01-29-2006, 04:20 AM
`U.S. Muslims under surveillance'
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI: Noted American Professor Nathan Glazer said on Saturday that Muslims and Arabs living in the United States were being subjected to surveillance and suspicion after the terrorist attacks on World Trade Center in 2001.
Speaking at a two-day international seminar on "Composite Culture in a Multicultural Society" at the ongoing New Delhi World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan, Prof. Glazer said the suspicion against Muslims was to some degree unparalleled in American history. "The Muslims and Arabs find their mosques observed by FBI agents, their charities closed down because they may have transmitted funds to terrorists groups, their businesses under sharp scrutiny, non-citizens are required to register and be fingerprinted and their relatives find it difficult to enter the US whether as students or visitors. They are also being harassed at airports. I think this is because of their headgear and clothes. Hundreds of Muslims have been held without charge under suspicion of connection with terrorism, misinterpreted by an enraged person as a symbol of Islam." Stating that Muslims' faith in justice and fair-mindedness of the American Government was deeply shaken because of these measures, Prof. Glazer said hundreds had left the US for Canada or their countries of origin. Drawing comparison between India and the US in terms of diversity, Prof. Glazer said: "Indian diversity, of course, puts America's claim to being diverse in the shade. In India, as against the U.S., many linguistic and cultural groups are identified with a territory that the group dominates or once dominated or hopes to dominate." '