Source: The Washington Post
Wire Service: AP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012801599.html
Many American Muslim leaders are eager to help President Barack Obama improve the U.S. image in the Islamic world, but they worry that their contribution might not always be welcome. The broad suspicion that has dogged them at home since the Sept. 11 attacks continues to keep many U.S. groups from working with the Muslim community, they say.
"These issues are not going to go away just because we have a president now who has more understanding of the Muslim world," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles. "We'll actually be under more scrutiny now that these issues are going to be raised at the top of the Obama administration."
In his inaugural speech last week, Obama told the Muslim world, "we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." The president, in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Al-Arabiya, an Arabic TV network based in Dubai, said, "Americans are not your enemy."
The Leadership Group on U.S. Muslim Engagement last year issued a report, "Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World," that, among other recommendations, urged U.S. leaders to enlist more American Muslims to help counter Islamic extremism.
The group includes former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, two former Republican congressmen, Vin Weber and Steve Bartlett, and Ingrid Mattson, who in 2006 became the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group for tens of thousands of Muslims nationwide.
"There are lots and lots of Muslims that we've worked with on this project that are quite anxious to do this for their country," Weber said in an interview. "We would have no lack of people who would come forward."
In the last few years, American Muslims have been taking a more active role in fighting extremism.