Low Goals
By Mowahid Hussain Shah

During a discussion over dinner with veteran community activists in Washington, the question was raised why US Muslims, relative to their size, have collectively underachieved. Two issues surfaced: (1) setting of low goals; and (2) inhibiting factors embedded in background. It reminded of what the 19th century poet James Russell Lowell had said: “Not failure, but low aim, is crime.”
Settling for less, being comfortable with being number 2, and passively following others, have been common threads running through Muslim presence in the Western hemisphere. It has also been characterized as the bigotry of ‘soft expectations,’ meaning that there are mentally embedded self-limiting factors that restrain the striving to succeed beyond a particular point. Alongside that, there are sociological factors imprinted in background, which act as brakes in impeding forward movement. Soren Kierkegaard had said it succinctly: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Suppression of high goals inevitably can lead to many strides backward. Too often, the benchmarks of success are purely commercial and measuring metrics limited to material yardsticks. There is a cardinal mistake of confusing affluence with influence.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto once created a bit of a diplomatic furor by derisively dubbing post-WWII economically booming Japan as “an economic elephant.” The Arab Establishment is awash with money but how much weightage has that translated into in Washington policymaking circles?
To tackle the dignity deficit, the aim has to be set higher. Muslim vulnerabilities in America have created a fertile ground for over-anxiety and despair –encouraging Islamophobic extreme to further expand.
The community pattern of activity suggests less emphasis on taking self-empowering steps, and more emphasis on meekly seeking outside crutches – crutches that are prone to buckle under pressure.
US mass media coverage is often rife with omissions of facts, which distort factual accuracy. Violence committed by Muslim individuals is over-hyped and enhance the polarized dynamic dominating Western-Muslim relations.
In stark contrast, the American public has become conditioned to shooting deaths in US schools as a normal recurring event. This is terror, pure and simple. But it is not characterized under the rubric of terror. The gun lobby habitually seeks sanctuary under the thoroughly abused Second Amendment to the US Constitution, protecting the right to bear arms.
In a politicized environment, there is this constant floating of a false narrative – without a meaningful pushback counter-narrative – that Muslims have a proclivity toward barbaric violence. It calls into question a risk-averse over-cautious approach that has prioritized monetary factors over dignity, security, and strategic considerations. Commercial gain is good. But it may not be good enough – as the Jewish experience in Nazi Germany proved. Denial and rationalizations didn’t work then, and won’t work now.
With the rise of Western-Muslim tensions elsewhere, the challenges for US Muslims shall grow exponentially. And that is the reality that has to be dealt with.
But there is a glimmer of hope. The currently fraught climate may inadvertently force an honest reassessment to tackle the dignity deficit and defy the consigned status of victimhood. Providence may have provided a pathway for course-correction and self-correction.
Fortune doesn’t favor the lily-livered.