The purpose of this essay is to discuss the BBC documentary about American Muslims who are living in the United States of America. What are the challenges that they are facing? How did things change after the 9/11 act of terror? The documentary included interviews with multiple individuals from the Muslim society in different states, each one of them had his own experience to share. We are going to demonstrate those views and discuss them in details.
The documentary starts with illustrating the amount of hatred by the right wing supporters and their politicians who were rallying against a Muslim family in the Orange County. This case demonstrates one of the most significant issues in the United States; the rise of Islamophobia right after the 9/11 attacks. According to a media analyst that was interviewed too the mainstream media, especially the ones that are related to the right wing is always executing a propaganda against the Islamic community in the US. They do mix between Islam and Terrorism and you can clearly see it on the TV shows, the Radios and even the highest selling books. Moreover, you can easily spot some of the congressmen talking about the home growing Islamic extremism that is usually based in mosques. Even though there might be some truth behind those accusations, as we saw later on in the documentary regarding the mosque hatred speech, after conducting an interview with an Imam, yet it is not the general case and certainly doesn’t impose a national security threat to the US.
The reporters in the documentary highlighted a very important fact too; different level of tolerance is available in different cities, sometimes even in the same state and it isn`t related to the demographic factors such as the Islamic population; taking Dearborn city for example that has 35% of its populations as Muslims as well as having 11 mosques, this city is considered to be having a very low tolerance towards Muslims. In an incident where Muslims demonstared against the US foreign policy affairs, accusing the government of being biased to Israel, many non-muslim Americans stated that this matter is a clear statement that there is a conflict between being an American and a Muslim at the same time. On the other hand, a US marine soldier with Syrian origins, participated in the War on Terror in Iraq that he was serving his country as a US soldier, regardless the consequences of this intervention later on in the Middle East area. Generally speaking, cities like New York that is used to host citizens with multiple origins have a higher tolerance compared to others. Surprisingly, some of the rural towns have this feature too, where work, family and religion play a major role in the community of small towns, yet some of them are welcoming the Muslim communities. Some of the American Muslims converted from being a Republican to a Democrat after the dehumanizing attitude that was initiated by the Republicans against the American Muslims after 9/11. The American Muslims are also learning to lobby in order to affect the US politics the same way the Jewish community do which is considered to be a very impressive step towards being enrolled in the political life. Actually, a Muslim Congressman in Washington, DC, Keith Ellison was able to make it to the Capitol. An American Islamic School was founded in Dallas too, in order to teach American Muslims the Islam from an American point of view according to the principle and to create future Islamic scholars a leader.
In conclusion, for some American Muslims the situation after 9/11 became harder than it was before, yet not all of the states suffer from Islamophobia and American Muslims have proved that they are actually a part of the American community who serve and participate in building the country.
Works Cited
American Muslim: Freedom, Faith & Fear. Darius Bazargan. BBC. Telivision.
