“Islam, Muslims, and America”…part 4

Aside from any other deterrent there is much that can be said or even mentioned about Islam and its current day identity crisis. As for this part in our ongoing series “Islam, Muslims, and America” so as not to confuse anyone, or certainly not to offend anyone it is important to clarify the verbage and its usage.

Identity crisis therefore is the disorientation or role confusion as a result of conflicting pressures and expectations within a given society, culture, or individual. Furthermore, identity crisis is the state of confusion occurring in a social structure (culture) or institution (group of people; corporation).

In part 3 of this series I closed a particular article with the notion that, “…without change growth cannot occur…and without growth, change cannot occur…” This is not confined to the individual human condition. In the year 1968 almost the entire world—in one way or another—was experiencing a cultural identity crisis. For some countries their experiences were earlier during the 1950s and others later, indeed occurring now.

 In 1968 China experienced the Great Cultural Revolution; while at the exact same time America was experiencing a crisis that rumbled the ground the US Capitol building sat on. Moreover, shortly after the election of 1968 President Nixon literally had a small company of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division moved underneath the White House fearing for his own personal safety. Similar activities were occurring in the United Kingdom albeit referred to as “civil unrest.”

Lately there has been international uneasiness when it comes to the women’s head scarves. As we know from the experience in France the wearing of the head scarves was outlawed in schools. Moreover, the prime minister of Turkey literally sent his daughters to America for college insofar as they could continue to wear their head scarves. Interestingly in a survey conducted recently by the Pew Research Center and Princeton University showed that 70% of the American people indicated that Muslim women should be allowed to wear their head scarves.

This is but one example of a cultural identity crisis that Islam is experiencing. Many women who had never before worn head scarves, moreover, their mother’s who felt that it represented a backwardness that they had overcome and had left behind are now wearing them.

 

“People who had never recognized and seen themselves as Muslims had no choice but to see themselves as Muslims,”says Muzaffar Christi, director of the Migration Policy Institute at the New York University School of Law.

  

 

 

(Sources cited: Newsweek Magazine; Pew Research Center; Princeton University)

This concludes part 4 in the series “Islam, Muslims, and America.”