ESSAY
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The Open Society and Its Critics: Minorities and Political Lobbying in the United States
Rough and Tumble: American politics may not be for the fainthearted, but anyone is welcome © Digital Stock Corporation
MOHSIN HAMID IS an unlikely point of entry into the flawed assumptions of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. After all, Hamid, a British citizen born in Pakistan, is the author of an acclaimed novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which tells the story of a Pakistani domiciled in the United States who becomes so disillusioned in the aftermath of the 9/11 atrocities that he returns to Pakistan.
Yet Hamid, in an October 2007 interview with the New York Times, nailed down a crucial facet of America that Mearsheimer and Walt [1], and their many admirers in Europe, have ignored. "Americans," Hamid said, "are more inclined to think (whether you are a Muslim or not) if you speak with an American accent, you're an American. In Europe, it's more a question of tribe. In Europe you can be a second- or third-generation Turkish-German, and there is still a question of whether you are European." [2]
This relative openness on the part of the United States helps explain why American Muslims feel so much more integrated, less alienated and more engaged as citizens than their European counterparts. As a direct consequence, minorities in America have fewer qualms about turning to the political process in order to achieve their goals - even when it comes to delicate matters like defining what counts as the "national interest" in foreign policy.
Hamid's observation about the difference in Muslim attitudes on either side of the Atlantic is backed up by comprehensive public opinion research. In a groundbreaking May 2007 survey, Pew Research found that Muslim Americans are "assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.... [Muslim Americans] are decidedly American in their outlook, values, and attitudes." [3] These attitudes in America "stand in contrast with those of Muslim minorities of Western Europe [based on] Pew Global Attitudes surveys conducted in 2006 in Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain.... Nearly half of Muslims in the U.S. (47%) say they think of themselves first as a Muslim, rather than as an American. But far more Muslims in three of the four Western European nations surveyed said they considered themselves first as Muslims, rather than citizens of their countries." [4]
“This relative openness on the part of the United States helps explain why American Muslims feel so much more integrated, less alienated and more engaged as citizens than their European counterparts”
Remarkably, on the seminal issue of Israel, Pew found that "Muslim Americans are far more likely than Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere to say that a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that the rights of the Palestinians are addressed. In this regard, the views of Muslim Americans resemble those of the general public in the United States". [5]
Put together, the views of Hamid and his fellow Muslims in America mean that something is seriously awry. They are apparently rather satisfied in a country that Mearsheimer and Walt insist is in the grips of "The Israel Lobby" - a lobby whose impact, they maintain, has gravely worsened America's standing among Muslims inside and outside the Islamic world.
In Europe in particular, Mearsheimer and Walt have been hailed [6] for their "courage" in standing up against the perceived taboo of discussing Jewish influence on US foreign policy [7]. Yet few voices in Europe or the US have noted this glaring paradox: how can it be that in America, where foreign policy has supposedly been hijacked by groups pushing Israel's interests over all others, Muslim citizens have far more affinity with their adopted country than do their counterparts in Europe? Indeed, how can it be that Muslim Americans have such affinity with their fellow Americans - including on the signature issue of Israel - than their alienated counterparts in Europe, where foreign policy has traditionally been much more oriented towards the Arab side in the conflict?
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