Praising the good work by Muslims around the world in countries like India that has the world’s second largest Muslim population, US President Barack Obama admitted that many in the US have a “distorted” impression of the community. The US President said the image people in the West get of Islam is how they are represented by the media as due to the relatively small population of Muslims in countries like the US, many people do not get a clear idea of how a Muslim personally is.
In his closing remarks at a White House summit to counter violent extremism at the State Department on Thursday, Obama chose to speak “very directly to a painful truth that’s part of the challenge that brings us here today”.
“The image they get of Muslims or Islam is in the news. And given the existing news cycle, that can give a very distorted impression. A lot of the bad, like terrorists who claim to speak for Islam, that’s absorbed by the general population. Not enough of the good — the more than 1 billion people around the world who do represent Islam, and are doctors and lawyers and teachers, and neighbours and friends,” he said on Thursday, the final day of the summit. Obama made the latest comment while addressing the three-day conference, being attended by leaders from more than 60 countries, including India.