Not only is Islam the fastest growing of the monotheistic religions in America, Asian-American Muslims (from countries like India and Pakistan, constituting the third largest ethnic group, after African-Americans and Whites) have more income and education and are more likely to be thriving than other American Muslims. In fact, their quality of life indicators are higher than for most other Americans, except for American Jews, according to a recent Gallup poll in US. The only countries where Muslims are more likely to see themselves as thriving are Saudi Arabia and Germany, according to the poll. For example, 41% of American Muslims say they are thriving, as compared to 51% of Saudis, 47% of German Muslims and only 11% of Pakistanis. Among the prominent Muslim nations surveyed by Gallup, Pakistanis are among the most dissatisfied in their home country, with 44% reporting they are struggling and 45% saying they are suffering. In sharp contrast to Pakistanis, Bangladeshis report higher levels of satisfaction, with 17% thriving and only 8% saying they are suffering. In spite of the high Muslim political representation in Britain, only 7% British Muslims say they are thriving, lower than the 11% in Pakistan. South Asian results appear to correlate well with the world happiness index ranking that shows Bangladesh ahead of both India and Pakistan in terms of happiness.
Gallup researchers say that the satisfaction figure in the US is pulled down by the fact that 35% of American Muslims are African Americans, and they generally report lower levels of income, education, employment and well-being than other Americans.
“We discovered how diverse Muslim Americans are,” said Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which financed the poll. “Ethnically, politically and economically, they are in every way a cross-section of the nation. They are the only religious community without a majority race.”
American Muslim women, contrary to stereotype, are more likely than American Muslim men to have college and post-graduate degrees. They are more highly educated than women in every other religious group except Jews. American Muslim women also report incomes more nearly equal to men, compared with women and men of other faiths.
The survey notes that Muslim-Americans do not participate in the political process as much as Americans of other faiths. Lower percentages of Muslims register to vote or volunteer their time than adherents of other faiths. They are less likely to be satisfied with the area where they live. These indicators are “worrying,” said Ahmed Younis, a senior analyst at the Muslim studies center.
Overall, the survey paints a picture of Muslims in America, particularly immigrants and first-generation Americans with higher average incomes, as far more integrated in the mainstream society than their counterparts in Europe.
Related Links:
The Muslim West Facts Project
South Asians Income Levels in America
America's Fastest Growing Faiths: Islam and Buddhism
India's Washington Lobby Emulates AIPAC
Gallup Poll of Muslim Americans
American Muslims Thriving, but Not Content
World Happiness Index Ranking
Threre are more reasons to migrate to Canada
1 year ago
7 comments:
The causes of deep dissatisfaction among Pakistanis in Pakistan are highlighted by a rising sense of insecurity and loss of confidence from incidents such as the attack on Sri Lanka's team yesterday.
While it is possible that Pakistani militants or political opponents of the PPP carried out this shocking and tragic attack, external elements from India or Sri Lanks can not be ruled out. In fact, the investigators should not rule out anything immediately and pursue all leads until they have good preliminary results.
There has been a lot of discussion in India by former RAW officials to launch covert actions inside Pakistan after Mumbai. And, lately, the Tamil rebels have also been under a lot pressure in Sri Lanks by recent successes of the Lankan military. There are multiple external players with strong motivation to launch such an attack.
In fact, the investigators should not rule out anything immediately and pursue all leads until they have good preliminary results.
Yes, leads should be pursued with the same diligence as in Benazir's and Zia's deaths. If done that way, no doubt there'll be Indian currency notes and revolvers found - with satellite phone calls to the VHP headquarters :-)
Riaz, your affinity for conspiracy theories is a severe waste on this blog. Bollywood would pay big money for stories requiring as much suspension of disbelief as some of your posts require.
The conclusions of Pak investigators of Benazir's assassination have been supported by British and US investigators.
Zia's murder remains a mystery like other murder mysteries including JFK's.
While it is tempting to compare Lahore with Mumbai superficially, it does not hold when you realize that Mumbai remained under siege for more than two days by less than a dozen attackers and the Indian security forces were rendered completely helpless. Although it was clearly a security lapse in Lahore, it bears very little resemblance to Mumbai. And stretching it to conclude that Pak is a failed state is just self-serving exaggeration by India’s Congress leaders and other Indians wishing for Pakistan to fail.
You almost seem to enjoy the fact that it took Indian security two days to secure the place. But we killed most of them, and even got one alive. Why did it take two days? Because the cowards had a few hundred hostages with them.
Have the pakistani authorities caught the 12 gunmen?? Why aren't they dead? Why haven't they been caught? You're right, it can't be compared to mumbai - in some ways its worse, because these people literally walked away from the scene
Anon:
Thanks for pointing out additional differences between Lahore and Mumbai:
1. Unlike the Lahore attackers, the Mumbai attackers were on a suicide mission and fought a determined and long battle killing lots of civilians while mocking Indian authorities.
2. Unlike Mumbai police, ATS and Indian commandos, Lahore Police were able to protect their charges from hostage taking or being killed while sacrificing their own lives.
3. Unlike the Mumbai attackers, the Lahore attackers staged an ambush and ran away when the police responded.
All of this says that the nature of the attacks and attackers were very different leading one to conclude that Lahore is not the work of Jihadi groups. It is more likely the work of mercenaries hired by someone to do a covert action to terrorize Pakistan.
Xenophobia and Islamophobia are on the rise in Europe, as confirmed by the Swiss scare campaign and 56% vote to ban minarets. Similar noises are coming our of France where much is made of no more than a couple of hundred Muslim women who wear burqa.
Here's an AP report about the Swiss vote:
GENEVA – A Swiss ban on minarets could violate fundamental liberties, Europe's top human-rights watchdog said Monday in an indication that the heavily criticized vote could be overturned.
The Council of Europe said banning "new minarets in Switzerland raises concerns as to whether fundamental rights of individuals, protected by international treaties, should be subject to popular votes."
The statement by the 47-nation council's secretary-general, Thorbjorn Jagland, suggests a case may be made to seek a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights condemning Switzerland for violating freedom of expression, freedom of religion and prohibition of discrimination.
Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the ban would come into force immediately, but also indicated that the court could strike down the Sunday vote, which incurred swift condemnation at home and abroad for banning the towers used to put out the Islamic call to prayer.
"The ban contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights," Zurich daily Blick cited Widmer-Schlumpf as saying, referring to the 1950 treaty laying out basic rights that the court in Strasbourg, France, was created to ensure member states abide by.
The referendum backed by nationalist parties was approved by 57.5 percent of the population Sunday, forcing the government to declare illegal the building of any new minarets in Switzerland. It doesn't affect the country's four existing minarets.
France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was "a bit scandalized" by the vote, which amounts to "oppressing a religion."
"I hope that the Swiss will go back on this decision rather quickly," Kouchner said on France's RTL radio. "It is an expression of intolerance, and I detest intolerance."
The U.N.'s special investigator on religious freedom, Asma Jahangir, said the ban on new minarets constitutes "a clear discrimination against members of the Muslim community in Switzerland."
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The Roman Catholic Church, however, condemned the vote.
Lately, there have been some arrests of American-Muslim and Pakistani-American youths on suspicions of terror. The Internet has been identified as a tool for radicalization and proposals made to deal with it. Here's an interesting post by Reem Salahi in HuffingtonPost on this subject:
Yet even in cases where agent provocateurs were not employed, the reality is that the government and media have too long treated Islam and Muslims as a homogeneous, non-dynamic, suspect group. Whenever a Muslim engages in a criminal act, the individual is always qualified by his religious background. Very rarely do we see similar treatment of non-Muslims. For example, I have never read an article describing Timothy McVeigh as the Christian white man. But nearly every article on Nidal Hasan qualifies him as a Muslim and Palestinian within the first few sentences.
As a consequence, Muslims are forced to account for the (negative) actions of a fourth of the world's population. Ironically, I have never been congratulated for the positive actions of other fellow Muslims. The acts of a few bad apples or even a few misguided youth become the norm and not the exceptions. Put differently, it would be like suspecting that every White high school student was prone to commit a massacre as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the killers at Columbine High School, did.
The reality is that the discourse on radicalization and homegrown terrorism is fundamentally racist and Islamophobic. It is based on seeing Muslims as the "other" and viewing our actions through an "orientalist" lens which frames any Muslim's questionable action as terrorism. Hence, a Muslim overstaying an immigration visa or improperly filing taxes or even paintballing becomes evidence of terrorism and radicalization, justifying the government's infiltration of our mosques, surveillance of our youth groups, and mapping of our populations. Maybe, just maybe, Muslims don't need to be understood by a different rubric than other populations. Further, by framing Muslims as terrorists and as the internal enemy within, the government and media have alienated and disenfranchised many law-abiding Muslims who seek nothing more than to actually live "unremarkable" lives.
Those in the media, in the government, and in Muslim organizations who have jumped on the bandwagon, you have missed the boat. Muslims and Muslim youth are not intrinsically prone to radicalization through the aid of the internet, just as White youth are not intrinsically prone to commit massacres or lynch ethnic minorities in solidarity with the KKK. Rather, the problem is the media and the government's continued vilification and the consequential disenfranchisement of the Muslim community. It is the government's infiltration of mosques and community centers with informants and agent provocateurs. It is the FBI's prolonged fishing expeditions and false prosecutions of many innocent Muslims. And it is an ever-worsening foreign policy that wastes away our tax dollars on killing innocent civilians throughout the world. So please stop parroting the misguided construct of homegrown terrorism and Islamic radicalization as the problem, when the real problem is xenophobia couched in politically correct terms.
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