It’s a frickin’ mess.
When I first read that Trump had called for prohibitions on Muslims entering the country, I thought this was another one of his off-the-cuff statements, and misquoted at that. But it’s there in his press release:
Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing “25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled, “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.” Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.
Mr. Trump stated, “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again.”
Now, to begin with, Pew Research does periodically publish polls telling us that a great portion of the worldwide Muslim population is extremist, as we’d characterize them. I can’t lay my hands on it at the moment, but there was a study a couple years ago in which disturbingly large percentages of the population in various countries thought that apostates deserved the death penalty, for instance. In the U.S., we’re not exempt from such views; Pew’s latest study reports that 8% of American Muslims believe that suicide bombing is often or sometimes justified; 5% have a favorable view of Al Qaeda, and a full 21% believe there is a fair amount or a great deal of support for extremism, when phrased impersonally.
And as much as the media seems to have a stylebook that demands, when discussing an individual deciding to hold extremist views, to speak in the passive voice — “he was unaccountably radicalized” — the reality is that there are individuals who make the intentional and willful choice to believe that they should kill nonbelievers in the name of Islam, right here in the United States. You think Farook and Malik were the only two? Really? Mom was surely involved, and sis as well, to begin with. And how many others are out there right now, having not attacked simply because they haven’t yet decided that the time is right, either directed by ISIS or working wholly independently? And how many others still believe that Islamic women should be shamed or punished if they refuse to cover, or bring dishonor to their family, believe that the Charlie Hebdo victims had it coming to them for daring to insult Islam, and believe that Islam deserves special protection against blasphemy? Or support the Muslim Brotherhood, and maybe wouldn’t advocate for sharia law in the United States and might think ISIS is a bit too brutal, but don’t have any fundamental gripe with the idea of a sharia legal system, and promote such things as the separation of the sexes here.
The concern is legitimate.
I get it. We’re all worried. We couldn’t vet Malik. We don’t know whether the government tried particularly hard. We worry that, even now, the government is more worried about offending Muslims than solving this, that they’re willfully denying a risk, and treating each of these incidents as one-offs. We know that the federal government has to improve its processes, probing connections to extremist groups and even asking simple questions that are markers of extremist belief. Heck, they could simply start with having an immigration officer of the opposite sex try to shake hands. With respect to Muslims in the United States, the government has to be more cautious about granting the label “moderate” to everyone who claims it, and be instead more demanding that “moderates” are actually moderate, with an eye toward, for instance, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s characterization of the problems with Islam as a totalitarian sort of worldview (see my summary of her book here and my reflections on her message here).
And there are pundits who even now are saying, “well, we wouldn’t wholly prevent Muslims from entering the country, but Trump is right insofar as we need to do something.” And there are pundits who say, “this is just Trump’s opening bid, like a negotiation in which you ask for far more than you think you can get, in order to have a strong negotiating position to ultimately get what you really want.”
But Trump isn’t just a Rush Limbaugh-type radio show host, or a pundit on a blog somewhere. He’s claiming to be, and is expecting to be treated as, a serious candidate for the Presidency. And no one in this position should even contemplate proposing something like this. It’s not OK, and can’t be justified and explained away as a tactic, or brushed off as “he didn’t really mean it,” or “he really only meant a pause of a couple weeks” (really? since when can Congress “figure out” something in just a couple weeks?) or “he really only referred to immigration” of one kind or another, or countries with an Al Qaeda presence.
So, no. Just no.
We can have a conversation. We should have a conversation.
But “ban Muslims from entering the country” is not, cannot be the starting point for this conversation.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In