WESTERN
MUSLIMS ARE DYING TO FIT IN By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry*
March 17,
2005
I am
very worried about the future of my Muslim brothers and sisters in Western
countries.
Why do I
feel this way?
It is because I see an increasing and
alarming pattern in news reports that point to a very dangerous phenomenon
� the crisis of a people who are literally dying to "fit in." The
inevitable end result of such behavior is usually a loss of identity,
self-respect and � you guessed it � losing the respect of others. Worse
still, those who are dying to fit in will remain marginalized.
We are all too familiar with the
plight of youth from who are dying to fit in at their schools. Those who
are openly rejected by various "in" groups because of skin color, race,
physical features, size, religion, gender, drug/alcohol/sexual abstinence,
or even high academic achievement, pay an even higher price when they try
to fit in.
The situation of Western Muslim
minorities is not so different from that of ostracized students dying to
fit in with their prevailing peer culture. For example, an American Muslim
woman announces that tomorrow she will lead congregational Friday prayers
before an audience of TV cameras and reporters.
But is prayer leading -- admittedly
an exception to 1400 years of Islamic tradition -- really the highest
priority for an American Muslim woman? Since Islam does not have a
hierarchical Church, mandated to approve or disapprove such a change in
practice, every Muslim can do what he / she thinks it is right.
So why the wide publicity? It is
because the woman and her supporters are dying to fit in with Western
ideas of "progress," ideas which assume that her not taking a prayer
leading role would somehow be discriminatory.
Growing instances of Muslims dying to
fit in, and losing so much in the effort, are deeply connected to ways in
which North American Muslims have been steadily losing their civil
liberties since 9/11.
In fact, they are replacing Blacks as
the ethno-cultural group most targeted by racial profiling through police
and other civil authorities; and sadly, they are replacing Jews as the
group most singled out by hate-crime perpetrators. In today's sad reality,
not a single place of worship in Canada or the U.S is spied on
more than mosques.
And so, as my people are losing their
basic rights to worship in peace and safety at mosques across America, one of my sisters in
the faith feels she must promote her desire to lead prayers in front of
the cameras. It is sad for her, and sad for us, because she is dying to
fit in.
In another example, a Canada Muslim
Liberal senator has called for the legalization of prostitution. Why,
brother, is this such an important issue for you? What about child
poverty, homelessness, security certificate detentions, the injustices of
our anti-terrorism law, etc. etc.? Are all these issues less
important?
Recently, the Canadian branch of an
American Islamic organization sent condolences to families of the four
RCMP officers murdered by a deranged Alberta gunman. It would seem logical
and sensitive to do this: after all, Canadian police officers are our sons
and daughters too, as well as our neighbors and friends. We Canadian
Muslims are not foreign to them.
But was there something less benign
about an American-based Muslim group sending out condolences on
this sad occasion? Was it also a desperate public relations
move, trying to show that we Muslims are not terrorists, or terrorist
sympathizers, and that we care about the welfare of this
country's law-enforcement
professionals? This should go without saying, brothers and sisters; to
overstate such concerns is another submission to the syndrome of dying to
fit in.
Now before you jump to the conclusion
that I have cast doubt on an _expression_ of genuine sympathy, this same
American Muslim NGO has never called on Washington to bring American troops home from
Iraq. Is it
also dying to fit in?
And I wonder why not a single
American Muslim organization -- including the one I've just referred to -- ever speaks out to
assert that it is against Islamic values to leave millions of Americans
without adequate health care, or that the gap between rich and poor
continues to widen, or that the U.S. carries a higher public debt than any
other nation on this planet. And I keep wondering; is this the cost
we are really paying for dying to fit in?.
During the recent public debate
in Ontario on whether to use Islamic
(Sharia) law in family arbitration cases, a number of Canadian Muslims
expressed shame over the word Sharia, others defended the usage of the
word but felt it had significant shortcomings, and others rejected it
totally. Are these people also caught up in the phenomenon of dying to fit
in and thereby losing some basic principles of faith?
In another unsettling
development, some Muslim women in Canada recently organized a
beauty pageant. To justify her participation, one of the young
participants
said she wants to show �we�re not terrorists,
we don�t bomb people.� What else is she showing about wanting so badly to
fit in?
Last week, Spanish Muslim leaders issued a
fatwa (religious ruling) declaring Osama bin Laden an infidel.
Hello?? Almost full four years after 9/11? This all-but-redundant fatwa
says much more about their desire for social approval that it could ever
say, at this late date, about condemning extremism!
Yes, brothers and sisters, I�d like to fit in
too. But how?
The sensitivity of North American
Muslims to all forms of discrimination has seen a manifold increase
since 9/11, especially among our youth. Simply put, the ideal of a
just society has completely vanished from their consciousness.
Having to feel and act as a
�foreign minority� greatly reduce the effectiveness of Canadian Muslims in
addressing the key social and political issues of this country. Above all,
it seriously hinders both social and political integration. It is
only when the religious self-identification of a minority is based on
positive individual and collective values that any minority can
survive within a dominant culture, especially that of the Western
world.
Instead of dying to fit in, Canadian Muslims can
contribute tremendously to our multicultural society by speaking out
against discrimination and deprivation wherever they occur -- among our
First Nations people, refugees, the poor, the needy, children, the sick
and the elderly.
In fact, Canadian Muslims who feel �foreign�
because of their religion are significantly less active in the social
and political life of this country and feel less politically
effective than those who do not feel socially and psychologically
subordinate.
The source of political effectiveness for
Muslims living in Western liberal democracies is not to act foreign, nor
does it lie in dying to fit in. Being whole people, being who we are
without shame, intimidation, or inferiority, is the only positive way out
of the mental ghetto created from our misplaced attitudes of
religion-based subordination.
Let us
reject dying to fit in ... and instead live to contribute.
* Dr.
Mohamed Elmasry, a professor of computer engineering at the University of
Waterloo, is national
president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
