Bush commented, ‘Given the existence of the Patriot Act and President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft’s attack on civil liberties in the country, Bush might more likely to be cast as Frank Miller [a criminal in the movie High Noon] in any contemporary production’.150 Another reader wrote: This is a time of mourning for me. I mourn not only for the American men and women in our military service who will be killed, but also for the countless and unnamed Iraqi men, women and children who will be killed in this cruel and unjustified war.151

Other voices in the letters page were, ‘Is it any wonder that many of us disagree with the motives and actions of our government and corporate leaders?’152, and ‘Dissent is not un-American’.153 Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal

Soon the Iraq War brought into light the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal. Both Bush and Rumsfeld have described the scandal as ‘fundamentally un-American’.154 At Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Private Lynndie England, a soldier aged 21, was pictured tugging on a leash tied around the neck of a naked Iraqi man. There were other abuses at the Iraqi prison such as US soldiers beating an Iraqi prisoner who was close to death. A female Iraqi prisoner was raped. Iraqi guards raped young boys.155 The Abu Ghraib scandal was broadcast by CBS in ‘60 Minutes II’ on 27 April 2004. It showed Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by their US jailers. The abuse included threats of rape and pouring cold water and liquid from chemical lights on detainees.156 In an interview on NBC, Rumsfeld issued an ‘oblique apology’ to abused Iraqi prisoners. Rumsfeld said, ‘Anyone who sees the

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photographs does, in fact, apologise to the people who were abused. It’s unAmerican. It’s unacceptable … And that apology is there to any individual who was abused.’157 But critics observe that the Abu Ghraib prison abuse is not un-American. America has record of such abuse in its territory. For example, at a prison in Brazoria, Texas in 1996, a video tape showed prisoners were forced to strip and lie on the ground. A police dog was set on several inmates and one was bitten on the leg. Guards pointed at prisoners with stun guns and forced them to crawl naked along the ground. Injured prisoners were dragged face-down to their cells. Bush was the governor of Texas at that time.158 Lara Stemple, executive director of a prisoner support group called Stop Prison Rape, commented that torture of American prisoners through sexual assault ‘has long been allowed to flourish’.159 She claimed that sexual assault was a common practice in US prisons. She said that one in five prisoners has faced ‘forced or pressured’ sexual contact while in custody. Stemple remarked the troubling incidents in Iraq ‘didn’t happen by accident’.160 Similarly, the abuses at Guantanamo Bay have received worldwide condemnation but Pentagon ‘regards the prison as a model for wartime detainees’.161 Haddad noted that American policy makers tend to see the world in polarities, a fact that became evident from Bush administration’s war rhetoric and policies. Haddad stated:

The war on terrorism bifurcated the world into good and evil, civilized and uncivilized, democratic versus despotic, free versus held hostage, at the same time insisting on policies that were antithesis of the American ideals of democracy, tolerance, and civilization that the American elite claimed were the targets of the terrorists. In the process, the search for an evil to be vanquished, which had been in process for two decades, appears to have become a dividing line.162

Haddad also noted that the pro-Israeli lobbies have stalked Arab and Muslim activists for several decades, and after September 11, 2001, they became extensively pro-active against the Arabs and Muslims.163 The pro-Israeli lobbies were also instrumental in derailing the nomination of Salam al-Marayati, founder and Director of Muslim Public Affairs Council to the National Commission on Terrorism. They also protested the nomination of his wife, Laila al- Marayati, to the US Commission on International Freedom.164 President Barack Hussein Obama

In my previous book, I showed that many participants in my study highly praised President Obama though some were critical of his foreign policies regarding Afghanistan, Palestine and Pakistan.165 In this section, I briefly discuss some of the ongoing issues of the Obama administration that I have not discussed earlier. Some respondents in this study expressed concerns about US foreign policy, while some

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analysts have viewed some foreign policies as ‘un-American’. Hameed (18 years, male, US-born, of Egyptian/Syrian background, identity: Arab American) said:

I think when he [Obama] first got elected, it was such a drastic change that I think everybody just kind of expected him just to fix the problem. I mean when Bush and Cheney were in power, they created this mess and they kind of just dumped it on Barack Obama’s back and went, ‘Here you go, fix it.’ I mean it’s going to take some time for him to actually make changes. I mean when, one decision I kind of disagreed with, like I think he [Obama] sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. (interview, Maryland, 2010)

Hameed was critical of the Bush administration. He was sympathetic towards Obama but did not agree with the Obama administration sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Another participant, Saif (22 years, male, US-born, Pakistani heritage, identity: Muslim), commented:

I think sometimes in America being un-American is not supporting your troops and not supporting your government. I think sometimes if you’re not white and you have a voice aside what the norm is, they label you un-American or being against America which is kind of ridiculous. It’s like if I said something against Barack Obama right now I’d be un-American but if a white person said it, it would just be like them being political. (interview, Florida, 2010)

As discussed earlier, in modern-day McCarthyism, conservative politicians and the media have frowned upon Muslim voices. Under the circumstances, Saif’s view is credible. The Israeli-Palestinian issue

Speaking of the Palestinian question (see Figure 5.6, page 190), a respondent in my study, Ahmed (27 years, male, overseas-born, identity: Egyptian), who was also a human rights lawyer, stated:

We see settlements every day in the Palestinian. Actually, this is our only problem. We don’t need anything else from anyone – we can change our government. We will try to do it. We don’t need Obama’s help or the United States or the United Kingdom, we don’t need any help. We just need his help to hold the Israeli government as responsible for the violation of the international human rights law. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Like Saif, some political analysts have been critical of the US administration’s handling of the Palestinian question. On 4 November 2008 Barack Hussein Obama

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Figure 5.6 A Palestinian’s dream of a homeland. Reproduced with kind permission from the artist Sakhawat Kabir.

The painting depicts that Palestine has been destroyed by Israeli forces. However, Palestinians still desire their homeland, and a young Palestinian is optimistically holding the flag.

became the first African American elected president of the US. Rami Khori observed that the Israeli attack on Gaza on 27 December 2008 was a warning to the incoming President Obama that he could not make any change of policy over the Israeli issue.166 On 27 December 2008 Israel launched ‘Operation Cast Lead’ – a 22-day military campaign with the stated aim of suppressing rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. On 7 January 2009 the US Senate overwhelmingly supported Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism. And on 8 January 2009 the House of Representatives voted 390 to 5 for a resolution that backed Israel’s Gaza onslaught, affirming ‘Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza’.167 Khori reminded readers of the US’s unconditional support of Israeli’s atrocities against Palestinians on previous occasions. Khori commented: On no other issue does Congress vote according to the interests of a foreign country, rather than according to the US national interest. This kind of blind, wholehearted plunge into a maelstrom of pro-Israeli fanaticism and zealotry reflects precisely how strong the pro-Israeli lobby is in the United States, and how weak are the voices of reason, balance and justice as drivers of American foreign policy.168

Khori envisaged that Obama would inherit the same institutional structure of Israeli lobbyists influencing US foreign policy, and commented on ‘the American political establishment that behaves on the Palestinian issue – with a handful of brave and decent exceptions – in a most un-American manner in the face of the pro-Israeli forces that decide if they live or die politically’.169 The Palestinian casualties during the 22-day Israeli onslaught were tremendous. Another analyst, Noam Chomsky, observed that the 27 December 2008 ‘US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was meticulously planned, for over 6 months for two reasons: military and propaganda’. Chomsky stated:

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That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 200 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.170

President Obama may have been influenced by the pro-Israeli lobby over the Israeli-Palestinian issue but the drone attacks in Pakistan are the action of the Obama administration.171 There have been more drone attacks under Obama’s regime than in Bush’s time leading to more civilian casualties.172 Critics say that for some of his foreign policy such as ‘his use of drones to his continuation of rendition practices, he has never apologized for the country’.173 US diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis observed that US foreign policy seeks to defend liberty through imperial methods.174 He said that this was not un-American. The ‘empire of liberty’ is a concept that is embedded in US history, including the writings of Thomas Jefferson.175 Giddis did not believe that Bush’s Iraq invasion was the outcome of the US’s post-9/11 phobia; rather it was a grab for Iraqi oil and generally to establish US hegemony in the Arab world. He thought that the Bush administration’s foreign policy was as rooted in US history and practice as apple pie and cheese steak.176 The opposing view to Giddis would be that the US administration has also played a role of appeasement. During the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina between March 1992 and November 1995, the Clinton administration intervened and rescued Muslims from Serb atrocities.177 This was also not un-American. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

In the 2008 election Obama promised to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (also known as Gitmo) but it is still awaiting closure.178 James Yee, the Chinese-American convert to Islam who served as the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay (and who later supported Obama in his presidential election campaign in 2008) commented on the treatment of the inmates that the ‘Human rights of the Muslims were blatantly violated and went against the Geneva Convention on human rights.’179 As the debate on whether US foreign policy is American or un-American continues, the treatment of the Guantanamo Bay inmates in Cuba is yet another phase of modern-day McCarthyism (Figure 5.7). In December 2002 James Yusuf Yee (an American-Chinese convert to Islam) was sent to Guantanamo Bay prison to cater to the needs of its 700 detainees. Yee took the position to build a better understanding of Islam among the soldiers dealing with the inmates.180 But he found that the US Army was using religion as a weapon against the detainees, who were all Muslims. Yee opposed the cruel treatment meted out to the inmates and advised the camp commanders to change their attitude. His opposition was met with dissent from the army and it resulted in his arrest. He was charged with spying, espionage and aiding the Taliban and AlQaeda.181 Yee was kept in solitary confinement for 76 days at a naval prison, where

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Figure 5.7 Guantanamo Bay and Liberty.

Source: The Muslim Observer, 23 May 2013. Copyright of Khalil Bendib, www.bendib.com, all rights reserved.

This cartoon depicts the contradiction between what America stands for – liberty, equality and fraternity – and what was happening to the Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

he was subjected to the same treatment that was meted out to the Guantanamo (Gitmo) inmates. The US government later dropped all charges and Yee was reinstated to full duties. However, Yee resigned in January 2005.182 In his book (with Amiee Malloy) For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism under Fire, Yee told his life story. He was a second-generation American of Chinese heritage born in 1968 in New Jersey.183 Yee felt very American and commented, ‘As my mother likes to say, our family was “terribly American”’.184 Yee discussed some of the harsh treatments meted out to the Gitmo inmates. He observed that the Bush administration declared that the Gitmo inmates should not be considered regular prisoners of war because prisoners of war represent a country, wear a uniform and follow certain rules of war. But the Gitmo inmates were soldiers who had employed terrorist methods. They were labelled enemy combatants and hence they were not granted the rights that are normally allowed to POWs. They were not granted the right to be charged with a crime or speak to an attorney. They were confined at Gitmo for an indefinite period.185 James Yee was horrified by the harsh treatment meted out to the Gitmo inmates. He said that each inmate was held in a 8-foot by 6-foot open-air cage with a small bed, sink and an Eastern-style toilet. The inmates were permitted out of their cages

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for 15 minutes every three days. Yee was assigned to 600 prisoners, who were from both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Some were Chinese, Australian (for example Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks), French and British nationals.186 In his public lecture in 2008, Yee discussed the atrocities committed by the interrogators in the Guantanamo Bay prison. Yee said that Islam was used against the detainees by the interrogators. Female interrogators were asked to use ‘creative approaches’ in intelligence gathering. They were encouraged to exploit ‘conservative Islamic etiquette’. Female interrogators stripped naked in front of male detainees in an effort to frustrate them, rubbed their bodies on chained Muslim prisoners and grabbed male prisoners’ genitalia. Both male and female interrogators forced the inmates to shave their beard and throw the Quran on the floor. There were instances when the interrogators dressed themselves as priests and forcibly baptised the prisoners. They also wrapped the inmates in Israeli flags, thinking that this would agitate them and therefore they would be ready to confess.187 The Obama administration has taken some steps to address the Gitmo inmate issue, but it has met with strong resistance. In its 14 November 2009 issue, the New York Post had an extensive coverage of the alleged 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four Al-Qaeda co-conspirators who were to be sent from the American base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to face trial in a civilian federal court near Ground Zero in New York. The New York Post wanted the trial to be held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where they had been facing a military commission.188 It appeared that the New York Post feared that Khalid Mohammed was subjected to ‘now-banned waterboarding’, and he might win his case in the civilian court in New York. In 2003 Khalid Mohammed suffered water boarding 183 times. It commented, ‘Defence lawyers could cite coercion of him and other defendants to argue that the entire case should be tossed out on the grounds that the evidence is inadmissible under the rules of the civilian criminal court’.189 In the same issue, the New York Post had a column by Rep. Peter King (R-NY), ‘O’s terrible call: Will terrorists walk free?’190 Like other reports, Peter King was critical of President Obama when he commented that the decision to hold the trials in the civilian federal court ‘may be hailed by Europeans, the ACLU and the farleft-wing of the Democratic Party, the president’s action actually threatens American lives and weakens US national security’.191 It was clear that the New York Post was against the trial of the alleged terrorists in the federal civilian court in New York City. It made its point clear through its reports and editorial and gave space for opinion pieces by people who wanted to voice their opinion against the Obama administration’s decision. While being critical of President Obama and his administration, the New York Post’s choice of words included Islamist terrorism, evil, rogue, slaughter, war, ‘he [Mohammed] should have been stood up in front of a wall and shot years ago’, Allah, security, and the names of some alleged and convicted terrorists who happened to be of Islamic faith.192 On 23 May 2013 Obama again promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. At that time there were 103 prisoners on hunger strike, with 31 prisoners being force-fed to keep them alive and five of them were hospitalised. But critics say

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that despite Obama’s desire to close the prison, he is unable to do so because the Republican Party (commonly called the Grand Old Party, GOP) have vowed to stop Obama’s effort. The Guardian reported on the continuing humiliation the inmates had been facing in the prison. For example, the guards would dress them in small-sized underwear. They would touch their private parts. Some were going through a prolonged hunger strike. For example a Pakistani detainee, Ahmed Rabbani, said that he lost weight from 167 lbs to 107 lbs during the hunger strike. He said, ‘I vomit and cough blood … I have often thought of smashing my head against the wall and cracking it because of [severe pain]’.193 The New York Times further reported Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel had been detained for about 11 years. He was in Yemen in 2000 but his friend told him that there was work available in Afghanistan. However, he did not find any work there. After the American invasion in 2001 he fled to Pakistan. The Pakistanis arrested him, sent him to Kandahar and put him on the plane to Gitmo. Moqbel told his story through an Arabic interpreter to his lawyers at a legal charity. On 15 March 2013 he was sick and in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. But he was fed by a team of the ERF (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear. They tied his hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV (Intravenous therapy) into his hand. He spent 26 hours in this state and was tied in to the bed. During this period, Moqbel was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter which was extremely painful and he was not allowed to pray.194 In May 2013 there were 166 prisoners at the base and 86 of them had been cleared for release. Of these 86 prisoners, 56 were from Yemen and were allowed to be transferred to their country (initially there was a ban on them returning to Yemen).195 The Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ ordeal continued. As of August 2015, about 64 terrorist suspects (including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre were defined as too dangerous ever to be set free and were assigned to be transferred to a military prison in the US. The US prisons that were under consideration for these terrorist suspects were Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and a US navy prison in Charleston in South Carolina. However, Nikki Haley, the Republican governor of South Carolina, was not in favour of taking the Gitmo prisoners. She said, ‘We are not going to allow South Carolina to become a magnet of terrorists’. The US government has been concerned about the expenses involved with the Guantanamo prison. It costs US$ 3 million a year for each Guantanamo detainee compared with $34,000 for a prisoner held in a maximum security prison in the United States. President Obama said that he was determined to close Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba before he leaves office in January 2017.196

Conclusion

Many participants in this study viewed the term ‘American’ in a positive manner. The term un-American was associated with negative things, for example, the Patriot Act and US foreign policy. A few were sceptical of the term ‘American’.

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They observed that to be American would mean being racist. One respondent observed that actors and agencies with vested interests would be un-American. Some non-Muslim American analysts or commentators viewed that the singling out of American Muslims or their organisations as the ‘Other’ was ‘un-American’. They often referred to this practice by the actors (politicians) and agencies (political parties, think tanks, the media and law enforcement organisations) as ‘modern-day McCarthyism’ or ‘new McCarthyism’. While investigating modern-day McCarthyism, I found that it is multi-layered. First, Muslim and Christian extremists both pose security threats in America, but the actors and agencies only focus on people of Muslim faith. Second, in the political feud between the Republican and the Democrats, the former would generally frame Muslims to harass the latter. Third, by taking advantage of their First Amendment right of free speech, some Americans have been successful in provoking Muslims, while Muslims’ right of free speech has been frowned upon. Fourth, minorities’ freedom of speech and movement in New York was further restricted by NYPD’s ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy, and later NSA and FBI’s surveillance (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) raise questions of American Muslims First Amendment rights. Fifth, US foreign policy regarding Afghanistan, the Iraq occupation, Abu Ghraib prisoners’ abuse in Iraq, drone attacks in Pakistan and Gitmo inmates raises the question whether the US policies can be regarded as ‘American’. The IsraeliPalestinian issue led some politicians, think tanks and media to verbally attack Muslim organisations and question American Muslims’ loyalty. Finally, American Muslims have also been the victims of Muslim extremists, but some mainstream political rhetoric has failed to endorse them as one of ‘us’. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunt of ‘un-American’ practices in the 1950s was domestically focused. It generally involved mainstream Americans who were alleged to be communist threats. However, in this study on what it is to be ‘unAmerican’, US foreign policy was also discussed. Some Americans (both Muslims and non-Muslims) were alarmed at some of the consequences of US foreign policy, for example the Gitmo inmates issue. But it is also alarming to see that the actors and agencies of modern-day McCarthyism remained silent over this issue. They would rather undermine the Obama administration’s effort to address this issue. Their selective targeting of the ‘Muslim Other’ shows that modern-day McCarthyism is more structured now than it was in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s time.

Notes 1

2

3 4

5

Catherine Philp, ‘Congress Muslim Hearing Raises Spectre of Witch-hunt – United States’, The Times (London), 11 March 2011, p. 30. Andrew Mollison, ‘McCarthyism’s History Filled In’, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 May 2003, p. A3. Ibid. Debra J. Saunders, ‘Anti-American and Unaware’, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 October 2002, p. A19. More discussion on this topic is in Chapter 2, ‘What Does it Mean to be an American or Un-American?’

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Robin Doak, Daniel Oehlsen, Charles Piddock, Susan Taylor, Richard Worth and Nel Yomtov, The Media Source Presents: Homegrown Terrorism (USA: Source Interlink Media Publication, 2014), p. 7. Mark Burkhalter, ‘Unassimilated Immigrants put Nation at Risk’, Editorial, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 19 July 2005, p. A13. State Rep. Mark Burkhalter, a Republican from Alpharetta, is the speaker pro tempore of the Georgia House. Ibid. Ibid. Lance Martin, ‘Illegals Create a Major Burden’, Readers Write, Atlanta JournalConstitution, 20 July 2005, p. A12. Shyam Sriram, ‘Assimilation by Force not U.S. Way’, Readers Write, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 20 July 2005, p. A12. Ibid. Ibid. Council on American-Islamic Relations, Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States, CAIR Report 2013, pp. 93–100, www.cair.com/islamophobia/legislating-fear-2013-report.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the US Congressional Hearing on the Extent of Radicalization in the Muslim Community and that Community’s Response’, Discourse & Society, 23 (2012), pp. 508–524. ‘Rep. King: Muslims Aren’t Helping in Terror Fight’, New York Post, 6 March 2011, http://nypost.com/2011/03/06/rep-king-muslims-arent-helping-in-terror-fight/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. William Yardley, ‘Suspect Held in Spokane Bomb Attempt, New York Times, 10 March 2011, p. A20. Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals?’, p. 509. Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes and Faiz Shakir, Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2011). Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals?’, p. 509. Statement of Chairman Peter T. King, Committee on Homeland Security, ‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response’, Homeland Security, 10 March 2011, http://homeland.house.gov/sites/ homeland.house.gov/files/03-10-11%20Final%20King%20Opening%20State ment_0.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals?’, p. 513. King, ‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community’. Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals?’, p. 523. ‘Groups Slam Islam Hearings as Modern-day McCarthyism’, Politico, 2 February 2011, www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0211/Groups_slam_Islam_hearings_as_ modernday_McCarthyism_.htm (accessed 15 February 2016). Chris Lisee, ‘Rep. Peter King’s Muslim “Radicalization” Hearings Return to Capitol’, The Huffington Post, 21 June 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/peter-kingmuslim-radicalization-hearings_n_1613746.html (accessed 15 February 2016).

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Cited in Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals?’, p. 514. Ibid., p. 516. Zaid Jalini, ‘Rep. Ellison Breaks into Tears Explaining Story of Muslim First Responder who Died to Save Americans on 9/11’, Think Progress, 10 March 2011, http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/10/149775/ellison-tears-king-hearing/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Cited in Saghaye-Biria, ‘American Muslims as Radicals?’, p. 517. Ibid., p. 517. Ibid., p. 519. Ibid. Stephan Salisbury, ‘America’s Muslims: Guilty Until Proven Innocent?’, CBS News, 24 May 2010, www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-muslims-guilty-until-proveninnocent/ (accessed 15 February 2016). William Saletan, ‘Muslim McCarthyism’, Slate, 9 March 2011, www.slate.com/ articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2011/03/muslim_mccarthyism.html (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Groups Slam Islam Hearings as Modern-day McCarthyism’. Ibid. ‘Terror Outrage’, Daily News, 10 May 2010, p. 1. The headlines appeared in similar font in the newspapers. ‘Feds: What Times Square Bomb?’, Daily News, 13 May 2010, p. 5. Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill, Islam: The Religion and the People (Philadelphia: Wharton School Publishing, 2009), p. 163. Joe Garofoli, ‘Islam Hearing will Fuel Prejudice, Critics Say’, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 March 2011, p. A1. Philp, ‘Congress Muslim Hearing Raises Spectre of Witch-hunt’. Evelyn Al Sultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11 (New York: New York University Press, 2012), pp. 139–140. Ibid., p. 140. See Adam Horowitz, ‘If this Street gets Cleaned then the Terrorists Win’, Mondoweiss, 24 December 2009, http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/if-this-street-getscleaned-then-the-terrorists-win.html (accessed 15 February 2016). James Gordon Meek, ‘FBI Feared Boston Bombers “Received Training” and Aid from Terror Group, Docs say’, ABC News, 22 May 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/ Blotter/fbi-feared-boston-bombers-received-training-aid-terror/story?id=23819429 (accessed 15 February 2016). Hayes Brown, ‘GOP Congressman: American Muslim Leaders are “Potentially Complicit” in Terrorist Acts’, Think Progress, 11 June 2013, http://thinkprogress.org/ security/2013/06/11/2138381/pompeo-american-muslims-terrorism/# (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Pew Research Center, Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism, 30 August 2011, www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslimamerican-report.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). Brown, ‘GOP Congressman’. Glenn T. Tsunokai and Allison R. McCrath, ‘Virtual Hate Communities in the 21st Century’, in Harrison Yang and Steve Yuen (eds.), Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in Virtual Worlds and Environments, Vol. 1 (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2011), pp. 34–53.

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Ali et al., Fear Inc., fast facts (before p. 1). Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., fast facts (before p. 1). Ibid. Pew Research Center, ‘How Americans Feel About Religious Groups’, 16 July 2014, Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project, www.pewforum.org/2014/07/16/ how-americans-feel-about-religious-groups/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ali et al., Fear Inc., fast facts (before p. 1). See also, Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books 2012), pp. 183–184,190; Christopher Bail, Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 74–76. Cited in Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 31. See also, Frank Gaffney, ‘America’s First Muslim President?’, The Washington Times, 9 June 2009, www.washingtontimes.com/ news/2009/jun/09/americas-first-muslim-president/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Gaffney, ‘America’s First Muslim President?’ Cited in John Sugg, ‘Steven Emerson’s Crusade’, Extra! The Publication of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), 1 January 1999, http://fair.org/extra-onlinearticles/steven-emersons-crusade/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 50. See also, Sheila Musaji, ‘Daniel Pipes Islam 2.0 and Islamophobia 3.0’, The American Muslim, 26 March 2011, www.theamericanmuslim. org/tam.php/features/articles/daniel_pipes1/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Eyal Press, ‘Neocon Man’, The Nation, 22 April 2004, www.thenation.com/ article/neocon-man# (accessed 15 February 2016). Ali et al., Fear Inc., pp. 41–42. See also, Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003). Ali et al., Fear Inc., p. 42. See also, Press, ‘Neocon Man’. Ibid., p. 42. See also, ‘Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream’, Pew Research Center, 2007, www.pewresearch.org/2007/05/22/muslim-americans-middleclass-and-mostly-mainstream/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ali et al., Fear Inc., pp. 88–89. See also, Terrorism Awareness Project, ‘A Student Guide to Hosting Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’, www.terrorismawareness.org/ islamo-fascism/49/a-students-guide-to-hosting-islamo-fascism-awareness-week/ (accessed 15 February 2016). See also, Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), p. 28. Ibid. Lewis and Churchill, Islam: The Religion and the People, p. 166. Ibid. ‘Needless Action, Reaction’, Dallas Morning News, Editorials, 5 April 2011, p. A16. Yasmine Hafiz and Terry Jones, ‘Quran-burning Pastor Plans “Dearborn Freedom Rally” in Front of Mosque’, The Huffington Post, 3 June 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/03/terry-jones-dearborn-freedom-rally_n_5433994.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Gary Younge, ‘For Obama to Apologise for US Mistakes is not Un-American’, The Guardian, 10 March 2012, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/ 2012/mar/09/obama-apologise-us-mistakes-not-unamerican (accessed 15 February 2016). Erich Kolig, ‘Muslim Sensitivities in the West’, in Erich Kolig (ed.), Freedom of Speech and Islam (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 87.

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Ibid, pp. 87–88. James Hider, ‘US Official Killed as Muslims Attack Embassies over Film “Insult to Prophet”’, The Times (London), 12 September 2012, p. 27. When the US diplomatic staff member Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi in Libya in September 2012, it was at first reported as being linked to the film. This was later revoked and it was reported that the attack was premeditated by an Al-Qaeda affiliated group. See also, Kolig, ‘Muslim Sensitivities in the West’, p. 88. Manny Fernandez and Laurie Goodstein, ‘Shooting Clouds Life as both Muslim and Texan’, The New York Times, 7 May 2015, p. A1. Cited in Arab American Institute, ‘Rick Santorum, Election Statement’, 7 January 2012, www.aaiusa.org/campaign/entry/were…not-being-honest-with-the-americanpublic-as-to-who-the-enemy-is…a/ (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Islamophobe Frank Gaffney Endorses Newt Gingrich’s Anti-Muslim Comments’, Think Progress, 19 January 2012, http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/01/19/ 407141/gaffney-gingrich-sharia/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Esten Perez, ‘Obama Bouncing Back, Widens Lead over Mitt Romney among Millennials, Harvard IOP Poll Finds’, Harvard Kennedy School, 24 April 2012, www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/press-releases/iop-spring-2012-youth-votersurvey (accessed 15 February 2016). Mitt Romney, No Apology: Believe in America (New York: St. Martin Griffin, 2011), pp. 77–87. Matt Barry, ‘The New McCarthyism: Bachmann Claims Muslims are “Infiltrating” Government’, CAIR Chicago, 23 July 2012, www.cairchicago.org/2012/07/23/ the-new-mccarthyism-bachmann-claims-muslims-are-infiltrating-government/ (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Romney Met Thursday with Top Anti-Muslim Activist and Leading Backers of Bachmann Witch Hunt’, Islamophobia Today, 9 August 2012, Online (accessed 15 February 2016). Dana Milbank, ‘Modern-day McCarthyism regarding Hillary Clinton Aide Huma Abedin’, The Herald (US), 10 August 2012, http://search.proquest.com.access. library.unisa.edu.au/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Nahid Kabir, ‘Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Australian Media, 2001– 2005’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 26/3 (2006): 313–328; Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘A Study of Australian Muslim Youth Identity: The Melbourne Case’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 31/2 (2011): 243–258; Nahid Afrose Kabir, ‘Young Somalis in Australia, UK and USA: An Understanding of Their Identity and Their Sense of Belonging’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 34/3 (2014): 259–281. Milbank, ‘Modern-day McCarthyism Regarding Hillary Clinton Aide Huma Abedin’. Ibid. Barry, ‘The new McCarthyism’. Ibid. Council on American-Islamic Relations, Legislating Fear, p. 102. Bernard Haykel and Cole Bunzel, ‘Religious Violence in the Arab World is Likely to get Worse’, Daily Star (Beirut, Lebanon), 12 July 2014, p. 7. ‘ISIS Urges Local Terror Attacks’, The Australian, 23 September 2014, p. 1. Julian Hattem, ‘FBI: More than 200 Americans Have Tried to Fight for ISIS’, The Hill, 7 August 2015, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/247256-more-than200-americans-tried-to-fight-for-isis-fbi-says (accessed 15 February 2016).

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Barack Hussein Obama, ‘Remarks of President Barack Obama’, Weekly Address, The White House, 5 December 2015, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/ 05/weekly-address-we-will-not-be-terrorized (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Obama Speech on San Bernardino and ISIS Full Text Transcript’, Heavy News, 6 December 2015, http://heavy.com/news/2015/12/president-obama-isis-terrorismsan-bernardino-attacks-shooting-speech-full-text-transcript-oval-office-read-terrordecember-6-2015-today-tonight/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Erin Miller, ‘Use of Firearms in Terrorist Attacks the United States 1970–2014’, START, College Park, MD, July 2015, www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_FirearmsinTerrorism_BackgroundReport_July2015.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). ‘Hillary Clinton Supports Australia-Style Gun Confiscation’, 16 October 2015, NRAILA, Institute for Legislative Action, www.nraila.org/articles/20151016/hillaryclinton-supports-australia-style-gun-confiscation (accessed 15 February 2016). Sylvan Lane, ‘Ted Cruz: Barring Muslims from White House Violates Constitution’, Dallas Morning News, 21 September 2015, Newsbank Inc. Maggie Haberman, ‘Donald Trump Deflects Withering Fire on Muslim Plan’, The New York Times, 9 December 2015, p. A1. Tom McCarthy, Ben Jacobs, Sabrina Siddiqui, Ryan Felton and Kate Lamb, ‘Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban Plunges Republican Party into Chaos’, The Guardian, 10 December 2015, p. 1. Melissa Sim ‘Democrats Focus on Extremism in Debate’, The Straits Times (Singapore), 21 December 2015, Newsbank Inc. Ed Pilkington, ‘Republican Rivals Condemn Trump’s Call to Stop Muslims Entering US’, The Guardian, 8 December 2015, p. 2. Stephen Dinan, ‘Obama’s Amnesty gets 90 Percent Approval from Hispanics’, The Washington Times, 25 November 2014, p. 4. ‘Freedom Fried’, Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 12 September 2005, Newsbank Inc. Ibid. Ibid. Christopher Rose, ‘Episode 30: Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an’, University of Texas at Austin, 6 November 2013, http://blogs.utexas.edu/15minutehistory/2013/11/06/ episode-30-thomas-jeffersons-quran/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Debra J. Saunders, ‘Anti-American and Unaware’, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 October 2002, p. A19. Ryan Devereaux, ‘Scrutiny Mounts as NYPD “Stop-and-Frisk” Searches Hit Record High’, The Guardian, 15 February 2012, www.theguardian.com/world/2012/ feb/14/nypd-stop-frisk-record-high (accessed 15 February 2016). Tod Robberson, ‘“Stop and Frisk” Never made Sense, Never seemed Constitutional’, Dallas Morning News, 12 August 2013, Newsbank Inc. Devereaux, ‘Scrutiny Mounts as NYPD “Stop-and-Frisk” Searches Hit Record High’. Ibid. Matt Apuzzo and Joseph Goldstein, ‘New York Drops Unit that Spied Among Muslims’, New York Times, 16 April 2014, p. A1. Ibid. Will Pavia, ‘NYPD Closes Unit that Spied on Muslims’, The Times (London), 17 April 2014, p. 31. Apuzzo and Goldstein, ‘New York Drops Unit that Spied on Muslims’. Ibid.

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Chris Boyette, ‘New York Police Department Disbands Unit that Spied on Muslims’, CNN, 16 April 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/15/us/nypd-muslims-spyingends/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Notes taken by the author, New York, 27 July 2014. Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, ‘Spied on for Being Muslims? NSA Targets Named in Snowden Leaks Respond to U.S. Gov’t Surveillance’, Democracy Now, 10 July 2014, www.democracynow.org/2014/7/10/spied_on_for_being_muslim_nsa (accessed 15 February 2016). Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain, ‘Under Surveillance’, The Intercept, 9 July 2014, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/07/09/under-surveillance/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Ibid. Ibid. ‘Iranians Chant “Death to America”’, The Hamilton Spectator, 12 February 2002, p. D05. Rami G. Khouri, ‘Why We Both Love and Hate America’, Daily Star (Beirut, Lebanon), 9 January 2008, p. 1. See Kabir, Young American Muslims, p. 77. Jim Lovell (Richland Hills), ‘Rush to Judgment’, Letters to the Editor, The Dallas Morning News, 28 November 2000, p. 18A. Tony Allen-Mills, ‘America’s Shame – Focus’, The Sunday Times (London), 9 May 2004, Section: Features Page: News, p. 13. John L. Esposito, The Future of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 163; see also, Louise Cainkar, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), p. 128. Don Lattin, ‘Muslim Voters Turn Away from Bush, Survey Finds – Mideast Policies, Iraq War to blame’, San Francisco Chronicle, 30 June 2004, p. A6. Ibid. Moni Basu, ‘President’s Use of Slur called Unintentional – Term’s Root as Insult are British’, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9 January 2002, p. A9. Ibid. Ibid. Ted Rall, ‘Brace Yourself for the New McCarthyism’, Japan Times (Tokyo, Japan), 10 November 2001, Newsbank data. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Tom Head, ‘Flag Burning Laws – History of U.S. Laws against Flag Burning’, Civil Liberties, http://civilliberty.about.com/od/freespeech/p/flagburning.htm (accessed 15 February 2016). George W. Bush, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’, September 2002, pp. 13– 15, www.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016). Elizabeth Fernandez, ‘Anti-war Rallies Across U.S.: 8,000 Protesters in S.F. are Part of Resistance Gaining Momentum’, The San Francisco Chronicle, 7 October 2002, p. A16. Cited in Ibid. Cited in Ibid. Ibid.

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Ron Borland, ‘Kane Tossed his Badge in the Dirt’, Letters to the Editor, The San Francisco Chronicle, 22 March 2003, p. A18. Carol Williams, ‘Kane Tossed his Badge in the Dirt’, Letters to the Editor, The San Francisco Chronicle, 22 March 2003, p. A18. P. L. Kelly, ‘Why Dissent with Survive’, Letters to the Editor, The San Francisco Chronicle, 21 March 2003, p. A22. Annie Lee, ‘4 Powerful Words’, Letters to the Editor, The San Francisco Chronicle, 21 March 2003, p. A22. Allen-Mills, ‘America’s Shame’. Ibid. Bob Deans, ‘Abuses Heinous, Bush tells Arabs’, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 May 2004, p. A1. Ibid. Allen-Mills, ‘America’s Shame’. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Yvonne Y. Haddad, Becoming American: The Forging of Arab and Muslim Identity in Pluralist America (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), p. 82. Ibid., p. 84. Ibid. See Kabir, Young American Muslims, pp. 178–205. Rami G. Khouri, ‘Obama’s Pro-Israel Congressional Welcome’, Daily Star (Beirut, Lebanon), 14 January 2009, Section: OPED Page 1. Ibid. See also, Isabel Kershner and Taghreed El-Khodary, ‘Israeli Troops Launch Attack on Gaza’, New York Times, 4 January 2009, p. A1. Khouri, ‘Obama’s Pro-Israel Congressional Welcome’. Ibid. Noam Chomsky, ‘Exterminate all the Brutes: Gaza 2009’, 19 January 2009 (revised 6 June 2009), www.chomsky.info/articles/20090119.htm (accessed 15 February 2016). I have also discussed drone attacks in Chapter 4. See Kabir, Young American Muslims, p. 167. Younge, ‘For Obama to Apologise for US Mistakes is not Un-American’. John Lewis Gaddis’s book (Surprise, Security and the American Experience, Harvard University Press, 2005) Review: ‘Surprise, Security and the American Experience: Bush’s Adams Doctrine’, Hindustan Times, 20 March 2005, Newsbank Inc. Ibid. Ibid. A. M. Rosenthal, ‘On My Mind: Clinton’s Bosnia Choice’, The New York Times, 16 February 1993, p. A17. Express News Service, ‘Former Muslim Chaplain at Gitmo Slams US Policy’, Indian Express (India), 4 November 2009, Newsbank Inc. Cited in Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. James Yee and Aimee Malloy, For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism under Fire (New York: Public Affairs, 2005).

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Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., p. 47. Kim Searcy, Book Review of For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism under Fire, JIMA, 39 (2007): 38–39. See p. 39. AlSultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, p. 127. See also, James Yee, ‘A U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain’s Struggle for Justice’, Voices, University of California San Diego Television, 23 April 2008. Dan Mangan, ‘9/11 Gang gets Top Plotter Coming from Gitmo; 4 Others in “Risky” Fed Transfers’, New York Post, 14 November 2009, p. 2. Ibid. Peter King, ‘O’s Terrible Call: Will the Terrorists Walk Free?’ New York Post, 14 November 2009, p. 19. Ibid. New York Post, 14 November 2009, p. 3. Paul Harris, ‘Guantánamo Bay Hunger Strike Worsens’, Guardian, 31 May 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/guantanamo-bay-hunger-strikes-worsens (accessed 15 February 2016). Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, ‘Gitmo is Killing Me’, New York Times, 15 April 2013, p. A19. Harris, ‘Guantánamo Bay Hunger Strike Worsens’. Michael Evans, ‘US Governor Says No to Guantanamo Detainees’, The Times (London), 22 August 2015, p. 10.

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Comprehending the present and looking into the future

At the final stage of writing this manuscript, in February 2016, the United States was still involved in wars in the Muslim world, for example, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and fighting the ISIL threat in the Middle East. The Palestinian question was still standing, and the Guantanamo Bay inmate issues remained unresolved. Since the Paris and San Bernardino, California attacks in 2015, with a rising tide of antiIslamic sentiment, some American Muslims have become more cautious, and sometimes anxious. They feel ‘a heightened sense of tension since the lethal attacks and the political fallout [Donald Trump’s rhetoric] that has followed’.1 In this chapter, first, I briefly discuss my observations on the United States. Second, I concisely conclude my research findings already discussed in this book. Third, I discuss some recent and ongoing issues impacting American Muslims that were not discussed earlier. Fourth, I discuss some positive things concerning Muslims that have been happening in America. Finally, I suggest what more American Muslims, the civil society and the government should do to lead America into a more cohesive society.

My observations on the United States

I have had contact with the United States for nearly three decades. In 1981–1982 I lived in Austin, Texas. In 2003 and 2004 I attended conferences in Hawaii and Detroit, and visited San Diego, California. From 2009 to 2011 I was a visiting fellow at the Islam in the West programme at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. In 2014 my husband and I became US permanent residents. In my private space, I found Americans to be friendly people, but through my research which led to the publication of my previous book, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity, and this book, Muslim Americans: Debating the Notions of American and un-American, I became aware of some issues that have been facing American Muslims since 9/11. Since 9/11, many Americans have been expressing their patriotism by flying flags on their property. For example, in 2004 I saw flags flying in many houses, or flags painted on the edge of people’s gardens, particularly in San Diego, California. In 2014, in Plano, Dallas and Austin, Texas, I saw some flags flying on houses and public places. On 18–20 July 2014 when I visited a small city, Pottsville in

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Schuykill, Pennsylvania, I was amazed to see so many US flags of all sizes and shapes on houses, shops and roadside flagpoles. Small flags flew in garden beds. I asked a local resident for an explanation. The resident replied that they had recently celebrated the 4th of July. It gave them a sense of solidarity. Also, about six weeks earlier, on 2 June 2014, Captain Jason B. Jones of Orwigsburg, Schuylkill County, was killed in Jalalabad in Afghanistan.2 Jones was a local boy who attended the Blue Mountain schools in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.3 So quite justifiably the county was still in grief. On 30 July 2014 I visited the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York. Inside the museum these words were displayed in large letters: On September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists who were members of Al-Qaeda, an Islamist terrorist network, hijacked four California-bound commercial airplanes … intentionally flew two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and another into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia … Nearly 3,000 people were killed on that day …

I was surprised that, although many Muslims (about 358),4 were also killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but this was not mentioned in this piece of writing. Obviously, when terrorism is branded with Islam (such as through the phrase ‘Islamist terrorists’), ordinary Americans or museum visitors may associate all Muslims as terrorists. Outside the museum, at the 9/11 memorial which frames the ‘pool’, among the names of 9/11 victims I spotted a couple of Muslim names (Sabbir Ahmed and Rahma Sallie) engraved in granite. I felt very emotional thinking that the acts of a few terrorists have had such an impact on the lives of both Muslims and non-Muslims.

My research findings

Since 9/11, like many Muslim Americans, many mainstream Americans have been anxious about some Muslim terrorists’ acts. Some of their anxieties have unfortunately been expressed through attacks and hate crimes against some Muslims. The anti-Muslim fringe organisations’ ‘misinformation’ on Muslim Americans and the Muslim world has intensified anti-Muslim hatred. Some Republican politicians have also tried to divide the American population into ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ with their rhetoric against Islam and Muslims. Some academics such as Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis have upheld Western superiority, and disseminated a view that Islamic culture and civilisation is in conflict with the West. Lewis distinguished between fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist Muslims (more reconcilable with the West), but he placed all Muslims as the Other when he took pride in ‘our Judeo-Christian heritage’. Lewis stated, ‘This is no less than a clash of civilisations – the perhaps irrational but surely historical reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both.’5 Huntington envisaged that in the twenty-first century a large number of young Muslims will become more

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committed to Islam, leading to ‘militancy, militarism and migration’, and thereby a ‘clash’ with the West.6 In the light of the concerted efforts of some non-Muslim Americans to portray Islam and Muslims as the Other, my research findings on Muslim Americans are important. This study demonstrated the diversity among Muslim Americans. There was diversity in their ethnicities and their localities (place of residence in the United States). Therefore, their views on certain topics also revealed their diversity. For example, a Bangladeshi Muslim living in Hamtramck in Michigan might have a different view on a certain topic than a Bangladeshi Muslim living in Fort Lauderdale in Florida or in Jamaica in Queens, New York. But it was interesting to see how the topic of identity (which I discussed in my previous book, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity), and the topics of this book, ‘American’ and ‘un-American’, revealed their connection to their heritage and their host country. Their views often transcended their ethnicity and locality when they described ‘American’ or ‘un-American’ in the national context. For example, while debating the notions of American and un-American, the participants contributed their knowledge on American immigration and race relations history, their awareness of the marginalised position of Native Americans and African Americans, together with their current position as Muslim Americans. Their views revealed their identity, sense of belonging, class, gender, and the security dynamics existing in American society. The participants’ appreciation of the American Founding Fathers’ achievements and their views on American and Islamic values displayed their unique placement within both cultures. On certain common topics such as Islamophobia, most participants’ views were based on their personal experiences and observations. Sometimes, those views were provided with reference to the local context, and sometimes to the national context. For example, discussions of the hijab issue or resistance to new mosques would be locally based, but racial profiling at airports was spoken about in the national context. Though most participants felt very American, Islamophobic incidents made them question their sense of belonging. At both the local and the national level, some participants’ frustrations were revealed when they spoke of some media and politicians’ representations of Muslims as the Other. With print media analysis, and through primary (unpublished) and secondary (published) sources, I examined the representation of Muslims in some American media. And, through examining ‘modern-day McCarthyism’, I found that some powerful sections of the wider society have marginalised the Muslim American community. Through their definitions of American and un-American, young Muslims also revealed the diversity existing within the American Muslim community. In their family space (be it in Massachusetts, Michigan, New York or Virginia), their constant engagement with their parents’ diaspora and associated restrictions, and their moving through the processes of enculturation and acculturation, negotiating individualism and collectivism, they reached a compromise with their families’ expectations. Some participants’ views revealed that they have grasped their first learning process (enculturation) through their parents. They spoke of the concepts of respect and care, and ethnic and Islamic cultural responsibility and

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accountability with delight. They have also acculturated with the wider society through their educational institutions. However, some participants were frustrated by their parents’ expectations of retaining their cultural values, for example, parents not allowing their children to attend their friends’ ‘Sweet Sixteen’ parties. A few participants were also frustrated with their non-Muslim American counterparts who constantly questioned their ethnic/religious culture, and expected them to fit in with the wider society. Therefore, some participants were placed between the push and pull forces of enculturation and acculturation. While growing up in the United States, some Muslim Americans have been facing insurmountable barriers, such as being raised by an economically marginalised single parent, encountering many restrictions from their diasporic parents, and experiencing peer pressure to ‘fit in’ with the wider society. Yet they have been able to negotiate their identity, and have successfully moved on. But there is a tiny minority of marginalised young Muslims who may be susceptible to radicalisation (as discussed in Chapter 3). Therefore, it is very important that Muslim parents are themselves bicultural, so that they can encourage their children to acquire bicultural skills. Studies have found that bicultural immigrant parents can retain their language and culture and simultaneously adapt to their host society’s culture, which involves speaking the mainstream language, in this case the English language, and socialising with members of the wider society. The more bicultural exposure the immigrant parents have, the easier it will be for their children to adjust in the Muslim minority society. Through their bicultural skills, their children will also manage to move between cultures. On the other hand, there should be efforts from the wider society to respect Islamic culture and include the Muslim minority in their employment sectors and social circles. In the final stage of completing this manuscript (February 2016), some Muslims in America were still facing resistance from some sections of the wider society, namely, with the rise of Islamophobia, and resistance to new mosques (discussed next).

Some recent and ongoing issues The rise of Islamophobia

In Chapter 2, I discussed how some people who are visibly Muslim are marked as the Other. For example, conspicuous bearded Muslim men or Muslim women wearing the hijab have been racially profiled at public places such as airports. There has been a rise of unwarranted surveillance of some Muslims, mosques and Islamic schools. Since there is no official census data on the basis of religion, it is difficult to ascertain the labour market status of American Muslims. However, some Muslim women have said that they are discriminated against in their workplaces because of their hijab.7 According to data from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), in 2015 nationally there were 71 reported incidents of hate crime, including

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vandalism, damage and intimidation at mosques. That is the most in a single year since CAIR started tracking mosque incidents in 2009. And 29 of these incidents occurred after the attacks in Paris and California.8 In San Diego and Cincinnati, Muslim women reported being physically attacked.9 In Virginia a US-born Muslim woman, Yasmin Ali, who wore the hijab said that after the Paris and California attacks, she began noticing more dirty looks from strangers. Ali said that for the first time she was fearful that something might happen to her (an Islamophobic attack) if she left her house. Ali also said that after the Paris attacks some protestors disrupted a public meeting to discuss a new Islamic Center in Ali’s hometown. They shouted, ‘Every Muslim is a terrorist’. TIME magazine reported that it was difficult to know the exact number of anti-Islamic attacks since the Paris terrorist attacks. One source reported that there have been 38 anti-Islamic attacks in the United States since the Paris terrorism. The FBI reported that hate crimes have decreased for all categories of victims except Muslims.10 Resistance to new mosques

In Chapter 2 I discussed the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (Roxbury mosque) in Boston which faced resistance from some sectors of the wider society from 2003 to 2007. At the time of writing this manuscript, some Muslims are still facing resistance to their mosque building initiatives, for example, the Islamic Center at Basking Ridge in New Jersey. The Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) in Bernards Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey was established in 2011, but the Muslim community in the area started Friday congregational prayer and Islamic Sunday school in rented spaces in 2007. With the growth of the Muslim population, the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, Inc. intended to demolish its existing building and build a proper mosque. In April 2012 the ISBR submitted an application to Bernards Township to build a 4,250-square-foot mosque in place of a 1950s-style ranch situated on a 4.3-acre property at 124 Church Street. The ISBR initially proposed to provide 50 parking spaces for the mosque but the town planners asked them to increase the number of parking spaces to 107, even though the church in that area had only 50 parking spaces. The ISBR attorney Vincent T. Bisogno commented, ‘I am shocked that they are not using the standards set forth in the (township) ordinance’.11 The Planning Board said it had a right to determine on a case-by-case basis what the proper standards were for adequate parking for buildings around town, and that mosques specifically draw very different traffic patterns from churches, and should be guided by separate statistics.12 The town planners did not want the mosque to stand out, even though there were churches and synagogues in Basking Ridge that stood out architecturally. Initially, ISBR members planned for two minarets for the mosque, each 44 feet tall. But later in response to a request from a Planning Board member, they decided to make the minarets shorter at 38 feet.13 The proposal to build the ISBR mosque faced fierce resistance from some sections of the local non-Muslim community, particularly from Liberty Corner.14

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After several hearings, in December 2015 the Bernards Township Planning Board denied approval of plans for an ISBR mosque on a residential lot along Church Street in Liberty Corner Village. The Planning Board members present at the meeting voted unanimously, 6–0, to deny final site plan approval for the project. The board also voted 4–2 against granting preliminary site plan approval, which would have given tentative approval with further details to be provided before the project could gain final acceptance.15 In July 2014 I visited the ISBR mosque site. The ISBR planned to demolish the existing old small building in the premises and build the new mosque/Islamic Center according to the town planners’ requirement. The local neighbourhood included residential buildings, a fire station, two schools, churches and synagogues and the Liberty Corner businesses and offices. The proposed mosque met with resistance, for example, some neighbours observed that the area would become very noisy. Some locals distributed leaflets stating ‘Shariah coming to town’. A member of the ISBR community said, ‘There was a banner in the neighbourhood (later removed) as “NO Mosque Here”’. Some people cited the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 to induce fear about ‘Islamic terrorism’ among local nonMuslims.16 Regarding the noise factor, the ISBR members argued that it could not be a legitimate reason to oppose the proposed mosque. Noise already existed in the neighbourhood because of schools, the fire station, churches and synagogues.17 On the other hand, some non-Muslims from interfaith groups supported the ISBR initiative. Regarding the expenses involved in the ISBR, the Pakistani-American founding father of the proposed ISBR mosque Dr Mohammad Ali Chaudry said, ‘Each hearing cost about $10,000. Islamic Center members bear the cost. There has been 21 hearing up to now. People involved are lawyers, planners, architect, transcriber, some volunteers working as pro-bono.’18 Dr Chaudry was the first Muslim Mayor of Bernards Township, Basking Ridge, and he was elected to the Township Committee in November 2001. He served as Deputy Mayor in 2003 and became Mayor in January 2004, becoming the first Pakistani-born Muslim to become Mayor in America. He was re-elected to his second three-year term until December 2007. What struck me most was that Dr Chaudry has been a well-integrated member of Bernards Township but when the ‘Muslim question’ was raised during discussions about the proposed mosque he and the local Muslims were perceived as the Other. Ongoing issues in the Muslim world

Sectarian conflict between some Sunni and Shia Muslims or Sunni and Shia governments can impact negatively on the Muslim minority in the Western world. In January 2016 the Shia leader residing in Saudi Arabia Sheikh Nimr Baqir alNimr was executed. Sheikh Nimr was a vocal supporter of the mass anti-government protests that erupted in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in 2011, where a Shia majority have long complained of marginalisation.19 This led to

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outrage in Iran, a Shia-majority state, where the Saudi Embassy was stormed. The Saudi government has severed diplomatic ties with Iran.20 In America, Shia–Sunni hostility exists in certain sections of the broader Islamic community. Some Shia Muslims feel that they are discriminated against by Sunnis.21 In this study a Shia leader in Florida expressed his concerns that their institutions were vulnerable to Wahhabi attacks (interview, May, 2010). Under the circumstances, the ongoing Sunni–Shia hostilities in the Middle East are likely to have an impact on some Muslims in America. In January 2016 an ISIL extremist with a British accent murdered five men accused of spying for the United Kingdom. The masked gunman warned British Prime Minister David Cameron that the West could never win in the war against ISIL. A young child also appeared on the video screen and spoke with a British accent.22 The ongoing Muslim sectarian conflicts in the Middle East, and the ISIL (and other terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab) threat that has been continuously transmitted through the media is likely to generate more fear and hatred among some non-Muslims. It can thereby lead to a further rise of Islamophobia in America.

Signs of optimism

The ‘Muslim question’ is not new in the American context. Long before 9/11, there was speculation about what Islam was about, what Muslims believed and whether they were peaceful people. For example, in 1964 the boxer Cassius Clay converted to the Nation of Islam, taking the name Mohammad Ali. In 1967, boxer Ali was inducted in the US armed forces but he refused to go to the Vietnam War. Ali believed Allah (God) forbids the faithful from killing and fighting in any war (except a holy war).23 Ali wrote a statement, ‘I refuse to be inducted into the armed forces of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister of the religion of Islam’.24 Ali also said, ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong’ and ‘no Vietcong ever called me [a] nigger’.25 The US Department of Justice pursued a legal case against Ali (Clay v United States), denying his claim for conscientious objector status. He was found guilty of violating Selective Service laws and sentenced to five years in prison in June 1967. His passport was revoked, and the boxing authorities stripped Ali of his title and banned him from boxing. But he remained free while appealing against his conviction. In 1971 the US Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction. For more than three years Ali’s American dream was shattered because he missed more than three prime years of his boxing career. Yet as I watched the television film Mohammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,26 I was impressed by how some mainstream Americans (including the judges) upheld the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and dealt with Ali’s case respectfully. Similarly, since 2007, during President Obama’s presidential campaign, antiMuslim organisations have played a key role in accusations that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim. For example, Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney questioned his religious affiliation. Some anti-Obama campaigners associated Obama with the

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Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda.27 But President Obama’s successful election victories in 2008 and 2012 reveal that the American public were happy to accept change by voting for the first African-American US president.28 Some Muslims have been involved in activities at the grassroots level. In 2009 I met some young Muslims in Massachusetts and New York who enthusiastically volunteered in the Obama election campaign in 2008. For example, Faisal (age 20, male, US-born, Uzbekistani origin, identity: American Muslim) recalled his voluntary work: I was fervent Obama supporter last year. Yes I have canvassed for him … Well canvassing basically means that you go door to door and you try to get people to vote then Senator Obama, now President Obama and, you know, phone calls. I basically helped out and phone banks as well in many ways in the … county in New York. (Interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Faisal then explained that his work was not only confined to his county:

Now obviously when you call people you don’t call people within the … county itself, you call people, there was I’m sure you heard, a rigorous pre-election, so the primary battle between him and Hillary Clinton. And so I would call the upcoming states where the next primary would be held, for example Washington, Texas or Ohio or …

When I asked Faisal if they had a script to follow or some sort of guidelines, he replied:

They had a script for us … to read off of. Now you don’t always go by the script because you’re not a computer. Well yeah, you ask who the person’s inclined to vote for … Why, if they’re inclined to vote for President Obama, then you just thank them for their support because you don’t want to waste too much of your time asking people to vote for someone who they’re already going to vote for … And you move onto the next person on the list. Faisal was full of praise for President Obama for the change he brought to America and the world: I think there’s a change of attitude more then there’s a change of policy. And above all the other promises that he made I think the promise that he’s uniting a country, and to a further extent uniting the global community. I think he’s really held true to that promise more than all the other promises that he’s made. (Interview, Massachusetts, 2009)

Like Faisal, other young American Muslims’ deep connection with America was revealed when they discussed Barack Hussein Obama as a leader, and US domestic

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and foreign policies.29 Some participants hoped for further change in American politics. For example, Samina (16 years, female, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: Muslim) commented:

Obama is a symbol for change, not just for African-American people … It kind of brings us hope to America that change is possible, because after all these years of just having white male Presidents, you have a black President and maybe soon you’ll have a woman President and just shows that America can change and I think that’s the beauty of it. (interview, New York, 2010)

While Samina hoped that America will have a female president, another participant, Fatima (15 years, female, overseas-born, Bangladeshi heritage, identity: Bengali), commented, ‘The political aspect of the US and the requirement that you have to be a certain religion to be the president or you have to be born in the US to be a president, I hope that goes away’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Thus, young Muslims taking an interest in politics revealed their sense of belonging to America. As discussed in Chapter 3, hospitality and ‘love thy neighbour’ are important concepts in Islamic culture, so it was heartening to see how some young Muslims in Florida were involved with non-Muslims at the grassroots level, trying to assist them with food and other necessary items. In Florida, I met some young Muslims (mostly university students) who were involved in feeding homeless people, who were mostly non-Muslim Americans. I also visited a centre in Florida to watch young Muslims’ contact with homeless people. They made sandwiches for them. In this study, a participant, Daniel (19 years, male, overseas-born, Arab heritage, identity: Muslim American), discussed his involvement with homeless Americans: I’m the … of Project Downtown, which is an organisation that started a couple of years ago here in Tampa, that goes downtown, attempts to address the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of the homeless population here in Tampa. Through feeding, through dialogue, mainly we want to connect with them on a heart-to-heart level, just be able to establish the human connection, and we’re seeking more funding so that we can expand our scope of services.

Regarding funding for the food supplied to the homeless people, Daniel commented: We used to actually just provide it personally. Now we have been able to have restaurants sponsor us, up to four weeks out of the month. We do get community-based donations. We’re seeking grants. We get university funding for limited activities that involve students only. But the rest of the funding, 100 per cent of it goes to trying to find them jobs, trying to get them clothing, if possible shelter. Pretty much everything that we can do to get them back on

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their feet and it starts with the conversation and the sandwich, but it moves all the way across to establishing them. (interview, Florida, 2010)

Some Muslim Americans also reached out to neighbouring countries after natural catastrophes. For example, immediately after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, some Muslim Americans volunteered to collect funds and necessary relief items for the earthquake victims. A participant in this study, Yusef (25 years, male, US-born, Indian background, age 25, national identity: 50:50) recalled, ‘After the earthquake in Haiti, we did “Support a Muslim Day for Haiti” … We had about 40 or 50 young Muslims from different colleges and some high schools to come out and they volunteered’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Some Muslim organisations have been trying to improve understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims through posters and billboards. During the month of Ramadan (fasting) when I was travelling to Pottsville, Pennsylvania from New York by road, on 18 July 2014, I saw on a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike that said ‘Ramadan Blessed’. On 24 December 2015, to combat the rising Islamophobia in Dallas, Texas, The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Dallas launched a ‘Best of Neighbors’ campaign to respond to hate with love and mercy. As part of this campaign, they have hired a billboard on I-35E, South of Dallas. It is estimated that approximately 400,000 people will view this billboard on a weekly basis. The billboard says, ‘Prophet Muhammad Believed in Peace, Social Justice, and Women’s Rights’.30 Alongside with Muslim Americans’ initiatives to improve Muslim and nonMuslim understanding in different states, it was also promising to see some developments at the state level in some states. For example, in March 2015 New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced holidays for the Muslim celebrations Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha in school calendars.31 In July 2015, in New York, the Empire State Building went green, a prominent colour in Islamic history, to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan.32 In a period when some Muslims are viewed with suspicion, some states’ recognition has been a positive sign of inclusion.

Concluding remarks

Since 9/11 some American Muslims have been facing challenges, and more so since the emergence of ISIL, and the Paris and San Bernardino, California terrorist attacks in 2015. Under the geo-political circumstances, both the civil society and the government need to play an active role in building social cohesion. There need to be more cross-cultural and educational programmes to increase Muslim and non-Muslim understanding. Muslim Americans should be more integrated into mainstream American society through a wide range of activities such as journalism, public speaking and political participation. Diasporic Muslim families should encourage their children to embrace their bicultural skills – retaining their culture and religion, and also being integrated with the wider society. Bicultural skills

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should be considered cultural capital for the development of young American Muslims’ confidence and self-esteem. At the governmental level, American Muslims should be provided with a platform to express their concerns and grievances against American domestic and foreign policies. Kundnani observed that, because of heavy surveillance of Muslims in mosques, there is no room for mosques or other institutions to engage with young Muslims in political discussions. For example, if the Tsarnaev brothers, who were angry about US foreign policy in Afghanistan and Iraq, vented their anger in discussions in mosques or elsewhere, it could have prevented them from mass murder on the streets of Boston.33 Also, as discussed in Chapter 5, ‘No dissent is un-American unless you do something that is treasonous … You cannot harm your country’ (interview, Florida, 2010). Under the circumstances, it is important that there is less state surveillance and more room for critical thinking and political empowerment. The First Amendment rights in the US Constitution are important, but if they infringes the rights of minorities, then this needs to be addressed. Freedom needs to be accompanied by respect and responsibility. The American government needs to evaluate its foreign policies concerning the Muslim world, and in its domestic policies it needs to secure the civil liberties of minorities, monitor the divisive rhetoric of anti-Muslim organisations, and the conventional media representations of Muslims. The American media and anti-Muslim organisations should also reflect on other social problems that need attention. For example, it is estimated that more than 30,000 people in America are killed each year with firearms through suicides, gang shootouts, accidents or mass shootings. For example, in the Sandy Hook Primary School massacre in Connecticut in 2012, 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman. In January 2016 President Obama pledged to introduce gun control reform in a modest form, though some Republicans argued that it will go against the Second Amendment rights of the US Constitution.34 Finally, this study has provided a counter-narrative to the reactionary thinking of academics such as Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, and some media and politicians who have placed Islam/Muslim as the Other. The participants in this study, with their views on the notions of American and Un-American, revealed that they have fully integrated into American society. They have identified some of the challenges they face in American society. But through their bicultural skills, they maintained their optimism. They were well-informed about their civic rights and duties, and also their cultural and religious responsibilities. As they navigated through American history, politics and media dynamics, and their ethnic and religious cultures, they displayed their deep connection with America.

Notes 1

Rosalind Bentley, Shelia M. Poole and Ernie Suggs, ‘Behind the Headlines – For Muslims in Atlanta, Caution in the Wake of Deadly Attacks’, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA), 20 December 2015, p. A1.

2

3 4

5

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6

7 8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23

24

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215

‘Honor the Fallen’, Military Times, 2 June 2014, http://thefallen.militarytimes.com/ army-capt-jason-b-jones/6568566 (accessed 15 February 2016). Notes taken by the author, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, 19 July 2014. John L. Esposito, The Future of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 30. Bernard Lewis, ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’, Atlantic Monthly, September 1990, pp. 47–60, see p. 60. Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster 1996), pp. 109–121. Abdullahi An-Na’im, What is an American Muslim: Embracing Faith and Citizenship (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 132–133. Bentley et al., ‘Behind the Headlines – For Muslims in Atlanta’. Editorial, ‘On Islamophobia: Battle against Hate and Ignorance’, San Francisco Chronicle (CA), 8 December 2015, p. A15. Elizabeth Dias, ‘What it’s Like to be Muslim in America, Post-Paris’, TIME Magazine, 28 Dec. 2015–4 Jan. 2016, p. 8. Walter O’Brien, ‘Bernards’ Mosque Proposal to again Face Opponents’, New Jersey.com, 5 February 2013, www.nj.com/somerset/index.ssf/2013/02/bernards_ proposed_mosque_up_fo.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Meghan Shapiro Hodgin, ‘Bernards Planners: Rules for Mosque should be Different than Churches’, New Jersey.com, 15 January 2013, www.nj.com/somerset/ index.ssf/2013/01/mosque_could_be_held_to_separa.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Notes taken by the author, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, 25 July 2014. ‘It Isn’t Islamophobia: When They Really ARE Trying to Kill You’, Bare Naked Islam, 6 February 2013, www.barenakedislam.com/2013/02/06/support-this-newjersey-town-in-its-battle-against-proposed-al-falah-mosque-in-a-residential-area/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Linda Sadlouskos, ‘Bernards Township Planning Board Denies Mosque Plan Before Packed Crowd of Basking Ridge Residents’, Tap into Basking Ridge, News Online, 8 December 2015, www.tapinto.net/towns/basking-ridge/categories/news/articles/ bernards-township-planning-board-denies-mosque-pl (accessed 15 February 2016). Notes taken by the author, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, 25 July 2014. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr: Saudi Arabia Executes Top Shia Cleric’, BBC News, 2 January 2015, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35213244 (accessed 15 February 2016). Thomas Erdbrink, ‘Iran, Emerging from Sanctions, Faces New Crisis’, New York Times, 5 January 2016, p. A1. Liyakat Nathani Takim, Shi‘ism in America (New York: New York University Press, 2009), pp. 199–236. Martin Evans, ‘Islamic State Video Shows Murder of Five “British Spies”’, The Telegraph, 4 January 2016, www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/islamic-state-videoshows-murder-of-five-british-spies/ar-BBo9KGY (accessed 15 February 2016). Hank Steuver, ‘A Court Drama Lacks Punch’, The Washington Post, 3 October 2013, http://web.b.ebscohost.com.access.library.unisa.edu.au (accessed 15 February 2016). Samuel O. Regalado, ‘Clay, aka Ali v. United States (1971): Muhammad Ali, Precedent, and the Burger Court’, Journal of Sport History, 34/2 (2007): 169–182.

216 25 26 27 28

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29 30 31 32 33

34

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Stephen Frears (Director), Mohammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, Television Film, 2013. Ibid. Christopher Bail, Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 98–99, 112–113. Nahid Afrose Kabir, Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 148–177. Ibid. ‘“Best of Neighbors”, Campaign to Bridges by ICNA’, ICNA, 1 January 2016, www.icna.org/best-of-neighbors-campaign-to-build-bridges-by-icna/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Sharon Otterman, ‘Balancing Islam and Middle School’, New York Times, 8 March 2015, p. MB 1 (accessed 15 February 2016). Evelyn Andrews, ‘Landmarks Light Up for Eid’, CNN News, 19 July 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/19/travel/empire-state-building-ramadan-eid-feat/ (accessed 15 February 2016). Arun Kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (London, New York: Verso, 2014), pp. 288–289. Eva-Marie Ayala, ‘Dallas Chaplain who lost Mother in Deadly S.C. Shooting Praises Obama’s Orders’, Dallas Morning News, 5 December 2016, Newsbank Inc; Ben Hoyle and Boer Deng, ‘Tearful Obama Orders New Gun Controls’, The Times (London), 6 January 2016, p. 1.

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Glossary

Abaya A loose black robe that covers the wearer from head to toe; traditionally worn by Muslim women Allah God Al-hamdulilah All praise to Allah Azan/Adhan Call to prayer Bani Israel Nation of Israel Bhangra Indian dance of Punjab Burqa Loose outer garment worn by Muslim women (similar to abaya) Caliph See Khalifah Caliphate See Khilafat Dabke Dance Derbakeh Drum Dargah A mausoleum or Sufi shrine in the Muslim world Desi A person of Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi background who lives abroad Diwali Hindu festival Dua Asking God for something Dustur al-Madina The Constitution of Medina Eid-e-Milad-un Nabi Birthday of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) Eid-ul-Adha Muslims have two important festivals in a year. One is Eid-ul-Fitr, which is celebrated immediately after the month of fasting, Ramadan, and the other is Eid-ulAdha, the feast celebrated after hajj on tenth Zil Hajj (the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar). To mark the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims all over the world celebrate the Feast of Sacrifice in Eid-ul-Adha. Sheep are ritually slaughtered to commemorate Prophet Ibrahim’s (PBUH) willingness to sacrifice his son, Prophet Ismail (PBUH). This meat is partly for one’s own consumption and the rest is given to friends and distributed among the poor and needy. Eid-ul-Fitr Discussed above. Fatua Women’s short kameez/shirt (worn with jeans and trousers) Fatwa Religious ruling Garba Indian dance of Gujarat Jilbab A full-length outer garment Hadith Teachings or tradition of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Hajj Pilgrimage to the Muslim holy place of Ka’bah in Mecca performed in the prescribed twelfth month of the Islamic calendar Halal Slaughter of animals in the Islamic way/permissible according to Islamic law Haram Forbidden in Islam

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Glossary

Henna A particular plant paste used for cosmetic purposes Hijab Headscarf Hijri Dating of the Islamic calendar Ihram During hajj or umrah hajj male pilgrims tie around themselves the prescribed two pieces of cloth Jumma Friday Kabah A sacred Muslim site in Mecca. Muslims should face the Kabah when offering their salat. The mosque surrounding the Kabah is known as Masjid al-Haram. Kameez Long tunic worn by many South Asians girls and women. Khalifah The political and religious leader of a Muslim state who is also considered to be the representative of Allah on earth Khilafat The chief spiritual authority of Islam (as exercised by the Ottoman sultans) Kurta Shirt Makruh Religiously unacceptable Masjid Mosque Mazar A mausoleum or Sufi shrine in the Muslim world Mehendi See henna Mela Fair/exhibition Munazat A traditional way of seeking God’s forgiveness by holding two hands in front of the face Mushaira A poetry recitation gathering Naat Islamic devotional songs or poetry in praise of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) sung in Bengali or Urdu Nasheed Devotional Islamic song Niqab Face veil Pir Muslim saint Purdah A state of seclusion Salat Muslim prayer Saree Indian women’s clothing Sawm Fasting Shab-e-barat Special night prayer 15 days before the month of Ramadan Shahada (Kalima) First Islamic declaration of belief Shalwar Baggy trouser worn with kameez Shariah Islamic way Shariah law The code of law derived from the teachings of the Quran and the teachings and tradition of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Taweez/tabeez A piece of paper with Quranic verses Topi Muslim men’s cap Ummah Muslim community feeling transcending all national boundaries Umrah hajj Pilgrimage to the Kabah in Mecca performed any time of the year (other than the prescribed time of Hajj) Zakat Alms giving

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Index

Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk 55, 131, 133, 135, 138–9 Abedin, Huma 173–4 Abousamra, Ahmad 124 Abu Ghraib Prison 127, 187–8 acculturation 71–2, 105, 207 Ackroyd, Judith 99, 104 Adamczyk, Amy 103 Adams, Abigail 98 Adams, James Truslow 22 Adams, John 38–9 Adams, John Quincy 38 Afghani Americans 15, 92 Afghanistan 31, 108, 141, 169–70, 194; Taliban in 4, 143; war in 131, 185–6, 189, 205 African Americans 15, 20–1, 23, 25, 28– 30, 44, 122–3, 180; African-American Muslims 10, 16, 28 Ahmad, Mehjabeen 82–3 Ahmad, Mumtaz 93 Ahmadinejid, Mahmoud 31, 139, 146 Ahmed, Akbar 57 Ahmed, Sameera 75, 99, 102–3 airport security 41–2, 184–5 Ajami, Fouad 4 al-Arian, Sami 51–2 al-Awlaki, Anwar 55, 133, 135–7, 162 al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr 174 al-Nimr, Nimr Baqir 209 Al-Qaeda 3, 172, 193, 205, 210–11; possibility of attacks in US 132, 140, 143, 158; influence on American Muslims 143, 147, 158, 161, 174, 181 al-Qaradawi, Yusuf 49 Al-Shabaab 55, 100, 161, 210

al-Shami, Abu Mohammad Al-Adnani 174–5 Alden, Anjum 134 Ali, Mohammad 16, 210 Ali, Wajahat 123, 161 Ali, Yasmin 208 Alia, Ahmednur 100 Allen, William D. 104–5 Allie, Kassem 177 Alrebh, Abdullah F. 8 Alsultany, Evelyn 122, 144 Ameer, Sued Naheer 132 American Civil War 15, 21 American dream 22–5, 73, 92, 96, 100, 130–1, 210 American Revolution 14–15, 20, 98, 126, 182 Americanness: American values 14, 17, 36–7, 178; diversity 17, 35–6, 108; equality 157, 166; fearfulness 47–50; freedom 32–3, 35, 76–80, 93, 96–7, 156, 166; independence 83–5; loyalty 30; patriotism 33–4; racism 40–1, 167; selfishness 84–5, 96; whiteness 24–5 Amirahmadi, Hooshang 181 Anderson, Benedict 99 anti-American feelings 16, 31, 183, 185 Arjana, Sophia Rose 127 Asad, Talal 67–8 Ashcroft, John 43 assimilation 27, 66, 91–2, 99–100, 102, 106–7, 121–2, 158–9 Atta, Mohammed 132–3 Australia 47, 101, 121, 176 Awad, Nihad 181–2

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226

Index

Bachmann, Michele 173–4 Bagby, Ihsan 16 Bakr, Abu 157 Bangladesh 3, 9, 26, 57, 67, 69, 89 Bangladeshi Americans 26, 32, 42, 47, 70–1, 73–4, 76–7, 83–4, 87–9, 102 Bechhofer, Frank 26 Beck, Glenn 141, 146 Bellamy, Francis 33 biculturalism 105–8, 113, 207, 213–14 Bihi, Abdirizak 162 bin Laden, Osama 49, 140, 145 bioterrorism 145 Bisogno, Vincent T. 208 Bledsoe, Carlos 161–2 Bledsoe, Melvin 162 Bloomberg, Michael 134, 137, 179–81 Bohnsack, Ralf 8 Boston Marathon bombing 165 Bowman, Cara 28 Britain 47, 69–70, 99, 101, 121, 210 Brooks, Risa 147 Browne, Paul 180 Burke, Peter J. 27 Burkhalter, Mark 158–9 Bush, George W. 31, 177, 182–6

Canada 20, 40, 100 Carson, Ben 176–7 cartoons 9, 47, 120–1, 137, 139, 175–6, 185; cartoons reproduced in this book 21, 43–4, 46, 125, 133, 144, 160, 170–1, 176, 179, 192 Center for American Progress 167–8 Charlie Hebdo attack 147 Chaudry, Mohammad Ali 209 Cheney, Dick 177 Chomsky, Noam 190–1 Chuang, Angie 129–30 Churchill, Buntzie 169 citizenship 1, 4, 90–1 civil rights movement 15, 44 clash of civilisations 3–5, 177, 205 Clinton, Hillary 99, 173–4, 176–7, 211 Cold War 1, 3 collectivism 72, 75, 83–4, 86 Collins, Jock 121 colonisation 4, 15, 19, 25 communism 2–3, 16, 33, 142, 155, 195

compact of Medina 4 constructivism 6 content analysis 7–8 Council on American–Islamic Relations 146, 161–2, 164–5, 172, 182, 184, 207–8 Creutz-Kamppi, Karin 120–1 critical discourse analysis 7–8 critical race theory 25 Crotty, Michael 7 Cullen, Jim 22 culture 67, 99, 104–5; American 17, 72–3, 77–9, 81–2, 86–7, 92, 109–10; biculturalism 105–8, 113, 207, 213–14; cultural expectations and restrictions 66, 74–81, 88–9, 103–4; ethnic 69–72; Islamic 68–70, 80–1; and the nationstate 99 dating 78–80, 95–6, 103–4 David Project 48–50 Davis, George 132 de Blasio, Bill 213 democracy 2–4, 23–4, 39, 156, 166, 183, 186 Denver Islamic Society 136 diasporas 73–5, 87–8, 100–1 Dimaggio, Anthony 126 discrimination 16, 28, 35, 41, 56, 97–8, 100, 103, 166–7, 207 drone attacks on Pakistan 129, 131–3, 140–1, 191 Doak, Robin 126 Douglas, Fiona 27

education 23–4, 34, 56–7, 72, 74, 96–8 Egypt 39, 45, 68, 90, 111 Egyptian Americans 90, 111–12, 124, 170, 180 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 33, 47 El Droubie, Riadh 68 Ellison, Keith 161–2, 173–4 Emerson, Steven 5, 49, 146, 167–8 Emmison, Michael 9 enculturation 71–2, 91, 206 Erikson, Erik 104, 129 Esposito, John L. 38, 82 ethnicity 69–71

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Farook, Syed Rizwan 175 FBI 43, 55, 181, 195, 208 Ferraro, Geraldine 99 food 45, 72, 81, 88–90, 107, 109–12, 212 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 181–2 Fort Hood shooting: see Hasan, Nidal Malik freedom of religion 32–5, 38–9, 52, 167 freedom of speech 23, 32, 57, 93, 170–1, 185–6; denied to Muslim Americans 51–2, 156, 182–3; need to exercise responsibly 148, 167, 214 Gaffney, Frank 167–8, 210 Garrod, Andrew 26, 66, 92 Gaskew, Tony 25 Geertz, Clifford 67–8 Geller, Pamela 171 Ghafoor, Asim 181 Giddis, John Lewis 191 Giffords, Gabrielle 141 Gill, Faisal 181–2 Gilroy, P. 99 Gingrich, Newt 172 globalisation 90, 99, 103–4 Greder, Kimberley A. 104–5 Gregg, Gary S. 105 Grewal, Zareena 54 Ground Zero Mosque 2, 33, 48, 142, 181 grounded theory 6–7 Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp 136, 188, 191–4 Gulf War 3 gun control 175–6, 214 Haddad, Yvonne Y. 5, 74, 79–80, 188 Haley, Nikki 194 Hall, Stuart 2, 26, 99, 120, 123, 130 Hamas 164, 169, 182 Hamdani, Mohammed Salman 162 Harper, Douglas 8 Harpham, Kevin William 161 Harris, Gene 33 Hasan, Nidal Malik 55, 125–6, 131, 135, 141, 143 hate crimes 1–2, 56, 147, 205 Hayes, Brittany 103 Headley, David 132, 141

Index

227

Healy, Joseph F. 23, 28 Helder, Luke 145 hijab 35, 40–1, 46–7, 55–7, 79, 91, 97–8, 207–8 Hispanic Americans 28, 45, 105, 177, 180 Hofstede, G. 72 Holder, Eric 134, 140 Hooper, Ibrahim 184 Horgan, John 126 Hosenball, Mark 132 hospitality 84, 212 Howard, John 176 Human Rights Watch 56, 132 Huntington, Samuel 2–4, 106, 205–6, 214 Hutaree militia 126

identity 26–8, 104; bicultural 105–8, 113, 207, 213–14; hybrid 99; national identity 26–8, 99; social identity theory 27–8, 36, 122 immigration 1, 15–16, 19–20, 25–6, 66, 159; anti-immigrant laws 45; illegal immigrants 45, 52; second-generation 71–7, 102–3 India 4, 184 Indian Americans 85, 87, 109 individualism 57–8, 66, 72, 74, 90, 95, 97 insider and outsider researchers 9 Institute for Homeland Security Solutions 147, 158 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 174 Iran 4, 31, 139, 146, 183, 210 Iraq 3, 127, 187–8 Iraq War 56, 124, 131, 136, 184, 186–7, 191, 195 Islam: care and charity 82–7, 212–13; and equality 58, 157; equated with terrorism 2, 56–7, 99–100, 127, 129–37, 145–7, 163–5, 208–9; five pillars 68; folk Islam 68–9, 112–13; militancy 3, 100–1, 135; treatment of women 57, 79–80, 82, 97; seen as incompatible with democracy 2–4; values 38–9, 82–7 Islamic culture 68–70, 80–1 Islamic Society of Basking Ridge 208–9 Islamic Society of Boston 48–50, 138 Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) 1, 113, 174–5, 210, 213

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228

Index

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week 168–9 Islamophobia 5, 40–2, 55–7, 100, 161, 167–9, 177, 205, 207–8, 213; in Australia 47; in Europe 46–7; rise after 9/11 1, 14, 17; from members of parliament and political candidates 158–63, 172–4, 177; see also discrimination; media Israel 5, 8, 35, 39, 48–9, 159, 164, 188 Israeli–Palestinian conflict 8, 31, 35, 156, 165–6, 189–91, 195 Ivins, Bruce 145 Jaber, Ahmed 181 Jackson, Duane M. 128, 138–40 Jacobs, Charles 49–50 Jasser, Zuhdi 162 Jefferson, Thomas 1, 32–3, 39, 178, 191 Jenkins, Richard 27–8 Jilani, Zaid 128–9 Johnson, Lyndon 44 Jones, Jason B. 205 Jones, Terry 31, 169–71 Juang, Linda 71–2 Karzai, Hamid 170 Kemmelmeier, Markus 72 Kennedy, John F. 44 Kennedy, Robert 44 Khan, Muqtedar 4 Khan, Shamsul 82–3 Khomeini, Ayatollah 121 Khori, Rami G. 190 Kibria, Nazli 28, 73, 102 Kiely, Richard F. 26 Kilkenny, Robert 26, 66, 92 King Jr, Martin Luther 29–30, 44, 126 King, Peter 160–4, 193 Kitayama, Shinobu 72 Kundnani, Arun 214 Kurdish Americans 27 Kurzman, Charles 5 Lacorne, Denis 35 Lawal, Amina 122 Lieberman, Donna 180 Limbaugh, Rush 146 Lindh, John Walker 143–4 Loughner, Jared Lee 141–4, 146

Lewis, Bernard 2–3, 163, 169, 205, 214 Locke, John 32 Lowry, Rich 142 Lykes, Valerie A. 72

McCain, John 173 McCarthy, Andrew C. 173–4 McCarthy era 1, 155, 174, 177–8, 183 McCarthy, Joseph 155, 163, 174, 195 McCrone, David 26 Machin, David 8 McVeigh, Timothy 168 Madison, James 159 Malcolm X 16 Malik, Tashfeen 175 Markus, Hazel Rose 72 marriage 79–80, 96–7 Martin, Lance 159 Martín-Muñoz, Gema 40 Matsumoto, David 71–2 Mayr, Andrea 8 Mazuri, Ali 42 media: bias 7–8, 121–7, 143–8; in Australia 121; in Europe 120–1; reporting on Faisal Shahzad 127–41; reporting on Jared Lee Loughner 141–4; reporting on Muslim issues 48–50, 119–23, 142 Mehanna, Tareq 124 Mehsud, Hakimullah 140 Melucci, A. 105–6 Menino, Tom 49–50 methodology 6–9 Mir, Shabana 66, 79 modesty 81, 85–6, 103 Modood, Tariq 40, 69–70, 121 Mogahed, Dalia 38, 82 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh 193 Moqbel, Samir Naji al Hasan 194 Morey, Peter 121–2 Moses 39 mosque building, resistance to 2, 47–50, 208–9 mothers 73–4, 82, 87, 90, 96–7, 102; see also parenting Muhammad, Elijah 29 Muhammad, Prophet 4, 82, 140, 170 music 73–4, 77, 110–12 Muslim Brotherhood 165, 173–4, 211

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Muslim Students Association 54 Muslims in the United States: discrimination against 16, 28, 35, 41, 56, 97–8, 100, 103, 166–7, 207; diversity of 58, 206; government efforts to include 5, 213; history 16, 47; marginalisation 100–102; see also Islamophobia; Afghani Americans; Bangladeshi Americans; Egyptian Americans; Pakistani Americans Naber, Nadine 43, 97–8 narrative analysis 6 Naseef, Abdullah Omar 174 Nation of Islam 29 national anthem 34 Native Americans 15, 19–21, 23, 25–6 New York Civil Liberties Union 179–80 Niass, Alioune 127–9, 137, 139–40 Noble, Greg 121

Obama, Barack 35, 128, 140, 166, 170, 172–3, 177, 188–91, 211–12; allegations Obama is a Muslim 2, 137, 146, 165, 168, 210; calling for inclusion 1, 33, 169; on Guantanamo Bay 191–4; on gun control 175–6, 214; O’Leary, Megan 28 O’Reilly, Bill 123 O’Reilly Jr, Jack 170 Orientalism 2, 4, 80, 129–30 Orton, Lance 128, 138–9

Padilla, Jose 143–4 Page, Wade Michael 174 Pakistan 3, 9, 31, 67, 108, 131–5, 137, 139–41, 144, 184, 194; see also drone attacks Pakistani Americans 30, 74, 79, 107–8, 184, 209; see also Shahzad, Faisal Pakistani Britons 69–70, 101, 184 Palestinian Americans 51, 107, 141 Palin, Sarah 99, 142 parenting 73–9, 87–90, 102–5 Paris terror attack 175, 208 participants: characteristics 9–10; recruitment 7 Peretz, Martin 5

Index

229

Pew Research Center 16, 54–5, 102, 165, 167–8 Pilkington, Andrew 99, 104 Pipes, Daniel 167–9, 210 Pledge of Allegiance 33–5 Policastro, James 48–9 Pompeo, Mike 165 Poole, Elizabeth 121 Powell, Kimberley 144–5 Poynting, Scott 121 Press, Eyal 168 Quraishi, Shakir 92 Quran 32, 38–9, 82–4, 111, 178; burning of 31, 169–70 Rabbani, Ahmed 194 race and racism 23–5, 28–9, 40–2, 81, 184; cultural racism 40, 99 racial profiling 41–4, 179–81 Raday, Frances 67 radicalisation 54–5, 100–1, 124, 130, 133–7, 139, 160–3, 207 Rahman, Shafiqur 69, 87 Rahnema, Saeed 100 Rall, Ted 185 Ramadan, Tariq 68 recruitment of participants 7 Remy, Gemima M. 29 Richardson, John E. 7 Rodrigues, Jason 125–6 Roeder, Scott 126 Roemer, Robin Chin 129–30 Romney, Mitt 14, 23–4, 96, 172–3 Rose, Gillian 8 Ross, Marc 67 Roy, William G. 25 Rumsfeld, Donald 187–8 Rushdie, Salman 121

Saeed, Agha 181 Saghaye-Biria, Hakimeh 161 Said, Edward 4–5, 166 Samuel, Lawrence W. 22 San Bernardino shooting 175, 177 Sanchez, Lawrence 180 Sandy Hook Primary School massacre 214 Santorum, Rick 172 Saudi Arabia 3, 31, 57, 68, 110, 209–10

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230

Index

Savage, Mike 146 Saylor, Corey 172 Sayyid, S. 41 Schwartz, Seth J. 106 Selod, Saher 98 September 11, 2001, 14, 17, 45–6, 132–3, 142, 163, 182–5, 205 sexual diversity 92–3 Shahzad, Faisal 8, 127–41 shariah law 57, 167, 170, 172 Sherif, Bahira 74 Sherif-Trask, Bahira 90 Siddiqui, Mona 84 Sikhs 2, 40 Skerry, Peter 73 slavery 10, 15–16, 22, 29 Smith, Jane I. 41 Smith, Philip D. 9 Snowden, Edward 181 Somali Americans 55, 100–1, 113, 129, 162 Somalia 55, 100–1, 162 Spellberg, Denise A. 32–3 Spencer, Robert 167 sport 73, 79, 82, 109, 111–12 Sriram, Shyam 159 Stemple, Lara 188 Stets, Jan E. 27 Stewart, Robert 26 ‘stop-and-frisk’ programme 179–81 Sunnis and Shi‘ites 10, 36, 68, 209–10 Swain, Elizabeth 9

Tabar, Paul 121 Tajfel, H. 27–8, 36 Tea Party 35, 126, 142 Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan 131–2, 140–1 terrorism 2, 4–5, 131–3, 135–7, 140–1, 163–5, 174–5, 182; homegrown terrorism in the US 124–41, 143–7, 158, 163, 165, 175; see also Islam: equated with terrorism Thomas, Even 132 Thomas, Martha Carey 98 Thompson, Bennie 162 Times Square bombing attempt: see Shahzad, Faisal Trump, Donald 1, 177 Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar 165, 214

Tsarnaev, Tamerlan 165, 214 Turner, J. 28

‘un-American’: cultural restrictions 74–81, 88–9; discrimination and stereotyping 20, 55–6, 145–6, 159, 177–8, 195; disloyalty 30, 54, 183, 189; foreign policy 186, 189–91, 194; history 1; human rights abuses 187–8; inequality 29; law breaking 30, 53; media 7–8, 119, 123, 148; selfishness 30, 112, 166; term of convenience 20–2, 186 underwear bomber: see Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk unemployment 75, 100, 102 Unger, Donald 75 Unger, Jennifer B. 106 United States: culture 17, 72–3, 77–8, 81–2, 86–7, 92; history 14–16, 19–20, 38–9, 98, 126 United States Constitution 14, 32, 38 USA Patriot Act 41, 177, 179, 184–5 Van Driel, Barry 40 Vietnam War 54, 210 visual sociology 8–9 Voll, John 16–17 voting 98

Wahhaj, Siraj 142 Walid, Dawud 45 War on Terror 1, 3, 43, 183, 188 Weiner, Anthony 173 Werbner, Pnina 101 Wiles, Mike 33–4 Winfrey, Oprah 122–3 Wolf, Frank 162 women: modesty 42, 86; status in American history and society 86, 98–9, 122; status in Islam 57, 79–80, 82, 86, 97, 169; visibly Muslim 46, 66, 97–8, 207–8; see also dating; hijab; mothers Yaqin, Amina 121–2 Yee, James Yusuf 191–3 Yerushalmi, David 167 Young, Nathan 8 Zimmermann, Kim 72

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Plate 1 A Bangladeshi family in New York during Eid celebrations, 2015. All are dressed colourfully, and two girls have henna on their hands. Reproduced with kind permission from Saima A. Khan.

Plate 2 Henna on a woman’s hands before Eid celebration. Reproduced with kind permission from an Anonymous contributor.

Plate 3 ‘A Palestinian’s dream of a homeland’. Reproduced with kind permission from the artist Sakhawat Kabir.

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