Dawn.com :
Since the deadly Paris attacks and San Bernadino shootings, a widespread backlash against Muslims in the US has been reported. This has happened despite the condemnations of every major Islamic group in the country.
CAIR, a Muslim civil rights group, has issued several alerts. An independent news outlet, ThinkProgress, states that 41 incidents of “violent attacks, threats, assaults, protests, and instances of vandalism” have occurred in the past few weeks. This backlash also comes in the wake of controversial positions taken by Republican Party’s Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump, and aided by dozens of governors who announced that they would not accept Syrian refugees as they could be potential sympathisers of the Islamic State of Iraq and Shaam (ISIS). This media frenzy and political posturing has whipped up passions against an imagined enemy. For instance, 30 per cent of Republicans in a December survey held by Public Policy Polling said that they would support an attack on Agrabah – a fictional place in the Aladdin cartoon.
It was a relief that nearly 60pc admitted that they were not sure. The desire to ban all Muslims entering the US – over 50pc show support for the idea – needs to be understood within this background. There is a blurring of reality and fantasy in which the fear of Muslims becomes merely a minor detail.
What is alarming is that disinformation and politicking is stirring unprecedented levels of hatred. Many observers say that this is worse than the post 9/11 climate in the United States. The Democrats, liberal sections of US media and civil society, are confronting this toxic mixture of ignorance and xenophobia.
While the threat of Islamic extremism cannot be dismissed, the 24/7 coverage of “terrorism” and “security analysis”, and its constant purveying of fear creates an unreal situation. Americans have been warned to be fearful of neighbours, of fellow passengers at the airport, train stations, and bus terminals.
Once the threat has been established and assumed to be universal, it could come from any direction.
To understand the narratives around Islam and Muslims in the US, I spoke to Dr Akbar S. Ahmed, who is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and author of “Journey into America” based on extensive field research on Islam in America. Like all Muslims, I was shocked but not surprised at Donald Trump’s statement that all Muslims should be banned from entering the US because he has been making increasingly outrageous statements about America’s Muslim community for the last few months. Trump’s positions on banning Muslims from entering America and increased surveillance and profiling shocked many non-Muslim Americans as well as people across the world. Islamophobia in the United States has increased and is turning into a dangerous, growing reality. Recent rhetoric and attacks have resulted in widespread fear and uncertainty in the Muslim community. These attacks have included outrageous incidents where a taxi passenger in Pittsburgh shot the Moroccan driver after checking if he was a “Pakistani guy”. Some extremists have opened fire on mosques and Muslim homes. This kind of hatred against Muslims needs to be challenged and checked but unfortunately the statements of people like Trump are making the environment worse. In my book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam, I explored the place of Islam in American society and history. I discovered that there is not a single American identity but three broad identities that can be located in American history.
The first is primordial identity, which is rooted in the English settlers. For these settlers and their descendants America was a white, Protestant nation. The second identity is American pluralist identity promoted by the Founding Fathers who established the US as a nation of religious freedom, civil liberties, and democracy. The Founding Fathers welcomed Muslims and people of all religions from around the world to America. Franklin even expressed his desire that the Mufti of Istanbul come to Philadelphia and preach Islam to Americans because he believed so much in religious freedom and pluralism.
The third identity is a ‘predator’ identity, which entails the compulsion to reinforce primordial identity using force against any perceived threat to America. So while people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy represent pluralist America, the policies of enslavement of African Americans, an inferior status for them after slavery was abolished, the oppression of Native Americans, and the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II are examples of predator identity. After 9/11, the danger was that predator identity may asserting itself once again, with Muslims as the target. 4. Is the US going backward since 9/11, when President Bush went to mosques and said that Islam was not the enemy.
People don’t give President Bush credit but he did visit the main mosque in Washington DC after 9/11 and declared that America was at war against terrorists, not Islam.
The question now is whether America will go forward with predator identity. While Trump and advocates of predator identity are prominent in American society, at the moment we must not forget about the efforts of pluralist Americans to support and defend the idea of an inclusive America. As history shows, fear when combined with the economic insecurity so many Americans are feeling right now, can lead to hatred of the “other.” The questions Americans asked about Muslims after 9/11 have unfortunately not been answered a decade and a half later.
Since the deadly Paris attacks and San Bernadino shootings, a widespread backlash against Muslims in the US has been reported. This has happened despite the condemnations of every major Islamic group in the country.
CAIR, a Muslim civil rights group, has issued several alerts. An independent news outlet, ThinkProgress, states that 41 incidents of “violent attacks, threats, assaults, protests, and instances of vandalism” have occurred in the past few weeks. This backlash also comes in the wake of controversial positions taken by Republican Party’s Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump, and aided by dozens of governors who announced that they would not accept Syrian refugees as they could be potential sympathisers of the Islamic State of Iraq and Shaam (ISIS). This media frenzy and political posturing has whipped up passions against an imagined enemy. For instance, 30 per cent of Republicans in a December survey held by Public Policy Polling said that they would support an attack on Agrabah – a fictional place in the Aladdin cartoon.
It was a relief that nearly 60pc admitted that they were not sure. The desire to ban all Muslims entering the US – over 50pc show support for the idea – needs to be understood within this background. There is a blurring of reality and fantasy in which the fear of Muslims becomes merely a minor detail.
What is alarming is that disinformation and politicking is stirring unprecedented levels of hatred. Many observers say that this is worse than the post 9/11 climate in the United States. The Democrats, liberal sections of US media and civil society, are confronting this toxic mixture of ignorance and xenophobia.
While the threat of Islamic extremism cannot be dismissed, the 24/7 coverage of “terrorism” and “security analysis”, and its constant purveying of fear creates an unreal situation. Americans have been warned to be fearful of neighbours, of fellow passengers at the airport, train stations, and bus terminals.
Once the threat has been established and assumed to be universal, it could come from any direction.
To understand the narratives around Islam and Muslims in the US, I spoke to Dr Akbar S. Ahmed, who is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and author of “Journey into America” based on extensive field research on Islam in America. Like all Muslims, I was shocked but not surprised at Donald Trump’s statement that all Muslims should be banned from entering the US because he has been making increasingly outrageous statements about America’s Muslim community for the last few months. Trump’s positions on banning Muslims from entering America and increased surveillance and profiling shocked many non-Muslim Americans as well as people across the world. Islamophobia in the United States has increased and is turning into a dangerous, growing reality. Recent rhetoric and attacks have resulted in widespread fear and uncertainty in the Muslim community. These attacks have included outrageous incidents where a taxi passenger in Pittsburgh shot the Moroccan driver after checking if he was a “Pakistani guy”. Some extremists have opened fire on mosques and Muslim homes. This kind of hatred against Muslims needs to be challenged and checked but unfortunately the statements of people like Trump are making the environment worse. In my book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam, I explored the place of Islam in American society and history. I discovered that there is not a single American identity but three broad identities that can be located in American history.
The first is primordial identity, which is rooted in the English settlers. For these settlers and their descendants America was a white, Protestant nation. The second identity is American pluralist identity promoted by the Founding Fathers who established the US as a nation of religious freedom, civil liberties, and democracy. The Founding Fathers welcomed Muslims and people of all religions from around the world to America. Franklin even expressed his desire that the Mufti of Istanbul come to Philadelphia and preach Islam to Americans because he believed so much in religious freedom and pluralism.
The third identity is a ‘predator’ identity, which entails the compulsion to reinforce primordial identity using force against any perceived threat to America. So while people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy represent pluralist America, the policies of enslavement of African Americans, an inferior status for them after slavery was abolished, the oppression of Native Americans, and the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II are examples of predator identity. After 9/11, the danger was that predator identity may asserting itself once again, with Muslims as the target. 4. Is the US going backward since 9/11, when President Bush went to mosques and said that Islam was not the enemy.
People don’t give President Bush credit but he did visit the main mosque in Washington DC after 9/11 and declared that America was at war against terrorists, not Islam.
The question now is whether America will go forward with predator identity. While Trump and advocates of predator identity are prominent in American society, at the moment we must not forget about the efforts of pluralist Americans to support and defend the idea of an inclusive America. As history shows, fear when combined with the economic insecurity so many Americans are feeling right now, can lead to hatred of the “other.” The questions Americans asked about Muslims after 9/11 have unfortunately not been answered a decade and a half later.
