Addressing a group of Pakistani journalists last week, American religious scholar Imam Yahya Hendi presented a utopic vision of a world where “people would celebrate the differences amongst one another” and societies would flourish on pluralist sentiments.
The evening, planned as a dialogue between the journalists and the imam, who is the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, was largely meant to focus on Islam in America. However, Hendi appeared insistent on discussing, indeed sermonising about, the “universal need for religious pluralism and tolerance,” which although compelling, hardly elaborates on the challenges that Muslim individuals and communities currently face in the United States and in several other parts of the world.
While Hendi did, in passing, acknowledge that Muslims were targeted in “many ways” after 9/11, he seemed disinclined, if not downright unwilling, to discuss the increasingly significant political dimension of the whole Muslim issue in the United States and the West at large. His reluctance to delve into the political crux of the matter subtly affirmed just how closely linked politics and Islam in America have now become.
“America may not be perfect, but Muslims need to start taking responsibility for their actions,” Hendi says, adding how Muslims should go the extra mile and better integrate into the societies that they are choosing to live in. But while for years debate has raged in North America over how Muslim communities there should ‘do more,’ what precisely entails that extra mile is hardly explained.
The America Hendi discusses is one where Muslims are gradually empowering themselves and where religious identity is ceasing to be an issue. However, that doesn’t quite ring true for many. After all, why else would Republican Andy Martin’s statement regarding Barack Obama’s supposedly “secret Muslim” identity and other similar rumours circulated by the Birther movement have been perceived as damaging to the presidential campaign and thus drawn vehement denials.
Similarly, in the wake of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, mosques in a religiously “tolerant” United States would not have had to worry enough to “step up security” for fear of “misguided anger” simply because the shooter happened to have a Muslim name and, as witnesses alleged, invoked Allah before opening fire.
The problems faced by Muslims in America are now familiar enough to be dealt with by the popular imagination. Authors and filmmakers, for example, do not flinch from discussing the causes and effects of the complex reality of religious identity in the current global context. Films such as “Rendition” and “My name is Khan” and novels such as H.M. Naqvi’s “Home Boy” have explicated on the subject perceptively enough to illustrate the anxiety of being the other.
Despite incidents that confirm the existence of religious and racial-religious profiling with respect to Muslims in the US and the very political character of what has caused the problem to escalate, Hendi’s vague, diplomatic responses to questions on the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq were at best restrained. And although he clearly stated that the Israelis and the Palestinians should negotiate for peace on an “equal footing,” he remained silent on the fact that the state of Israel remains one of the US’s largest arms importers.
While Hendi’s reiterated message of pluralism and diversity is certainly positive and of utmost importance in an increasingly radicalised world, it was what the imam didn’t say that ironically seemed more significant. Eventually, the only way forward to guarantee the rights, security, and personal freedom of Muslims in America is by discussing the details and proposing effective, workable solutions, rather than being apologetic and underplaying the issue.
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