Fear and loathing in America

There is reason for hope that America’s voices of tolerance and plurality will eventually win out.

In a recent edition of her weekly show on ABC News, journalist Christiane Amanpour was barraged with strident opinions. The topic was rather ominously titled “Holy War: Should Americans Fear Islam?” Implicit in this query are two assumptions: one, an Islamist jihad is being or might soon be perpetrated in America; two, Americans and Muslims are entirely different, mutually exclusive and opposed entities: classic us versus them. Perhaps the idea behind this alarmist title was grabbing attention, given the typical TV viewer’s capricious attention span and preferences (more Americans are likely to tune into byte-sized accounts of Paris Hilton’s latest misadventure, rather than the details of the Mideast imbroglio, for instance) and the media’s penchant for sensationalism, it is understandable. That aside, the answer to the question posed is becoming increasingly clear to the average American. Based on recent polls and the cascade of events pertaining to Muslims in the US, it is safe to say that a near-majority of Americans would regard Islam — the religion itself — as a potential, even imminent, threat. Be afraid, be very afraid. Why? Here’s how this very rightwing but increasingly popular narrative goes: Islam is a violent and draconian religion; its edicts coerce its followers to lead utterly stifling, joyless and bearded/burqa-ed lives; it usurps fundamental freedoms and quells all dissent with violence, even murder; it is rapidly spreading in America —  even the hallowed Ground Zero isn’t safe anymore; bigoted fanatics will triumphantly practice their medieval rituals exactly where their brethren slaughtered some 3,000 innocent Americans; most Muslims are al Qaeda sympathisers and are trying to install more and more imams and mosques across the country to effect wholesale conversions to their retrogressive, fierce ideology with the eventual aim of imposing Sharia on all Americans and ‘capturing’ the White House as well (if they haven’t done so already). In short, Muslims — gasp! — are taking over the country!

Exaggerated, right? Think again. A number of rightwing political and Christian personalities — and their stooges in major media outlets like the rabidly anti-Islamic Fox News — are peddling the same viewpoint. This, besides damaging America’s secular credentials, is making life difficult for the five million Muslims in the country. The brouhaha over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque and Pastor Jones’ deranged theatrics aside, growing fear, intolerance and hatred abound. An independent blogger-activist, Pamela Geller, is inciting Muslims towards “Leaving Islam”, a slogan she splattered in flashy ads on buses in several American cities; opposition to building new mosques in states like Tennessee is growing, as are acts of vandalism against existing ones. Last month, a group of congressmen and media figures publicly released a chunky report titled ‘Shariah: The Threat to America’; in Texas, the board of education decided that its textbooks “glorified” Islam and needed to be modified to present a more truthful, Christian picture to students.

America has been here before. It saw off the virulence of McCarthyism and Japanese-American internment camps. The current paranoia may be a fleeting, post-9/11 and economic downturn-inspired phenomenon, stoked by opportunistic politicians and their brown-nosed media flunkies. It’s election season, after all. There is reason for hope that America’s voices of tolerance and plurality — which are strong and numerous — will eventually win out. The real danger is not some apocalyptic Islamist conquest of the country but the erosion of values it supposedly reveres and the use of this phenomenon as a rallying cry by fanatics yearning to inflict their own violent hatred on the American people. That’s what we should all fear.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2010.