GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT 109
traits. Americans in their individual capacity always seem to have pleasant sur-
prises in reserve. Recently, one of the authors of this book, after finishing his
burger in a mall, spilled the contents of his tray dirty napkins, empty tomato
ketchup packets, some mustard in a plastic cup on the floor. Even before he
was able to bend to pick the tray, a high-school-age youth suddenly left the
line in front of the restaurant, and helped him gather all the contents and threw
them in the garbage container. Why did he do this? Did he expect some favor
in return? Did he expect some reward in heaven? Or, was he just being nice
to a stranger? Examples of this kind of behavior abound in the United States.
Most Americans, irrespective of race or religion, are neighborly, friendly, and
charitable. Despite a great deal of opposition to immigration, most ordinary
Americans go out of their way to accommodate new arrivals in their midst.
Newcomers are often invited to churches, into homes, and are befriended. Even
in states where race consciousness is high southern California, Texas, and
Florida among others new arrivals, much to the dismay of Buchanan (2002),
have outnumbered or are about to outnumber native-born Americans.
Is such a decent and polite nation like the United States really anti-Islamic
at its core? We shall try to provide an answer to this question in this chapter.
THE ROOTS OF ANTI-ISLAMIC FEELINGS IN THE
UNITED STATES
Many Muslims emphasize that anti-Islamic feelings in the United States are
inherited from Europeans. What we know from history and pre-history is that
the people clinging to the margins of the Mediterranean Sea have seldom
remained friendly toward one another. Especially those on the northern
shores the Greeks, Romans, French, and even the British have often col-
lided with the Persians, Arabs, and the Turks living along the eastern and
southern shores of this strategic sea. Throughout their long history, they have
competed for each other s lands, tried to colonize one another, and even tried
to ethnically cleanse the conquered territories. Thus, we see that the Romans
once ruled nearly the whole coastal area of the Mediterranean. Greeks Helle-
nized nearly all of the eastern Mediterranean down to the Nile delta where
Alexander the Great established a city, which, even centuries later, still carries
his name. The conquerors looked at the conquered with contempt as being
uncivilized savages worthy only of being sold as slaves and concubines. Then,
united under Islam, came the Arabs and the Turks who turned the tables start-
ing in the seventh century. They ruled Spain for six hundred years and were
knocking at the doors of Vienna, which, more than once was forced to clamp
behind the city walls trying desperately to stop the Turkish invaders. Christian
Europe rallied temporarily under the banner of the Crusades, but only briefly
(around one hundred years). It looked to many as if Islam could not be stopped
and that the days of Christianity were numbered. The European Christian frus-
tration is reflected in their anti-Islamist folklore and literature that was pro-
duced over the last few centuries.