Is There Islamophobia in America?

Whoever introduced the notion of “hate and Islamophobia” in America’s national discourse has done this country a disservice. For one, it goes against the grain of what America stands for. America's spirit of tolerance is grounded on the key principle of equality, indeed, one of the principle pillars upon which this nation of immigrants was founded. The principle of equality requires that we respect each and every human being as our equal inasmuch as each is bestowed with God-given rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness -- natural rights that all men acquire by virtue of their being human. It is this very principle that enables immigrants in America to live in harmony with one another. It is the principle that afforded the civil rights movement an opportunity to offer a corrective to America’s unfinished business with slavery. Equality is what has prevented America from sliding into a country of ethnic and racial divisions so commonly found in countries reeling from ethnic conflicts.

Talks about hate and Islamophobia have put America on the defensive. When President Obama cast the debate on the GZ mosque issue in constitutional terms such as religious liberty, he put the US Constitution on the defensive. But the US Constitution is not on trial here. America is not on trial here. What he succeeded in doing was to change the subject of our national conversations, from whether belief-systems and subcultures of incoming immigrants eager to settle in this country could be made compatible with America’s culture of liberty, to whether America is acting contrary to its Constitution when it deals with these beliefs and whether Americans have become hate-mongers and Islamophobic!

John Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, thinks that indeed there is Islamophobia in this country. In this article, “Islamophobia in America: Where Do We Go from Here?,” he says that Islamophobia like anti-Semitism, hostility towards or discrimination against a person because of their faith or racial group, runs deep in our society.”

But it wasn’t so prior to 9/11. A recent NY Times article, “Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life,” tells the story of Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, a construction worker who was hired to work at the World Trade Center before it was attacked. Being a Muslim, he wanted to know where he could do his daily prayers. He learned from his fellow Muslim workers about a prayer room on the 17th Floor of the south tower. He went there regularly for months, "first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer." He noticed that on any given day, his companions in the prayer room “might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.”

If it seems we are experiencing racial and religious divisions in our country right now, it is because of those who have talked us into it. Labeling is a dangerous game. Whenever one gives a label or a name to something, he gives life to it; he makes it happen. Hate-mongering and Islamophobia have now become part of the American lingo.