Bigoted view of Islam is dangerous

Last week, an article entitled “Is America Raising the White Flag to the Threat Within?” appeared on this blog. While this article does bring up some points that are technically true—such as the fact that it took the deaths of nine innocent black churchgoers before South Carolina’s Congress finally moved to take down the Confederate Flag from its ground—it is still incredibly dangerous for a number of other reasons.

Namely, by inaccurately comparing the issues of the Confederate Flag and “Islamic” extremism, the author is trivializing and brushing aside the issue of institutional racism. Moreover, by conflating Islam and terror, he is dehumanizing all Muslims under a thinly veiled attack on “political correctness.” Not being Islamophobic is not an issue of being politically correct versus being free to say whatever you please–it’s about being a decent human being versus being a bigot.

{mosads}First, the author of the piece in question makes the assertion that “the majority of Americans lack a basic knowledge about our history” and gets in line behind the many other defenders of the Confederate flag with the claim that it is only a representation of Southern heritage. We, too, are concerned that there are so many Americans that do not have basic knowledge about our beautiful nation’s history. For example, the author believes that the Civil War was mainly about states’ rights. Yes, it was about states’ rights–states’ rights to have slaves. Many are unaware that slavery was explicitly a cause for secession in the Confederate states’ Declaration of Causes of Secession. Nor do many know that the current “Stars and Bars” was first raised in 1961 as a blatantly racist and symbolic resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling and Civil Rights Movement.

We also agree that the flag is only symbolic–it is more important that we address the many systematic and root causes of the blatant racism and discrimination that the flag represents.

The author tries to not only shift away from the uncomfortable notion of self-reflection of our nation’s past, but seeks to turn the focus on the oh-so menacing “threat” of Islam. Nevermind that since 9/11, nonjihadist violent extremists have killed double the number of Americans than those who kill in the name of Islam.

Apparently, the backlash against the Confederate flag’s racist history drives the author to create a straw man by conjuring up a “flag of Islam” that should instead be dealt with. Let’s be clear– there is no “flag of Islam.” Further, the author laughably tries to deflect the Western slave trade by blaming Muslims for being the actual bad guys who enabled the West to own slaves.

Finally, perhaps the most concerning inaccuracy in the piece in question is the author’s adamant stance that there is some sort of requirement stating that everyone must eventually submit to Islam or face certain death. This ill-founded “convert or die” compulsion is a favorite of Islamophobes, but it is precisely that: ill-founded. As Muslims have been pointing out to apparently deaf ears for centuries, there is no such compulsion in the Quran. There is, however, a verse that explicitly states that killing one man is like killing all of mankind, but that doesn’t help one’s fear-mongering case, so it’s no wonder that no one hears about this one. Perhaps if the author came to Friday prayer with any American Muslim, he would notice that there are no scary imams spewing hate speech from the pulpit.

The type of unverified and racist rhetoric exhibited in the piece in question, with regards to both the Confederate flag and Islam, is tired–and it is time to focus on real threats, and put it to rest. Fear-mongering and blind hatred accomplishes nothing on the front of any fight against hatred. On the contrary, broad generalizations that attempt to smear the truth under the guise of concern for our national security are acts of terrorism in and of themselves. As MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati stated regarding ISIS earlier this week: “There will be groups that will exploit this situation to support their savagery of violent extremism and there will also be groups like this in America that will exploit this as wicked opportunism to also spread fear mongering and divide our country. We have to be unified to defeat terrorism.”

Masoom is editor-in-chief of ReadCONTRA.com and works with the Muslim Public Affairs Council.