I’ve been meaning for some time to write about Islamophobia. I’ve often had problems with the politically-correct narrative I’ve heard about Islam. President Bush called Islam a “religion of peace” shortly after 9/11. On the West Wing episode about 9/11, “Isaac and Ishmael,” Josh Lyman tells a group of students that radical Islam is to Islam what the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity: small and on the margins. A professor once told me that most Muslims don’t interpret jihad as a literal battle, but rather as a spiritual war, the conquering of sin, if you will.
I didn’t buy into this politically-correct narrative because, well, I have problems saying that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, whereas radical Islam constitutes a small minority. There are Islamic nations that hate the United States and shelter Al Qaeda. Muhammad himself fought wars of conquest.
But, even though I have questioned the politically-correct spiel I’ve heard about Islam, I’ve still had enough sense to realize that not all Muslims are violent fanatics, intent on destroying America. I’ve known that there are many Muslims who are good people. I knew Muslims at DePauw University and Harvard Divinity School. I once saw a group of Muslim teenage girls in their Islamic garb, going into a music store. They were like your typical American teenage girls, talking about the latest music fads, only they were fully covered in their Muslim garb. A Muslim family once gave me a ride to school when they saw I was carrying a bunch of books. I’m not going to say that radical Islam is merely a tiny, marginal fringe of Islam, but I know there’s a large segment of Islam that isn’t radical.
What disturbs me is how prevalent Islamophobia has become among bright, intelligent people who should know better. These people aren’t bigoted against Jews, Catholics, or African-Americans, as far as I know. They have friends of different races and backgrounds. They try to judge people by the content of their character. And yet, they are prejudiced against Muslims. I’d expect Islamophobia in America to be on the fringes, among fanatical elements of American society. But it’s not. Decent, mainstream people are Islamophobic.
Don’t they remember why we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? The foreign policy of conservative Presidents has not been to lump all Muslims into the same category and to regard them all as radicals. It has been to cultivate relationships with moderate Muslims. I once heard Sean Hannity say that we should promote moderate Muslim societies in Iraq and Afghanistan: we shouldn’t be trying to overthrow Islam, but we should work with elements of Islam that are compatible with democracy. I mean, for crying out loud, we’ve been fighting for the right of Muslims in other countries to vote, to be free from oppression by dictators! How can we support the rights of Muslims one minute, then turn right around and assert that all Muslims want to destroy America? Yet, there are Americans who do precisely that! I even know service-people who talk about Muslims in Iraq who are grateful to us for removing Saddam Hussein, yet these same service-people say we shouldn’t be “nicey-nicey” with Muslims, as if all Muslims are part of some sinister conspiracy.
What especially disturbs me is how Islamophobes like to bring up taqqiya. I’m not an expert on taqqiya, but what I’ve heard is that it means a Muslim can lie about being a Muslim when he is threatened or persecuted (here is a link to Quran references, but this particular site appears to be anti-Islam). But Islamophobes take taqqiya to mean that Muslims who present their religion as peaceful and tolerant are deliberately lying: that they’ll say anything to gain converts for Islam, and their true aim is to bring down America and to impose sharia law, Iranian style! Can you imagine being put into the situation in which Islamophobes are placing Muslims: people accuse you of nasty things, and, when you try to prove that you’re a good person through your words and actions, you’re accused of being deceptive! You’re told that, deep down, you must have evil motives! You’re never allowed to prove your accusers wrong, to allow them to judge you by the content of your character, for they’ll always assume that you are lying.
Overall, I’m getting tired of the Islamophobia of the Right. And it’s mainstream in the Right at this time—it’s not on the margins! That, coupled with the judgmentalism of many conservatives, is why I’m very reluctant to vote for Republicans this coming election year.