ARAB-AMERICAN AND PROUD
Comparing the US with Europe, John Voll, a professor of Islamic History at Georgetown University, asserts that moderate organisations are, in fact, dominant in the US to a much greater extent than in Europe.
“My general view is not that there is nothing [extreme] within the United States, but that Muslim organisations have emerged here that have had quite mainstream US aspirations and have been a vehicle for middle-class Muslim aspirations.”
Organisations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Voll argues, are based on the template of earlier American civil rights movements.
They emphasise political action rather than violence as the appropriate way to address grievances.