Even America Is Caught in the Grip of Fear of Islam

After a visit to the United States in 2009, my impression of the position of the estimated three million Muslims in that country was rather positive. But it seems now that I have to adjust that impression, not just because of the Koran burning by the crazy preacher Terry Jones in Florida, but also because of the extreme politicization of the fear of Islam.

To understand American politics these days, the motto “It’s the fear element, stupid” can be a useful concept, as the journalist Roger Cohen recently wrote in his column for The New York Times.

In 1992, Bill Clinton successfully campaigned against the incumbent president Bush senior with the motto “It’s the economy, stupid.” Could Islamophobia play a decisive role in the next presidential elections in one and a half year’s time? In that case, Europe, which was directly confronted with the phenomenon after 9/11, will await the results with bated breath.

The reason for Cohen’s observation was the decision of the state of Oklahoma to introduce a ban on Shariah law. It is true that a federal judge has suspended that decision for discordance with the constitutional right of freedom of religion, but more important is the political fact of it being passed and the support it gained. 70 percent of the population in the conservative, mainly Republican state in the Bible Belt voted in favor of the ban. The reason was not that a judge had invoked the Shariah law in a sentence or that a member of the small Islamic minority in Oklahoma, less than one percent of the population, had made a proposal in that direction. The reason was precaution: that what is not yet occurred can still come, and we have to think of our children and grandchildren. Or in the words of the Republican state representative Rex Duncan, it was a “preemptive strike” — a term which President Bush Jr. used to describe the nature of the American/British attack on Iraq in 2003.

The Islamophobia in Oklahoma does not stand alone. More than 10 states are considering following the path of this state, located in the heart of the Bible Belt, to ban Shariah law as a preemptive measure, as Christian Union Senator Roel Kuiper has recently suggested in our own country. This development is consistent with a newly emerging Christian conservative tide that wants to settle the liberal inheritances from the 60’s and 70’s. The newspaper USA Today reported this week that in 30 states where Republicans dominate the state legislatures, attempts have been made to roll back, at least partially, liberal abortion legislation.

With the election of the pluralist Obama in 2008, the religious-right movement seemed to have peaked, but it has reasserted itself lately, albeit in divergent forms, with extremes characterized by the alarmist patriotism of Brigitte Gabriel and Pamela Geller, a political friend of Geert Wilders. There is no question of a contiguous political block. But that what is not yet occurred, can still come. Republican politicians have discovered Islamophobia as a vehicle of power formation, probably because of the success of anti-Islamic movements in Europe, such as Wilders’ PVV in Holland.

According to experts of the very dynamic religious and political life in the United States, Islamophobia does not remain limited to the Bible Belt, but has emerged everywhere in America, even in multi-ethnic New York. The phenomenon is reminiscent of McCarthyism of the 50’s, of the witch hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy on communists that cost many innocent civilians their names and careers. The fear of communism was so great that suspicion alone was enough to break someone socially. Will America once again add such a black page to its history? Terry Jones may be a fool, but he is not the only one to be so sloppy.

Brigitte Gabriel, an immigrant of Lebanese descent, protests against Islam under the movement ACT! For America. The core of her message is that society at all levels, even in the FBI, the CIA and the Department of State, has been infiltrated by radicals that want to harm the United States. According to her, they are radicalized in mosques within the borders of America. Whoever thinks that Gabriel is not taken seriously because she sees only ghosts is quite mistaken. Quite a few Americans are even convinced that President Obama is secretly a Muslim.

The (alleged) radicalization of Muslims in the United States reached Capitol Hill last month as it was the subject of a hearing of a committee of the House of Representatives led by Republican Congressman Peter King. That same King appeared yesterday at a hearing of a Senate committee in the state of New York, devoted to the question of whether the city, 10 years after 9/11, is prepared for new threats. The culture of the jihad and Shariah law is counted among those threats, alongside attacks by weapons of mass destruction and weapons that paralyze all electronics.

To some extent there is reason not to relate this directly to McCarthy-like scenarios, as both hearings have evoked strong resistance from politicians and civilian organizations who are worried about what they consider the demonization of Muslims. They heavily protested this week on the steps of city hall in New York against the characterization of Islam as a security risk and against the unilateral selection of testimony by the hearings. The result of this showdown is, for both America and Europe, of great importance.