While Muslims around the world complained the American media distorted the image of Islam, an American activist claimed the media in Muslim countries were no better by their biased portrayal of the United States.

After speaking at the Inter-Faith Cooperation in Fighting Terrorism forum in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Jim Kenney told reporters that "thoughtless anti-Americanism" was prevalent in the Muslim world.

The forum was held in cooperation with the Academy for Civilisational Studies, Malaysia and Islamic Outreach arm of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim)

The president of the Inter-religious Engagement Project said he heard numerous complaints about his country from Muslim friends in Malaysia.

"The assumption that all Americans are imperialists, that all Americans support the war against Iraq, that all Americans support the administration of (US President) George W Bush, that all Americans know nothing about Islam, that Americans are opposed to Islam and that Americans think all Muslims are terrorists...

"Every single one of those statements, I have heard for more than once in the three days I have been in Malaysia," said Kenney, who was also the former global director in the council for a Parliament of the World's Religion

Inaccurate and dishonest

The activist, whose work had taken him to various parts of the world, pointed out that he could not help but notice the distorted perceptions of America contained in these assumptions.

"Whenever I travel I hear the same thing. I hear people complaining about how poorly the (American) media reports on them. Muslims who say the media gets them wrong," he added.

On the same note, Kenney said the US and its citizens fell prey to the same bad press in Muslim countries.

"You ought to read the way America is described in the Muslim media. It's absolutely inaccurate, it's a total distortion, it's dishonest," he added.

While he agreed that the American media was guilty of distortion, he stressed that it was wrong to divide countries into categories of "good and bad".

He explained that such labels will deprive people of allies in countries where political behaviours concerned them.

"So, if you are concerned about the political behaviour of America, you need to have a nuance and recognise that there is a huge difference between (former US president) Bill Clinton and George W Bush. You need to recognise that there is a huge difference between one political party and another," added the activist.

He said people elsewhere should foster an alliance with the American people who share their concerns.

He added many Americans abandoned their support for the concerns of Muslims because they resented media organisations such as the Qatar-based Arabic news network al-Jazeera which condemns the US.

The activist also cited an example of how thoughtless actions destroyed the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

"I have good friends who are very active in the Israeli peace movement. They are broken-spirited and broken-hearted. The smart thing to do would have been to build a Palestinian-Israeli partnership for peace. Many people tried. Those [partnerships] were eventually destroyed by terrorism," he said.

Muslim-Americans' role

Asked how the false perception among Americans and Muslims can be corrected, Kenney noted that the growing Muslim community in the US can play an important role in achieving this.

According to him, there are over six million Muslims in the US and their population had outnumbered Jews in some cities.

"Religious communities need to find their voice. American Muslims are beginning to recognise that they have a responsibility to bring the concern of the world Muslim community to Americans and to bring a better and more balanced picture of Americans to the world Muslim community," he said.

Kenney revealed that his organisation will hold a conference next year to discuss the role of Muslim-Americans.

"I think the important thing is to build a coalition with cross-national and cross-religion boundaries. That means we need to stop insulting each other," he said.

Other speakers at the forum were vice-president of the Malaysian Gurdwaras Council Sanggat Singh, S Dhammika from the Buddhist Missionary Society, Dr John Gurusamy from the Council of Churches Malaysia and the founding president of the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations, Dr Irfan Ahmad Khan.