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Home Team: Anchorage's Muslim community celebrated Eid in a school gymnasium, though in a year or two it may have its own mosque, or masjid (the first in Alaska) and community center. (Islamic Community Center of Anchorage Alaska)
How did Michelle Shocked's "Anchorage
" go back in 1988? "Hey Shell, you know it's kind of funny/Texas always seemed so big/But you know you're in the largest state in the union/When you're anchored down in Anchorage..."
Imagine what it must be like for someone from Somalia. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Pakistan
.
"Anchorage," the Anchorage Daily News reports, "is now home to nearly 4,000 Muslims," up from a few hundred in the 1990s. Something other than Sarah Palin must be attracting Alaska's newest immigrants. And back in December, life got a lot more pleasant for the region's Muslims (not just because Palin looked like she'd be a Fox-trotting expat from then on): Anchorage got its first halal grocery store (halal food being the Islamic equivalent of kosher
food).
Lamin Jobarteh, originally from Gambia, decided to quit his job as a banker and open shop on--what else--International road, a few doors down from Anchorage's Islamic Community Center
.
News flash for Anchorage's Swiss expats, whose number is undetermined for now: the Islamic center recently acquired a 70-acre plot on Old Seward Highway, where it plans to build a mosque by 2011 and--brace yourselves now, as you so inadmirably can
--a modest green minaret or two.
But first things first. For years, Jobarteh told the Daily News, he watched fellow Muslims order their halal food from Seattle or British Columbia and pay the hefty shipping charges. It was time to cut them a break. He bailed them out as only a former banker could:
Aside from the stocked goods, Jobarteh drives to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to preside over the Islamically correct butchering of animals at a slaughterhouse in Palmer once a week or so. His shop features a gleaming stainless steel kitchen in the back room where he can prepare custom orders of meat for families.
"I had no experience in butchering or being a grocer before," Jobarteh says. "This is all a new skill for me."
So, apparently, is a measure of political skills: his one store tends to the large diversity of the Muslim community, which does not, misconceptions aside, speak with one voice. Even in Alaska, Islam's mosaic-like nature is reflected in the long list of nationalities its practitioners represent, from Somalis to Albanians to Palestinians to South Asians and, of course American converts. It would take Alaska to contain several continents' worth of cultures (or at least America).
"Along with a sense of safety, Jobarteh said that Alaska Muslims have been largely welcomed by the community at large," the Daily News writes, "a situation that hasn't always been the case for some members who've lived in other American cities post-9-11. Alaskans seem to value a live-and-let-live approach, Jobarteh said, and that includes religious tolerance."
That's not anecdotal stuff. It's evidence-based, as The Economist's Lexington wrote this week
: "To an encouraging degree, America's Muslims are well-off and well-integrated. A Gallup poll last year found them slightly more likely than other Americans to have jobs, and slightly more likely to be professionals. They are much more satisfied with their lives than Muslims in France or Britain. According to a Pew poll, 72% say their communities are good places to live and 71% believe that most people who want to get ahead in America can do so if they work hard."
The question is: will muezzins
be welcome in Anchorage?
See Also:
- Islamophobic Swiss Ban Minarets
- Switzerland's Far-Right War on Minarets
- Obama's Speech on Islam
- Colin Powell on Muslims
Comments
The question is: will muezzins be welcome in Anchorage?
Well, this really highlights the problem. How much tolerance is too much tolerance. How many more concessions should be made for Islam/muslims?
Amy: How much tolerance? It is not about tolerance and never was; it is all about respect and rule of law.
As to concessions, u are deluding yourself. Muslims have earned to right to pray, by working hard. They don’t need concessions, tax-breaks or patronization. They need a fresh air and they will bloom. Now take a deep breath and relax. Peace.
Amy, what on muezzins’ earth are you talking about? How could muezzins in Anchorage be “a problem”? And what, exactly, is the problem you’re highlighting? The existence of Muslims? Would you say the same about blacks in Anchorage? Are they being “tolerated”? Inuits? Russians? Your use of the word “tolerance” in this context reflects a degree of presumption and condescension that is itself the only problem in this equation.