More than half of Muslim Americans in a new poll say government anti-terrorism policies single them out for increased surveillance and monitoring, and many report increased cases of name-calling, threats and harassment by airport security, law enforcement officers and others.
Still, most Muslim Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the US and rate their communities highly as places to live.
The survey by the Pew Research Center, one of the most exhaustive ever of the country’s Muslims, finds no signs of rising alienation or anger among -Muslim-Americans despite recent US government concerns about homegrown Islamic terrorism and controversy about the building of mosques.
WELL INTEGRATED
“This confirms what we’ve said all along: American Muslims are well integrated and happy, but with a kind of lingering sense of being besieged by growing anti-Muslim sentiment in our society,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil rights group.
“People contact us every day about concerns they’ve had, particularly with law enforcement authorities in this post-9/11 era,” he said.
In all, 52 percent of Muslim Americans surveyed said their group is singled out by government for terrorist surveillance. Almost as many — 43 percent — reported they had personally experienced harassment in the past year, according to the poll released on Tuesday.
That 43 percent share of people reporting harassment is up from 40 percent in 2007, the first time Pew polled Muslim Americans.
Asked to identify in what ways they felt bias, about 28 percent said they had been treated or viewed with suspicion by people, while 22 percent said they were called offensive names. About 21 percent said they were singled out by airport security because they were Muslim, while another 13 percent said they were targeted by other law enforcement officials. About 6 percent said they had been physically threatened or attacked.
On the other hand, the share of Muslim Americans who view US anti-terror policies as “sincere” efforts to reduce international terrorism now surpasses those who view them as insincere — 43 percent to 41 percent. Four years ago, during former US president George W. Bush’s administration, far more viewed US anti-terrorism efforts as insincere than sincere — 55 percent to 26 percent.
The vast majority of Muslim Americans — 79 percent — rate their communities as either “excellent” or “good” places to live, even among many who reported an act of vandalism against a mosque or a controversy about the building of an Islamic center in their neighborhoods.
They also are now more likely to say they are satisfied with the current direction of the country — 56 percent, up from 38 percent in 2007. That is in contrast to the general US public, whose satisfaction has dropped from 32 percent to 23 percent.
Andrew Kohut, Pew president, said in an interview that Muslim Americans’ overall level of satisfaction was striking.
“I was concerned about a bigger sense of alienation, but there was not,” Kohut said, contrasting the US to many places in Europe where Muslims have become more separatist. “You don’t see any indication of brewing negativity. When you look at their attitudes, these are still middle-class, mainstream people who want to be loyal to America.”
HOMEGROWN
The latest numbers come amid increased US attention on the risks of homegrown terrorism after the London transit bombings in 2005. The problem has been especially pressing for US President Barack Obama, with US federal investigators citing a greater risk of attacks by a “lone wolf” or small homegrown cells following the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and the Times Square bombing attempt last year.
Such terror warnings have stirred raw emotions as the US struggles to talk about religion in the context of terrorism.
Tensions erupted last summer about plans to build a Muslim community center near the Ground Zero site in New York City after critics assailed it as an insult to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. US Representative Peter King, a Republican, held hearings in the US House of Representatives earlier this year to examine whether American Muslims are becoming “radicalized” to attack the US, saying that US Muslims are doing too little to fight terror.
The Associated Press reported last week that with CIA guidance, the New York Police Department dispatched undercover officers into minority neighborhoods, scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims.
NOTHING TO HIDE
It is now common in US mosques for Muslims to preface public remarks by saying that they know the government is eavesdropping, but Muslims have nothing to hide.
Mostly foreign-born immigrants, Muslim Americans are significantly younger, more likely to be male and more racially diverse than the public as a whole. They express a broad willingness to adopt US customs and are just as likely as the rest of Americans to hold a college degree.
For example:
‧ When asked to choose, nearly half of Muslims in the US say they think of themselves first as Muslim, rather than as American. Roughly 60 percent say that most Muslims come to the US to adopt the US way of life and see no conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.
‧ Foreign-born Muslims in the US come from at least 77 different countries, led by Pakistan, Iran, the Palestinian territories, Bangladesh, Yemen, Jordan and Iraq. About 70 percent of foreign-born Muslims report they are now naturalized US citizens, higher than the 47 percent rate for the broader immigrant population in the US.
‧ Muslim Americans are more likely than Muslims in the Middle East to say a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that Palestinian rights are addressed — 62 percent say this, compared with a range of 13 to 40 percent in other countries surveyed by Pew. That 62 percent share compares with 67 percent among the general US public who hold this view.
The Pew survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,033 Muslims in the US, conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi or Urdu from April 14 until July 22. Subjects were chosen at random, from a separate list of households including some with Muslim-sounding names and from Muslim households that had answered previous surveys.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
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