Newsweek: Now Fully Dhimmified

The July 30th issue of Newsweek contains this special report: American Dreamers-Muslim Americans are one of this country’s greatest strengths. But they’re vulnerable as never before.

The article does not explain the conclusion of the authors that that Muslims are one of the United States’ “greatest strenghths,” but it does go on for 32 paragraphs detailing the plight of American Muslims - according to American Muslims.

A Muslim-American interviewee is quoted as feeling like his faith is “under attack,” since 9/11/01, and others are quoted throughout the piece as being fearful of flying and allowing their children to attend school with non-Muslims.

What experiences since 09/11/01 have caused some Muslims in America to feel fearful on behalf of themselves and their children? Well, according to Newsweek, the United States has “alleged” that there have been several terror plots uncovered. Muslim women who had not worn their veils prior to 9/11 suddenly feel the need to do so after 9/11. The Council on American-Islamic Relations had an increase in 2006 (five years after 9/11) in civil suits for things like women wanting to wear hijabs in drivers licence photos, and Imams being pulled off of planes after behaving in a manner that made fellow passengers uncomfortable.

Newsweek explains (emphasis mine): “Across the country, second- and third-generation Muslims are visibly grappling with how to be Muslim and American at once, then later repeats, “For younger Muslims the attention of the world means they have to grapple in a very conscious way with what they call their hyphenated identity.”

So, there clearly is a dichtomy between Islam and Americanism, or why would there be a need to “grapple?” Well, according to this Newsweek special report, there is the danger of influence by Muslims in other countries, and radical Imams in the United States, however, “The deeper problem is a growing sense of alienation among young Muslims, a sense that they don’t feel part of the American story.”

This alienation, according to Newsweek, is the result of public discrimination in the form racist attitudes in the schools. It details the experience of two American-Muslim teens, one who was on a soccer team that was disqualified for bad behavior in reaction to racist comments from fans, and one whose parents pulled him out of school because of a racist environment and the danger that he might lose his “spirituality,” then Newsweek concludes, “Losing [These two American-Muslim young men] would be the worst thing in the world—not just for them, but for all of us.”

Since Newsweek was reporting on the opinions of their interviewees when they called public aversion to Islam “racism,” (technically, this would be “bigotry,”) I won’t make an issue over semantics, but I do take issue with the notion that the hardships experienced by Muslim-American young people are caused by the attitudes of the American people. The hardships are brought on them by the seperatism within their own religion and culture, also clearly described in this article.

It seems to me that President Bush, who was also quoted in this article, did a very good job of summing up the situation of the Muslim-American immigrants and their families. When asked by an American-Muslim immigrant what he should “tell his friends and relatives in Pakistan about why he continues to live in the United States”.

President Bush answered, “I’m confident your answer is, ‘I love living in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, the country where you can come and ask the president a question and a country where’…you can worship your religion freely. It’s a great country where you can do that.”

Updated 07/23/07, 9:25pm