Muslim Americans enter the mainstream

As an American economist currently on assignment in the Arab World, I was sure to take leave and be back in Arlington, Virginia with my parents, brothers and cousins for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not only my favourite holiday, but it is also the most American. "Eid ah-habash," my Lebanese cousins call it. Turkey Day.

Being oceans away from those precious to me in Washington and New York on September 11th traumatised me doubly, making me unable to sleep for weeks. The attacks were so terrible, so sinister, so personally damaging, that as an American, it felt like more than a duty to be with my loved ones this Thanksgiving, it was an emotional need. So in late November, I boarded my flight for America.

When I got there I started realising that America really had changed. And I hope it will never be the same.

When my brother and I landed in Virginia's Dulles Airport, despite his "Arab looks" and the fact that customs officials could read that I was born in Beirut, we were treated with the utmost courtesy. And from the moment my dad picked us up from the airport, to Thanksgiving dinner at sunset a few days later, I never stopped counting my blessings.

Indeed, this Thanksgiving was different. It was the first Thanksgiving to fall during Ramadan in my lifetime. And as Muslims, my family and I were fasting. It was perhaps, the first time in my life, that I was able to feel 100 per cent American and 100 per cent Muslim, without any conflict. Why?

As a child growing up just outside of Washington, DC, none of my junior high school classmates knew much more about Islam than that Iranian "Muslim fundamentalists" had taken Americans hostages in Iran. Let me tell you, it wasn't any fun to be Muslim or Arab that year. Its not like my classmates knew the difference between Iranians or Arabs.

Those days, when we would go to Washington's only mosque to pray, I didn't exactly advertise it in school. I'm ashamed to say, I hid it. But today America has changed, irrevocably. For starters, 20 years later, the President of the United States of America, a week after the September 11th attacks, stood in the same mosque where I learned to pray and addressed America and the World to affirm that America embraced Islam and American Muslims.

As a child, I could never have imagined that happening in my lifetime. Islam is being mainstreamed in America and there's no going back. Today, there are dozens of mosques in DC and Virginia, not just one or two. So what's in it for the Arab World?

Although I was only back in the U.S. for a week or so, it seemed like every other day I was invited to an iftar dinner by a member of Bush's cabinet. That's something new. Despite the fact that I'm well known to be an American Muslim Democrat, I have been welcomed in the Bush cabinet's efforts to deepen their relationship with the American Muslim community during Ramadan.

Cabinet level iftars were unheard of in the days when Bush's father was president. Now, suddenly, they are common place. And things will stay this way. I can feel it.

Don't get me wrong. As a Democrat, I was surprised that I was invited to an iftar with staunchly Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft or Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. And as Arab American and an American Muslim, I was even more surprised that the events were taking place at all. The Ashcroft iftar was even held at that same mosque in DC where I we would go when I was a child.

But it wasn't easy for me, as a Democrat, either. I was then, and still am now, appalled by Ashcroft's efforts to strip away what I consider basic civil and human rights - the right to privacy, the right to a fair and open trial, the right to not be tarnished through guilt by association.

It was a small private dinner and I was able to tell him and his staff just how I felt. As an Arab American and a Muslim American I am affected doubly, because I know that my communities will be specifically targeted by these measures.

This year, as we celebrate Eid, I will be boarding a plane to Dulles Airport again. This time when I land, I won't be surprised to hear that President Bush and the Democratic Senate leadership will likely be inviting American Muslims to Eid celebrations, albeit likely separate ones.

America has changed - and in that one way, for the better. True, many in the Muslim and Arab World feel bitter toward the Bush Administration over certain tactics in Afghanistan that have lead to civilian deaths and America's refusal to restrain Ariel Sharon's actions that result in the deaths of Palestinian schoolboys, despite the horrific suicide attacks in Israel.

But the Muslim and Arab world should recognise the tremendous progress that has been made in mainstreaming the Muslim American community. This should help enhance America's relationship with the Muslim World through reduced misunderstandings which, in turn, will serve American Muslims, the Muslim World, and indeed the entire world, for years to come, through better public policy from both sides.

This Eid, at the end of the Ramadan fast, the enhanced American-Muslim dialogue is one small - but important - thing for which I will be giving thanks.

Hady Amr was formerly the National Director of Ethnic American Outreach for Al Gore's Presidential Campaign and is currently an independent consultant who divides his time between Arlington, Virginia and the Arab World.