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Program Overview
- Hosts: Ray Suarez and Elizabeth Arnold
- Original Airdate: Jun 2008
Subway bombings in Madrid and London, riots in France, and protests over Danish cartoons defaming the Prophet Mohammed have prompted concern about how Muslim immigrants are adjusting to Europe’s liberal and secular society. Across the Atlantic, the situation seems more sanguine. A recent study released by the Pew Research Center found that Muslims in America are largely middle class and have integrated well. But the tensions in Europe have sparked fears that Islamic extremism could spread to the US.
On this edition of America Abroad, we’ll examine the friction between Muslim immigrants and European society, and compare that to the situation of Muslims in America.
Elizabeth Arnold traces the history of Muslim immigration to Europe and the difficulties in integrating into their adopted homes.
Ray Suarez looks at multiculturalism in Holland and the challenge of reconciling Islam and a Dutch identity.
Elizabeth Arnold looks at how Muslim immigrants in Chicago and the Boston area are fitting into American society.
Ray Suarez moderates a roundtable discussion comparing the experience of Muslim immigrants in the US and Europe and assessing the risk of Europe’s radicalism spreading to the US.
Guests include:
Dr. Gilles Kepel, Professor at The Institute of Political Studies in Paris and author of "Beyond Terror and Martyrdom and The War for Muslim Minds"
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Dutch Parliamentarian
Ahmed Marcouch, Mayor of Slotervaart
Farhad Golyardi, editor of the journal Eutopia
Dr. Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence at Leiden University
Dr. Han Entzinger, Professor of Migration and Integration Studies at Erasmus University
Mohammed Cheppih, Chairman of Academica Islamica and founder of Amsterdam’s Polder Mosque
Fatima Lamkharrat, a social worker at SONOR, a social service agency in Rotterdam
Dr. Peter Skerry, Professor of Political Science at Boston College
Bilal Kaleem, Executive Director of the Boston Chapter of the Muslim American Society
Dr. Eboo Patel, Founder of the Interfaith Youth Corps
Dr. Aminah McCloud, Professor of Islamic Studies at DePaul University
Dr. Shireen Hunter, Visiting Scholar at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University
Dr. Amaney Jamal, Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University
Dr. Robert Leiken, Director of the Immigration and National Security Program at The Nixon Center and author of the forthcoming book, "Europe’s Angry Muslims"
Additional Broadcasts
What People are Saying
I am an Muslim American expat living & working in Saudi Arabia. Being a regular listener of NPR Worldwide, I was fortunate to turn on my radio and catch most of the "Integrating Islam" presentation. I found the presentation on the most part very informative and hopefully useful for the U.S. listeners who are bombarded by media that present Islam in an image entirely in conflict with the basic values of American society.
I did find that the bulk of the program tended to focus on the Muslim immigrant who is challenged with maintaining his/her traditional Islamic cultural identify while navigating within the American societal landscape of business, employment and education.
I wish that more attention could have been given to the impact of Islam among American sons and daughters who have chosen to embrace the Islamic way of life, and the challenges they face even from Muslim immigrants from the historical Muslim world.
Sincerely,
Ibrahim Siddiq
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
, 2 months ago
One thing this programs is missing, and it's extremely frustrating because it is so obvious, is the comparative sizes of the European continent and the United States. All this talk of "we are a nation of immigrants" and so on, is kind of not the point. The point is that physically we are massive, and we can accommodate lots of people, whereas (population doomers and gloomers notwithstanding) Europe cannot. The impact of immigrants is felt much more immediately and strongly than here where it gets diluted pretty fast.
, about 1 month ago
Your show was of great interest and importance. Thank you for airing it. What I observed however as a practicing Muslim with no special claims to piety nor scholarly credentials, is that the side of the 'radical' element that was blamed for the spread of extremism and violence was never actually aired by the proponents of said radicalism.
I believe this omission to be of significance because it is my observation over decades of personal involvement with the Muslim community that many of the expressions of Islam such as wearing hijabs like the ladies pictured on your website, or the separation of men and women and the like, largely gain credence among the western born and educated due to more complex reasons than some ideology being forced upon them from outside. I agree with one of the panelists that extremism cannot be dismissed as a phenomenon among the poor and a result of impoverishment or lack of formal education.
It is a great concern to Muslims who seek to practice Islam strictly or faithfully that they are deemed as fanatics or extremists and lumped in with Muslims with whom they greatly differ on the issue of using violence as a means of revenge or the imposition of Islamic practice upon non-Muslims or even other Muslims within the societies they live.
I am not suggesting that you lend credence to a destructive element within the Muslim community, even though that would be in line with the right to freedom of speech advocated by Dutch parliamentarians and other advocates of western democracy. Rather, the concern is that any expression of dissidence or objection to western societal trends or practices which many Muslims view as immoral as well as other aspects of Islamic practice are normally being portrayed as automatically equivalent to the destructive ideologies or at the least a door to violent radicalism.
Culturally speaking, Muslims are quite diverse and by not allowing those Muslims who practice their faith in those mosques identified as radical by some of your guests to express themselves, these experts may be guilty of imposing their own views and perspectives and I dare say prejudices and putting them forth as the position of those they find objectionable. Many distinctions are lost on Muslims, not to mention audiences who are not familiar with the practices of Islam.
Therefore, I suggest that in addition to interviewing the intellectuals, analysts and researchers or those practicing Muslims and even former Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who posit that such movements as 'Wahabists' or 'salafi' or those influenced by Saudi petro-dollars are the source and cause of terrorism abroad and potential causes of the same here in the US, you take a step further and talk to those being pointed at.
When Mr. Suarez described the contrast between a western suited imam and his heavily bearded son, one could hear and feel the implication that the son's practice was the type to be feared and wary of. Please give time to the heavily bearded or totally covered to make their case on the fronts of multi-culturalism, personal freedoms, women etc. You may find that many find the violent actions taken by their co-religionists as detestable as anyone else and even more so in some cases simply due to the fact that it puts them in the same category of extremists due to their similarities and places them under great pressure and scrutiny. Such pressures lead to fears that may indeed radicalize some and push others away from any vestiges of Islam and I believe neither of these should be the only choices Muslims have.
, about 1 month ago
Salafiyyah or translated as salafism in itself isnt the problem . It is the cure and rectification to islam. The problem is some people claim salafiyyah but arent correct in there practice and application of it.
, about 1 month ago
