Revolution shatters perceptions of the Muslim world

“When do we see average, law-abiding Muslims piecing together their lives in a chaotic world? When do we meet the vast majority of the Middle East’s dense population to understand them, to know them, to feel any sense of sympathy for them?”

I wrote those words in a column last September titled, “When perception is reality in the Muslim world.” The gist of the piece was that most Americans know nothing — repeat, nothing –– about the daily lives of the roughly 300 million Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa.

In fact, most Americans don’t realize that the world’s largest Muslim population can be found not in this region of the world, but in Asia-Pacific, home to 685 million Muslims.

Because the scant media images of Muslims that Americans see are primarily of terrorists, too many people believe, incorrectly, that the majority of Muslims, particularly those of Middle Eastern descent, are terrorists. Perception is reality.

The past month has shown us, in no uncertain terms, that most Middle Eastern Muslims are not terrorists. They are just like us –– human beings yearning to speak their minds without fear of retribution, to assemble in protest against corruption, to vote in democratic elections, to be paid a living wage.

And they have proved, as our nation’s founders proved 235 years earlier, that they are willing to die for the right to live freely.

The scores of protesters who have assembled in the streets and squares of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and even Iran are not only shaking up and breaking apart the Middle East’s feudal power structure, but also shattering long-held stereotypes and illusions about Muslims and the Middle East. Suddenly, Muslims are no longer America’s sworn enemies. They are allies in the cause of freedom.

Each day they march, unarmed, amid tanks and guns. They have been beaten down with clubs and shot at, even run over with camels. Many have died. And still they keep coming. They want to be heard and understood. They want the world to know that they have lived for too long under oppressive regimes.