Scholars gather to discuss Islam in Western politics

Leading scholars from across North America and Europe congregated at IU this weekend for a three-day symposium on Muslims and Arabs in Western politics, the nation's first-ever gathering of its kind.\n"This is a new area of research, and this is the first conference in the United States to address how Western Muslims interact with the institutions of their states," said Abdulkader Sinno, associate professor of political science and Middle Eastern studies and coordinator of the conference.\nParticipants spoke on political participation and mobilization of Muslim and Arab minorities, debated the media's influence on public perception of these groups and discussed the protection of civil liberties in a post-9/11 world.\nThe conference grew from a discussion Sinno had a year ago with professor Robert Rohrschneider, then-director of the Center on West European Studies, Sinno said. \nThe symposium, which ended Saturday afternoon, aimed to shed light on how Western liberal democracies adapt to growing Muslim populations, especially in the wake of recent turmoil in the Middle East, Sinno said.\n"This is important because the success of this process will affect both the welfare of Muslim Westerners and the future of Western democracy," he said.\nErik Nisbet, a doctoral student in communications at Cornell University, presented Saturday the findings of a November 2004 study by the Cornell Survey Research Institute that examined the influence of the media on public perceptions of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. \nThe study suggested two factors play a significant role in shaping American attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims as well as toward civil liberties: level of television news viewership and degree of religiosity as measured by church attendance and Biblical literalism. \nHigher levels of each of these variables correlated with a greater fear of terrorist attacks and more favorable views of imposing restrictions on civil liberties, Nisbet said. \n"We've been bombarded with this (negative) imagery (of the Middle East) for years now," he said. "We can't help but be influenced by it."\nEven though TV news viewership in general corresponded with negative views of Muslims and Arabs, the study found that some channels' viewers held more extreme opinions than others. CNN's viewers, for example, saw civil liberties in a manner consistent with personal ideology, regardless of what that ideology was, while FOX News viewers across the political spectrum were more likely to express approval of the same restrictions on civil liberties.\n"The Bush Administration has cited Al Jazeera and the pan-Arab media as a source of anti-American sentiments in the Middle East," Nisbet said. "(Our study asked), are there parallel processes in the U.S.? Does the media drive the wedge to create this sort of perception gap?"\nMuslim and Arab minorities have fared differently in various areas of the West, Sinno said.\n"American society and courts quickly backed away from most discriminatory practices against American Muslims that were implemented after 9/11," he said. "On the other hand, Muslims in Europe and Canada are much better represented in politics than (they are) in the U.S."\nParticipants emphasized the importance of having a variety of disciplines represented at the conference.\n"We have legal scholars here, we have survey sociologists, we have a range of scholars who can look at this problem from different areas and in different ways, both qualitatively and quantitatively," Nisbet said. "It promotes research to understand the processes of inclusion and exclusion that are going on in Western society."\nSinno agreed, adding he believes diversity produces innovation and develops perspectives.\nJames Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and keynote speaker at the symposium, said the battles for civil liberties is ongoing, but Arab Americans are making positive progress.\n"The story is still being written," he said. "The trajectory is still going upward. So far (Arab-Americans) have done better on the civil liberties front than we've done on the Middle East peace front -- but we're in it. The victories are yet to come"