Islamophobia: The Price of Fear in the US

Published in El País
(Spain) on 22 November 2015
by Yolande Monge (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by James Philip Hewlett. Edited by Melanie Rehfuss.
The United States has been in a state of hysteria over the last few days; days in which a fear toward foreigners has prevailed and panic, due to a traitor capable of inciting terror from within its own borders, has gripped the nation. The facts matter little, if at all, including those which state that out of the 750,000 refugees who have been resettled in America since 9/11, not a single one has been arrested on domestic terrorism charges, as California Representative Xavier Becerra said this week, quoting The Economist.

But the attacks in Paris have aroused fear and ignorance. On Wednesday, the mayor of Roanoke, a small town in the state of Virginia, suggested that Syrian refugees should be placed in internment camps like the Japanese-Americans were following the attack on Pearl Harbor. David Bowers must have thought that turning to history and mentioning Franklin D. Roosevelt would constitute a sufficient guarantee of legitimacy for his proposal. Driven by the strong current of ideas being put forward to bring an end to the barbarity, Bowers spoke without the benefit of prior research, which resulted in an apology for his comments.

“I'm reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then,” said the mayor. Apart from the fact that those who Roosevelt sent to internment camps were American citizens whose crime was having had Japanese ancestry, the U.S. government apologized in 1988 for what took place, saying that it had been the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

And yet, those who aspire to become president are seemingly eager to repeat the same mistakes of the past. Marco Rubio has compared Muslims to Nazis. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush want to deny Syrian refugees entry into the country, but only those who are Muslim. Christians, on the other hand, are welcome. Ben Carson, who is leading in the polls, has compared Syrian refugees to “rabid dogs,” and everyone knows what fate awaits them. To cite another example of the American hysteria, Chris Christie went as far as to say that not even “orphans under five should be admitted into the United States.”

Then there’s Donald Trump, who deserves his own review because his proposal is an outright call to re-establish the sort of fascism that once swept across Europe. The billionaire tycoon, who claims to have express solutions for almost any issue on the agenda, said last Thursday that there is a real need to create a Muslim database - something not too dissimilar to the yellow Star of David that the Nazis forced Jews to wear.

As an object lesson of the emergency response to the panic caused by terrorist attacks like those in Paris, the House of Representatives passed a bill this week to halt Obama’s refugee plan of welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees. “We should not bring Syrian refugees into this country unless we can be 100 percent confident that they are not here to do us harm,” said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

A week after Islamic State terrorists killed 130 people in several attacks across Paris, the Muslim population in the U.S. has been forced to go on the defensive, as happened following 9/11. Not only are they defending their faith, pointing out that Islam is a religion of peace, but they are also under attack. Following the desecration of a mosque in Texas with feces and torn pages of the Quran, another mosque being vandalized in Nebraska, and threats being made on social media against religious sites in Tampa and Houston, Ibrahim Hooper, the National Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations stated, “I think, unfortunately, that we've seen the gradual mainstreaming of Islamophobia.”

In his book “American Hysteria,” the journalist and visiting fellow at Yale Law School, Andrew Burt, argues that this political hysteria arises in periods of profound uncertainty about American identity. In the prologue to a volume examining the crucial moments of political extremism in the U.S., such as McCarthyism during the ‘50s, Burt writes, “when Americans lose their sense of who they are, they lash out against perceived threats with blacklists, scapegoating, conspiracies, cover-ups and more.”

Burt concludes his book by quoting the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. “The best way to protect the freedoms we cherish is to leave them untouched - not just in times of normalcy, but in periods of crisis as well.” Otherwise, if we don’t, we’ll ultimately pay the price of fear, whose currency the United States has known all too well over the last decade – whether it was invading Iraq under false pretenses or violating the rights of hundreds of prisoners by hiding them away on Cuban soil.


Estados Unidos vive días de histeria, jornadas de miedo al extranjero y pánico a ese infiel que puede imponer el terror dentro de sus fronteras. Poco o nada importan los datos, esos que dicen que de los 750.000 refugiados que se han asentado en Estados Unidos desde los ataques del 11 de septiembre, ninguno de ellos ha sido detenido bajo cargos de terrorismo doméstico, según declaró esta semana el representante por California, Xavier Becerra, citando a la revista The Economist.

Los ataques de París han hecho aflorar el miedo y la ignorancia. El alcalde de Roanoke, una pequeña ciudad en el Estado de Virginia, sugirió a mediados de esta semana hacer con los refugiados sirios lo que se hizo con los ciudadanos americanos de ascendencia japonesa tras el ataque a Pearl Harbor: internarlos en campos. David Bowers debió pensar que recurrir a la historia y mencionar al presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt sería suficiente garantía de legitimidad para su propuesta. Movido por la fuerte corriente de tomar posiciones para frenar la barbarie, Bowers habló sin haber hecho mínimas comprobaciones, lo que le ha llevado a pedir disculpas por sus comentarios.

“El presidente Roosevelt se vio obligado a encerrar a ciudadanos japoneses tras el bombardeo de Pearl Harbor y ahora parece que la amenaza contra América por parte de ISIS es tan real y seria como fue la de nuestros enemigos entonces”, dijo el alcalde. Aparte de que a quien internó Roosevelt fue a ciudadanos americanos cuyo crimen era haber tenido antepasados japoneses y no japoneses en sí, el Gobierno norteamericano pidió perdón en 1988 por lo sucedido diciendo que había sido el resultado de “prejuicios racistas, la histeria de la guerra y un fracaso del liderazgo político”.

Y sin embargo, los que aspiran a liderar Estados Unidos parecen ansiosos por repetir estos días errores del pasado. Marco Rubio ha comparado a los musulmanes con los nazis. Ted Cruz y Jeb Bush quieren negar la entrada al país a los refugiados sirios, pero solo a aquellos que sean musulmanes, abriendo las puertas a los cristianos. Ben Carson, liderando encuestas, ha comparado a los refugiados sirios con "perros rabiosos", y todo el mundo conoce el final que espera a estos últimos. Chris Christie, por citar otro ejemplo de histeria americana, ha llegado a decir que creía que incluso “ni los huérfanos menores de cinco años deberían ser admitidos en Estados Unidos”.

Luego está Donald Trump, quien merece una reseña aparte porque su propuesta es directamente una llamada al renacer del fascismo que arrasó Europa. El magnate multimillonario, que dice tener soluciones exprés para casi cualquier asunto que se debata, dijo este pasado jueves se hacía necesario crear un registro de musulmanes, algo que no se aleja mucho de la estrella amarilla con la que los nazis marcaban a los judíos.

Como ejemplo práctico de una reacción de urgencia ante el pánico que imponen ataques como los vividos en París, la Cámara de Representantes pasó esta semana un proyecto de ley que pone freno al plan de Barack Obama de dar cobijo a unos 10.000 refugiados sirios. "No podemos dejar entrar a ninguno hasta que no estemos seguros al 100% de que no representan un peligro para la patria", dijo el presidente de la Cámara, Paul Ryan.

Una semana después de que los terroristas de ISIS mataran a 130 personas en varios ataques en París, la comunidad musulmana en Estados Unidos se ha visto obligada a entrar, como sucedió tras el 11-S, en modo defensivo. No solo defienden su fe, recordando que el Islam es una religión de paz, sino que enfrentan ataques físicos. La profanación con heces de una mezquita en Texas y las páginas arrancadas de un Corán; otra mezquita vandalizada en Nebraska; ataques verbales y en las redes sociales contra lugares religiosos de Tampa, Houston… “Me temo que, desgraciadamente, estamos asistiendo a una corriente generalizada de islamofobia”, dice Ibrahim Hooper, director nacional de comunicación de CAIR (siglas en inglés del Consejo de Relaciones Islámico Americanas).

En su libro American Hysteria (Histeria Americana), el periodista y actual investigador visitante en la escuela de Leyes de Yale Andrew Burt sostiene que la histeria política surge en períodos de profunda incertidumbre sobre la identidad americana. “Cuando los americanos pierden el sentido de quienes son, agreden a lo que perciben como amenazas creando listas negras, chivos expiatorios, conspiraciones o encubrimientos”, escribe Burt en el prólogo de un volumen que repasa momentos cruciales del extremismo político de EE UU, como el MaCarthismo de la década de los años cincuenta del siglo pasado.

Burt concluye las páginas de su libro citando al tercer presidente de Estados Unidos, Thomas Jefferson. “La mejor manera de proteger las libertades que tanto amamos es dejándolas intactas- no solo en tiempos de normalidad, sino también en periodos de crisis-”. De lo contrario, se paga el precio del miedo, cuya moneda tan bien conoce Estados Unidos en la última década, ya fuera invadiendo Irak bajo mentiras o violando los derechos de cientos de prisioneros secuestrándolos del mundo en territorio cubano.
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