Carol and I spent a frustrating three quarters of an hour trying to get to a Town Meeting in Nova South East University. We were just going to give up our search when we stumbled on a sign saying it was just around the next corner. We were late but we witnessed the meat of the meeting.

There were four principal speakers.  We missed a speech by the mother of a young man who was murdered when the Trade Towers in New York City were destroyed.  Arthur Tietelbaum of the Anti Defamation League spoke first, Dr. Muqtedar Kahn, a Muslim from India and a visiting professor at the Brookings Institute who wrote a book about “American Muslims” (he is a citizen) was next and, lastly, Janet Reno the former U.S. Attorney General. Ms Reno spoke carefully and briefly. This was a Nova sponsored Town Meeting and was attended sparsely by students while there were a large number of older non-students from the community. Many young women who wore headdresses were conspicuous with one, in particular, who was completely veiled.

A strongly Liberal and Humanitarian point of view was displayed with stated opposition to the policies of the current Administration.  I noted the helplessness of the Muslim speakers after the presenters spoke.  These told of the frustrations of trying to be Muslim and American at the same time.  They found that freedoms enjoyed by other Americans were uniformly denied to them, some of whom had been in this country for decades. They were suspected of being terrorists simply because they were different even though they were citizens.

The most important statement that I heard was a lengthy but always interesting account given by the highly articulate Dr. Kahn.  He was brutally honest while picturing the Muslim community in America as being apathetic and out of step with being American.  The problem, as he saw it, was that the Muslim community was not wholly American because IT had not fully been outraged at the attacks by the terrorists.  Dr. Kahn also pilloried the Saudis for their ambiguous friendship with both the Americans and the terrorists. He made a very important point about numbers. There are more Muslims living in the U.S. than in some “Muslim” countries.

I saw Muslim students and concerned older Americans trying to get together to commiserate with each other and get a dialogue going.  What was missing was the attendance by non-Muslim students who stayed away.  The Bush Administration was repeatedly censured for taking away freedoms in the name of Homeland Security. While flawed, it was a satisfying trip through the South Florida countryside. Being “Muslim and American” is like yesterdays’ Jews and Blacks.