(Wikimedia Commons photo by “Swampyank”)
I’ve had a number of Trump supporters write to and about me, declaring that Muslims in America are “irrational” to be nervous about the results of the American presidential election and even that they’re just playing the “victim card,” maybe even faking their worries.
Some have even blamed me for stirring up anxieties among Muslims, and have accused me of spreading “leftist propaganda.” (I’m reminded just a bit, candidly, of people back in the 1950s who claimed that black Americans were actually quite happy under segregation, and that any discontent that might exist was only due to Communist agitators.)
I can promise such people that American worries are genuine. I’ve heard and seen many expressions of them, and they began long before 8 November. But are they really “irrational”?
I don’t think so.
It shouldn’t be forgotten, by the way, that many American Muslims come, as first-generation immigrants, from countries with histories of autocratic rulers, poor human rights records, and long traditions of arbitrary arrest and punishment and of restrictions on freedom of religion and expression. In their formative years, government has often been the enemy. It would be surprising if they weren’t suspicious. I have a good Muslim friend, originally from India, who has lived in southern California for decades and who has had considerable business success there. Even so, he was surprised and moved by the fact that, after 9/11, the United States government didn’t begin rounding Muslims up and putting them in internment camps. I myself was surprised at his unfeigned relief.
Let me, however, set out a bit of necessary background before I proceed to give at least one reason why I don’t find their concerns unreasonable:
I completely agree with Katrina Trinko’s contention that
“Donald Trump’s Win Wasn’t about Racism”
Overwhelmingly, Americans who voted for Mr. Trump — I was emphatically not among them — weren’t endorsing religious bigotry or hatred of Mexicans. They had other concerns, many of which, I think, were quite justified and most of which are, in my judgment, entirely legitimate. (That I regard Mr. Trump as a deeply problematic response to those concerns is, for present purposes, beside the point.)
It’s important to understand that Mr. Trump’s election hasn’t revealed the United States to be fundamentally racist or anti-Muslim. American Muslims should be reassured by that.
And, specifically for my Muslim friends here in Utah, it’s absolutely essential to grasp the fact — which I’ve been trying to emphasize on this blog (e.g., here and here) — that Trump’s win in Utah doesn’t reflect great enthusiasm for Mr. Trump, let alone for his seeming appeal to religious and ethnic prejudice. An article published this morning in the Deseret News backs up what I’ve been saying:
“Presidential election exit polls show Utahns highly conflicted”
But the fact remains that religious and racial bigotry have been prominently on display in and around the Trump campaign since its launch, and an argument can surely be made (and has been made) that, whether consciously or not, the president-elect appealed to such bigotry.
I saw a photograph the other day (which I can’t find right now) of a pro-Trump demonstrator standing outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland earlier this year, holding a sign reading “Allah = Satan” and denouncing Islam. (I’ve tried repeatedly, in print and in classes and in public lectures, to combat this particular specimen of militant ignorance, but it flourishes still.) I continually encounter demands that shari‘a be banned — from people who, frankly, couldn’t accurately explain what shari ‘a even is but who, perhaps understandably but still unfortunately, have come to fear it terribly and, yes, “irrationally.”
“How a series of fringe anti-Muslim conspiracy theories went mainstream — via Donald Trump”
“The Islamophobia Election: How ‘Muslim’ Became a Racial Identity”
I understand completely (all too well, alas) that many vicious acts of terrorism have been carried out in the name of Islam and by professing Muslims. Please, Trump-defenders, don’t try to refute what I’m saying by accusing me of not caring about Islamist violence, or of being blind to the threat. I’m absolutely not. And, for that matter, I’m a conservative, not a liberal.
But here’s an early statement of Mr. Trump’s desire to impose “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” at least temporarily:
Mr. Trump’s declaration that Muslims as Muslims should be barred from coming to the country was clearly contrary to the spirit of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It even drew an implicit denunciation from the normally quite apolitical leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had already decided by that time that I could never support Mr. Trump, but his remarks on Muslim immigration fortified my decision.
However, that call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” remains up on Mr. Trump’s campaign website.
What is he actually planning to do? Perhaps nobody, including himself, really knows.
“Does Trump still plan on banning Muslims from entering the U.S.?”
“Donald Trump can absolutely ban Muslims from entering the US, without Congress”
It’s not at all difficult to imagine ordinary Muslims feeling uneasy (and uncertain) under such circumstances.
If, to try to bring this home a little bit, Latter-day Saints were singled out as a class, and by name, for particular surveillance or restrictions, I suspect that we would be nervous, too. (In the nineteenth century, there were actually proposals to bar Mormon immigration to the United States; even the British House of Lords denounced that idea.) And we might well legitimately worry whether such special government attention would give aid and comfort and seeming sanction to the many people out there who hate our beliefs and hate us. (We have some historical experience with this kind of thing.)
No, I don’t find Muslim unease even slightly difficult to understand.
In related news, here’s an item making the rounds, about a leader of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR):
“CAIR leader responds to Trump victory: Overthrow U.S. government”
(Full disclosure: I’ve had some few friendly interactions with Mr. Ayloush. Not many, but perhaps two or three over the years.)
Basically, he’s being portrayed as calling for a revolution, which would be treason. (As Daniel Pipes puts it, “Ayloush unambiguously and directly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government.”) And this, some are saying, shows the true character of American Islam.
Well . . . I disagree with Mr. Ayloush on this as on many other things. I think it was a foolish comment to make. But I don’t see him as calling for the overthrow of the government. And I don’t see him as speaking for all American Muslims. I view his reaction as reflecting his liberal politics (he’s a leader in California’s Democratic Party) at least as much as his Islam, and probably much more so.
The Arabic phrase that he cites was a slogan of the “Arab Spring,” to which many have compared the anti-Trump protests that broke out almost instantly after Mr. Trump’s election victory became apparent. I think that Mr. Ayloush was wrong to make the association. Mr. Trump did, after all, win the presidency legitimately, taking the Electoral College and coming in a fairly close second to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote. However much many of us regret his acquisition of the White House, he is the lawful president-elect of the United States.
But that Arabic phrase isn’t even an imperative. It’s not calling for anything. It simply says that “the people” want to overthrow (or “cause the fall of”) “the System.”
Leftists almost always presume to speak for “the people,” even when they clearly don’t. This was true already back in the days of Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement, when I was in high school: It was amusing to see students at a very elite public university, heavily subsidized in their studies by taxes extracted from people who hadn’t attended that university and whose children would never, ever, gain entry to it, preening themselves on speaking for “the people.” (There were powerful whiffs of the same pretense in the Bernie Sanders campaign, as well.)
Mr. Ayloush’s outburst seems to represent a state of psychological denial. But the fact is that his side lost. Period. He’s not the only liberal Democrat to have felt that way late on Tuesday night and after waking up on Wednesday morning. Plenty of non-Muslims had the same reaction. Even I had a hard time sleeping that night . . . and I’m neither a Democrat nor a liberal.
They can march and wave signs and chant all they want. For better or worse, the next president of the United States is Mr. Donald J. Trump.
But he worries me, too.
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