Odlichan clanak na tu temu je iz jucerasnjeg WSJ (zna li ko ko je Edina Lekovic?
):
GLOBAL VIEW
By GEORGE MELLOAN
Making Muslims Part of the Solution
March 29, 2005; Page A15
Arguably, the people with the biggest stake in combating Islamic terrorism are moderate Muslims who want to live normal lives in Western societies. The ravages of al Qaeda and the extremism of Islamic states have subjected them to special klix at border crossings and airports. U.S. authorities have rules against "profiling" but anyone charged with protecting the security of travelers will always make mental judgments.
As right-thinking people realize, the danger inherent in an accusatory approach to anyone of any race, creed or color is that the victim will conclude that the society he is a part of is treating him unfairly. That stirs resentment, alienation and, possibly, antisocial conduct, a polite term that encompasses lawbreaking. When an entire ethnic or religious group becomes alienated, trouble ensues.
Muslims are a distinct minority in the U.S., variously estimated at between three and six million adherents. There are over 30 million in Europe. Most of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world are in Africa and Asia. They fall into two main groups, Sunni and Shiite, with conflicting claims to succession from the Prophet Muhammad klix back to the seventh century. Muhammad founded Islam on monotheism, taking as his antecedents Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Thus Islam claims the same origins as Judaism and Christianity. But Muhammad made the singular claim that he was the last prophet of God's word.
Muhammad was a different kind of prophet also in the sense that he was temporal ruler as well, building his political base in Medina and then conquering the Arab city that had once rejected him, Mecca. After his death, in June 632 by traditional account, Arabs rapidly built an empire stretching from the gates of the Mediterranean to the far side of India, spreading Islam as they went. On the whole, they were tolerant of Christians and Jews in the lands they conquered, acknowledging that all three religions claimed the same origins.
Today, Muslim intolerance as manifested in al Qaeda, strict religious laws in Iran and the social strictures against women in Saudi Arabia, is regarded, in the first two instances at least, as a threat to other peoples and religions. It is this image that plagues moderate Muslims . In the U.S., they are dealing with it the way other minorities have done, by getting involved in the political process.
George W. Bush's foreign policy explicitly promises U.S. support for Muslim moderates who confront radicalism. In 2000, Muslims gave overwhelming support to Mr. Bush, in part because he, unlike Al Gore, had bothered to court them. Last year it was a different story. Spurred mainly, according to opinion polls, by the humiliation of Muslims at Abu Ghraib and by what they regarded as indifference to their sensitivities by the new Department of Homeland Security, Muslims turned against the president. A new political action group, called the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights, representing 10 Muslim organizations, called on Muslims to register a protest by voting for John Kerry.
That is in the fine tradition of minorities trying to make themselves heard in politics. But Muslims haven't stopped there. A group called the Muslim Public Affairs Council is trying to promote better relations between Muslims and law-enforcement agencies. To that end it has launched its own counterterrorism and civil-rights campaign, working with imams at mosques, Muslim community leaders, law-enforcement agencies and the media. Their credo: "It is our duty as American Muslims to protect our country and to contribute to its betterment."
The executive director of MPAC is Salam al-Marayati, a Baghdad-born former chemical engineer long engaged in Democratic politics in Los Angeles. He and two colleagues, Ahmed Younis and Edina Lekovic, dropped by the Journal's New York office last week to talk about their project. Ms. Lekovic, a Montenegrin by ancestry, is the group's spokeswoman. Mr. Younis, national director, has studied in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Cuba. He wrote a book titled "Voir Dire (Speak the Truth)," discussing the blending of American culture and Islamic values, while studying law at Washington and Lee University.
Mr. al-Marayati is relatively upbeat about the status of Muslims in the U.S., particularly in comparison to Europe. "In Europe, they tend to become 'ghettoized' because they are never really accepted," he said. In the U.S., Muslims are more easily assimilated and find it easier to work within the system.
The friction between a large Muslim immigrant population and the native peoples of Europe has become a major political problem. Muslims appear to be increasingly alienated from the societies in which they live, turning in many cases toward crime and violence. But Europe, with a declining indigenous work force, needs their labor.
Mr. al-Marayati apparently has had his moments of alienation as well, judging from a 1999 article by Daniel Pipes, a frequent critic of Islamists, that called him an extremist. But in a speech at the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism last fall, the MPAC director asserted: "We reject using Islam as an instrument of political change."
Six years of the kind of history the world has logged since 1999 can change a man. The MPAC group clearly sees it as the wisest choice for American Muslims not only to come to terms with the society of which they are a part, but to actively participate in the struggle against religious extremism. They are well aware of their vulnerability to anti-Muslim sentiments and of the opportunities the liberal U.S. political system offers them for combating that danger. A group of black activists took up Islam in the 1960s as a form of protest against the predominantly Christian American culture, and it may well have furthered their civil-rights struggle. But most American Muslims today, it seems, don't want to give cause to be regarded as outsiders.
It is also incumbent on American political leaders to respond to the better instincts of Islamic moderates. Mr. Bush has contributed with his repeated assertions that Muslims are no different from anyone else in their aspirations for political freedom. American Muslims have more reason than most to cherish and protect the freedom they have as U.S. citizens.
Svega se ovdje napisalo! 
