US not bothered about own Muslim population
2/21/2006 7
Source ::: The Peninsula/ by MOBIN PANDIT

Doha: Waging a campaign for democracy and freedom in the Islamic world, the US seems little concerned about its own Muslim population.

There are an estimated seven million Muslims in the US and constitute a diverse society with barely one-fourth of them being Arabs.

The issue of American Muslims being ignored by the US media and administration came to the fore at the US-Islamic World Forum here yesterday when a member of the audience, a Muslim from Los Angeles, raised it.

"The American Muslim community has a strong sense of identity and also has a great legacy of Islam, but the media and the government are ignoring them," lamented the member.

There is the need to help the community present its perspective. "Ironically, we have to travel thousands of miles (away from home) to meet them (US media and officials)," he said, referring to conventions like the US-Islamic forum held here.

Peter Singer, moderator at the concluding session, was, perhaps, not expecting the question, as was evident from his reflexes, and gestured towards Shibley Telhami, from USA's Maryland University who was sharing the dais with him.

"Muslim Americans don't have a hearing," confessed Telhami and went on giving explanations as to how the community is as diverse as the American society itself.

"American Arabs are more organised," he said, without mentioning that there is a fair percentage of Christians as well among American Arabs, something native Americans find hard to understand or differentiate.

"It's indeed a policy and diplomatic failure. It is also a failure on the part of the American Muslim community," he said responding to the question of US Muslims being ignored by their own state and media. There are barely half a dozen officials in the US state department who know Arabic, he said.

Another member of the audience, a Muslim from the UK, reminded the panellists that more Muslims lived outside the Arab world and in countries where they are in minority and their perception of the US and Muslim issues were as good or worse as Arab Muslims. But the US has never paid attention to these Muslims, particularly those living in non-Muslim countries as minorities, he said.