I’ll give The Donald this much: he sure does offer a scholar
of Islam a variety of options to rebut his xenophobic nonsense. I could talk about Islam and how ISIS is not “real”
Islam. But “real” is a social
construction, and it sure seems like the Islam of ISIS is real to them. I could talk about American Muslims and how
cool they are as a group, but experience is better, so by all means, find an
interfaith iftar (the meal at the end of the day to break the fast during
Ramadan) and go meet some for yourself.
What I want to talk about instead is why I’m not afraid of American
Muslims, of shari‘a, of ISIS, of anything BUT Donald Trump and his hateful and
incendiary rhetoric. And, good Baptist
that I am, I will do so, in part, by extolling the virtues of the First
Amendment.
Yesterday, President Obama responded to Trump’s allegations
that he was afraid to use the term “radical Islam” and that as such, he was
either hurting our counter-terrorism efforts or worse, aiding our enemies. You can listen to the president’s remarks here. I affirm what the president says here—“radical
Islam” is not the “open, sesame!” of counter-terrorism. Calling ISIS “radical Islam” will not make
our efforts to contain it easier. In
fact, it will likely make it harder to shut down ISIS. Perhaps now is a good time to discuss how
college students of the early-2000s wrote a lot of papers without a lot of
effort.
"Work smarter, not harder:" Wise advice, given by many college professors, including me. In the late-1990s and early-2000s, many
political science, sociology, and religion majors at colleges around the United
States did so by writing paper after paper rebutting Samuel Huntington’s “Clash
of Civilizations” hypothesis. Trust me
on this: I was one of those undergraduates.
Huntington argued, first in a 1993 Foreign
Affairs article then in a 1996 book, that the next world war, if there was
to be one would be between civilizations rather than nation-states. Specifically, he predicted a clash of
civilizations between “the West” and “Islam.”
Here’s where undergrads like me started to have a field day. You see, there is no “the West” and there’s
no “Islam.” Every country contained in
both of those supposed civilizations has its own issues, history, culture, and
political obstacles. When posed this
way, however, any conflict between any part of “the West” and “Islam” plays
into the narrative, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The problem today is that ISIS has latched on to the “clash
of civilizations” hypothesis with a vengeance.
ISIS wants Muslims in the West to become disenfranchised, to feel
bullied, ostracized, and ganged-up on.
Because then it can step in and be the savior: "Those people hate
you. Come hang out with us. We LOVE you!" Thus, everything Donald Trump opens his mouth to say something bad about
Muslims, he’s helping ISIS. In short, Donald
Trump’s openly bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric is treasonous.
Last night, appearing with Sean Hannity on Faux…I mean, Fox
News, Trump said that even American Muslims were dangerous because they haven’t
assimilated into American society well.
As usual, The Donald is full of it.
Study after study suggests that not
only have Muslims in America assimilated, they are, in fact, the gold star
immigrants—successful by every metric, prosperous, educated, and engaged in
their communities. The same can be said
with even greater confidence of Americans who converted to Islam. Law enforcement agencies from local police
forces to the FBI will tell you that the American Muslim community is the best source of intelligence on
radicalization in the U.S. American
Muslims DON’T want terrorist attacks, because such attacks threaten their lives
and livelihoods. Inevitably, The Donald
and his surrogates will point to the problems Muslim immigrants have
assimilating in Europe and say, "See?
They don’t like us!"
Again, not the let the facts get in the way of a good story,
but what’s happening in Europe and what’s happening in the United States are
night-and-day different. For one thing,
all kinds of immigrants in Europe face barriers to assimilation, especially if
they are of a different faith than the established religion. In Europe, indeed in much of the rest of the
world, there is an established faith, supported either tacitly or legally by
the state. That support could mean
leaning on religious leaders of that faith for legitimacy, tax-payer funding of
churches/mosques/synagogues/temples, and/or the conferring of privileges to
members of the established faith. Because
Islam is not the privileged religion of any of the major European countries,
Muslims find it quite difficult to fit in.
Occasionally, such disaffection leads to protests and riots as Paris saw
in 2005. Other times, disenfranchised
young Muslim men turn to violence, as happened in Paris last fall and Brussels
this spring. That violence is often given
rhetorical significance and currency by ISIS.
Contrast that with the United States. Here, we have a legal separation of church
and state. There is no church
establishment nor are there barriers to being able to freely practice one’s
religion. Muslims can immigrate to the
United States, find educational and employment opportunities, and maintain
their religious faith without fear of persecution or loss of opportunity. In the United States, it is and rightly
should be, okay to be Muslim. THIS is the
heart of the religious liberty that my Baptist forefathers fought so hard
for. Unfortunately, even some Baptists have forgotten
this. Our First Amendment protects
Muslims from xenophobia and Islamophobic nonsense. It also protects the rest of us from the (as
yet unrealized) threat of “creeping shari‘a.”
If no religion can be the established faith of the United States, than
means that shari‘a (which is, by the way, not as scary as everyone thinks it
is) can never become the law of the land.
See how fun the First Amendment can be?
