Is America Islamophobic?

In my opinion, there are several suffixes in the political jargon of the day that need to die painful deaths. One of these is -gate. Since the infamous Watergate break-in, almost every political scandal or pseudoscandal has been labeled with this prefix. It has gotten to the point that, last month, after President Obama claimed he didn’t know who someone named Snookie (who is, apparently, some tramp in New Jersey who appears on some ridiculous “reality TV show”) was, even though he had previously used her name in a joke some speechwriter wrote for him. Some headline writer promptly labeled this “scandal”, Snookie-gate. Come on, people! Nixon resigned 36 years ago. Are you telling me that you couldn’t come up with something more original after 3 ½ decades?

Another suffix that should meet its ignoble end, at least in the political sense, is the suffix -phobia. Now phobia is a perfectly good psychological term, defined as an irrational and/or debilitating fear. Arachnophobia is an irrational and/or debilitating fear of spiders. Triskaidekaphobia is the irrational and/or debilitating fear of the number 13. Tristadekaphobia is an irrational and/or debilitating fear of pickles. (I actually have a friend who has this fear and, if she reads this, she will, no doubt, recognize herself and probably be surprised that I remembered. But there is no way I would ever forget something like that.)

The first political usage I can recall of -phobia, is homophobia. Now, of all the political uses of –phobia­, this may have been the closest to a correct usage. When AIDS was a rapidly expanding epidemic that was little understood, totally untreatable, and largely confined to IV drug users and the gay community, there probably was a true fear of gays, though I’m not sure that fear was totally irrational given as little as was known about the disease and its communicability. As HIV/AIDS and its mode of transmission and successful treatments have developed, true homophobia is probably very rare. In the meantime, the term has been warped to mean, roughly, “An epithet to be used in any instance of disagreement with the gay community.” Therefore, anyone who disagrees with gay marriage, gays in the military, etc., has been labeled homophobic, even though their reasons may be well-intentioned and well-considered and have little or nothing to do with fear of gays.

Like the perfectly utilitarian words fascism and racism, the suffix –phobia has been thrown around so indiscriminately that it has come to mean, “You disagree with me.” The latest iteration of this is the term, Islamophobia – literally, an irrational and/or debilitation fear of Islam.

We have heard this term since the 9/11/01 attacks. In fact, Islamophobia has been bandied about so much that one might be excused for thinking that the attacks were directed against Islam, rather than the other way around. Lately, we have been inundated with claims of American Islamophobia because of the controversy about the Ground Zero Mosque.

So is America Islamophobic? The answer is a flat NO. This country, in keeping with our tolerant, pluralistic tradition is quite possibly the most religiously tolerant country on the face of the earth. Even though after every attack on the United States by Islamic terrorists, we were roundly warned against retaliation, the people of the United States have been remarkably tolerant of Muslims in our midst. There has been no whole-scale persecution of American Muslims. There has been no pattern of mosque burnings. Each time a Muslim commits an atrocity against the United States – 9/11, Ft. Hood shooting, Christmas panty-bomber, and others – what has been America’s reaction? Precisely nothing. The long-awaited backlash has never occurred. According to the FBI, who tracks “hate crimes” (an odious designation, in itself), the most recent data available (2008) showed that for hate crimes involving a religious bias, 66.1% of the victims were Jewish and only 7.5% of the victims were Muslim.

Another reason the United States is not Islamophobic is because whatever fear of Islam there may be is neither irrational nor debilitating. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous plagiarized quote, “We have nothing to fear but fear, itself,” is a pithy, clever statement. It is also as false as Tammy Faye’s eyelashes. There are things out there that you darn well better fear. Fear is a God-given emotion that is designed for our survival. For example, most humans have a fear of snakes. This is a good thing in that there are snakes that can kill us. Our fear of snakes helps to keep us alive in those areas that are home to poisonous snakes. Likewise, if you live in a high crime area, your fear causes you to make sure your doors are locked and to be more alert on your strolls around the block. This is a healthy response and is one of those instincts that are essential to the survival of the human species.

The fact of the matter is that there are a not insignificant number of radical Muslims that want to kill us. Our political leaders keep telling us that Islam is a religion of peace, a concept that would, no doubt, be confusing to Mohammed, whose life and writings show he was a man who was not hesitant to wield a sword. As has been demonstrated numerous times over the past several decades, however, we may not be at war with Islam, but there is a faction of Islam that is at war with us. We know that this has penetrated deep into American life and even into our military. It is not unreasonable, therefore, that we have a healthy fear of Islam. It was the intentional disregard of this healthy fear that lead to the massacre of 13 people and the wounding of 30 others at Ft. Hood. We allow our reasonable fear to be allayed at our peril.

In spite of assurances by our leaders in Washington and elsewhere that we have nothing to fear from Islam, they understand that this is not true. Now I believe that those mallet-heads that would burn Qurans are stupid, provocative, and have very little understanding of true Christianity. But the response of our government illustrate very well that they know that there is something to fear from Islam. That is why General Petraeus warned that burning the Quran would endanger our troops, a message further reiterated by Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in a personal phone call to the lead Quran burning pinhead, Terry Jones. Eric Holder, the Attorney General, called Quran burning, “Idiotic and dangerous.” Both of which are true. The FBI even had a private chat with Mr. (I refuse to use the honorific, Rev.) Jones and reportedly said, “You know what happens to people who burn Qurans, right?” The FBI has even published a report that states that retaliation for the Quran burning is likely.

Compare that reaction with the reaction of Americans to the building of a controversial mosque at Ground Zero. No FBI visits to the Muslim community were necessary. Instead of President Obama, Eric Holder, and Robert Gates, among others, speaking out against this insensitive act, they supported it against the wishes of the majority of Americans. A solitary attack against an anti-Ground Zero Mosque Muslim cab driver by a man who volunteered with a group that supports the Ground Zero Mosque could just as easily have been perpetrated in order to try to make people believe that it was an attack in response to “Islamophobia”. But our government knows that, while there are a few nuts out there, the overwhelming majority of Americans pose no threat to the Islamic community. The converse is obviously untrue.

Of course, this is not to say that all Muslims are terrorists. Most Muslims in the United States are truly peace-loving people who make good friends and neighbors. But there are enough radicals who want to kill us and our way of life that a healthy fear is not unreasonable and shouldn’t be debilitating. Unfortunately, this seems better understood by our populace than by our leaders.