America and Islam

BOSTON -- Americans tend to obsess about certain issues, when the national imagination is either sparked or confounded, and in recent years that issue seems to be Islam and Muslims. The strengths and weaknesses of this American focus on Islam was captured in several events in the past few weeks, including: President Barack Obama appointed a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference; the Chicago Council on Global Affairs issued the results of a two-year-long study on the role of religion in American foreign policy; and the latest poll on religious perceptions in America by the respected Gallup Poll/Muslim West Facts Project was released.

The best and worst in American attitudes towards things religious and international were clearly visible. The negatives on display include: how serious the engrained negative perceptions and ignorance of Islam and Muslims are among the American population; how simplistic and blind the government can be when addressing the interplay between religion and foreign policy; and, how persistently resistant the American political and cultural elite are to acknowledging that US foreign policy -- and actions by its ally Israel and friendly Arab and Asian autocrats -- play a major role in triggering defiant and often violent responses from Arabs and Asians, who often have no means other than religion to express themselves.

The positives are that all quarters of American society continue to study and explore the tensions between many Americans and Muslim-majority countries; and, the government continues to make sincere efforts that it believes will make a difference in improving relations with ordinary Muslims and Arabs, regardless of whether this objective is actually achieved or not.

The extent of the stressed relations was captured by the Gallup report entitled "Religious Perceptions in America -- with an in-depth analysis of US attitudes towards Muslims and Islam," based on a nationwide poll. It revealed that a slight majority of Americans say their view of Islam is "not too favorable" or "not favorable at all" (much more negative than Americans' views of Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity, with respondents more than twice as likely to express negative views of Islam than of the other three faiths). A large majority of Americans (63 percent) say they have very little or no knowledge at all of Islam. A higher percentage is ignorant of Buddhism -- but the negative feelings towards Muslims are not matched by similar perceptions of Buddhists.

Most intriguing to me was the study's revelation that Americans view Islam more negatively than they view Muslims - because this almost exactly mirrors the situation in the Arab world where many people are critical of the United States and its foreign policy, but interact happily with individual Americans.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs study argued that religion's "opportunities and challenges" should be factored into US foreign policy-making, and that President Obama's speech to the Islamic world in Cairo last June needs to be followed up with practical steps that acknowledge the major role that religion plays in societies throughout the world. The study usefully points out "six principal patterns that reflect religion's increasing importance in international affairs," including the impact on politics, resistance of globalization, and filling gaps in government services or legitimacy.

Yet the study is significantly weakened by one glaring omission: It does not sufficiently or clearly acknowledge that people in the developing world often turn to, and politicize or even militarize, their religions as a desperate last resort for change that they cannot achieve through secular institutions of governance. It does not trace how and why religion has emerged as a major force in recent decades (as it also has in the United States).

The Chicago report is an important sign of how sensible Americans continue to seek a more complete understanding of the world they live in, and try to forge better policies to navigate that world. But the process reflects the weaknesses in American government policies as a whole, in that it exaggerates the role of religion as a distinct independent actor or force, and does not factor into the resurgence of religiosity the stimulus provided by American policies in the Arab-Asian region (and Israeli policies in the Middle East).

So it is similarly heart-warming to see President Obama name the young Rashad Hussain as US special envoy to the Islamic states, because this confirms the president cares about improving that relationship. The prospects of real change through such moves, however, are zero, if US policy in the Arab-Asian region remains the same.

Religion matters and is worth studying, but far more important for promoting normal and friendly ties between Americans and the citizens of Muslim-majority countries would be an assessment of the nature and impact of US and Israeli policies in those areas, as well as the policies of autocratic Arab-Asian regimes. Policy, not faith, is the issue and the problem.