Misguided Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

December4,201511:45pm
FareedZakaria/ManilaTimes

NEW YORK CITY: The most recent act of horrific violence in America in San Bernardino,
California was perpetrated by a Muslim man and woman. There are around 3 million
Muslims in the United States, almost all of whom are law-abiding citizens. How should they
react to the actions of the couple who killed 14 people this week?
The most commonly heard response is that Muslims must immediately and loudly condemn
these acts of barbarity. But Dalia Mogahed, a Muslim-American leader, argues eloquently
that this is unfair. She made her case to NBCs Chuck Todd.
According to the FBI, the majority of domestic terrorist attacks are actually committed by
white, male Christians. When those things occur, we dont suspect other people who
share their faith and ethnicity of condoning them. We assume that these things outrage them
just as much as they do anyone else. And we have to afford that same assumption of
innocence to Muslims.
Muslims face a double standard, but I understand why. Muslim terrorists dont just happen to
be Muslim. They claim to be motivated by religion, cite religious justifications for their actions,
and tell their fellow Muslims to follow in their bloody path. There are groups around the world
spreading this religiously infused ideology and trying to seduce Muslims to become terrorists.
In these circumstances, it is important for the majority of Muslims who profoundly disagree
with jihad to speak up.
But it is also important to remember that there are 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet. If you
took the total number of terrorism deaths last year around 30,000 and assumed that 50
people were involved in planning each one (a vastly exaggerated estimate) it would still
add up to less than 0.1 percent of the worlds Muslims.
The writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a tough critic of Islam. She divides the Muslim world into two
groups: Mecca Muslims and Medina Muslims. (The Quranic revelations to Mohammed made
in Mecca are mostly about brotherhood and love; the ones in Medina have the fire and
brimstone.) She estimates that 3 percent of the worldwide community are Medina Muslims,
the other 97 percent being mainstream Mecca Muslims. Now, 3 percent works out to a large
number, 48 million, and thats why we spend lots of time, money and effort dealing with the
threats that might emanate from them. But that still leaves the other 97 percent the more
than 1.55 billion who are not jihadis. They may be reactionary and backward in many
ways. But that is not the same as being terrorists.
While I believe that Muslims do bear a responsibility to speak up, non-Muslims also have a
responsibility not to make assumptions about them based on such a small minority.
Individuals should be judged as individuals, and not placed under suspicion for some group
characteristic. It is dehumanizing and un-American to do otherwise.
It also misunderstands how religion works in peoples lives. Imagine a Bangladeshi taxi
driver in New York. He has not, in any meaningful sense, chosen to be Muslim. He was born
into a religion, grew up with it, and like hundreds of millions of people around the world in
every faith, follows it out of a mixture of faith, respect for his parents and family, camaraderie
with his community, and inertia. His knowledge of the sacred texts is limited. He is trying to

make a living and provide for his family. For him, Islam provides identity and psychological
support in a hard life. This is what religion looks like for the vast majority of Muslims.
But increasingly Americans seem to view Muslims as actively propagating a dangerous
ideology, like communist activists. Its not just Donald Trump. Republican candidates are
vying with each other to make insinuations and declarations about Islam and all Muslims.
And its not just on the right. The television personality and outspoken liberal Bill Maher
made the expansive generalization recently that, If you are in this religion, you probably do
have values that are at odds [with American values].
What is most bizarre is to hear this anti-Muslim rhetoric described as brave truth-telling.
Trump insists that he will not be silenced on this issue. Chris Christie says that he will not
follow a politically correct national security policy. This feeds growing prejudice. The reality
is that Muslims are today the most despised minority in America. Their faith is constantly
criticized, they face insults, discrimination and a dramatic rise in acts of violence, as Max
Fisher of Vox has detailed superbly. And the leading Republican candidate has flirted with
the idea of registering all Muslims, a form of collective punishment that has not been seen
since the internment of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s.
This is the first time that I can recall watching politicians pander to mobs and then
congratulate themselves for their political courage.