The New Face of McCarthyism
By Nadir Khan, PhD
Alta Loma, CA
Being anti-Islam, and anti-Muslim is chic nowadays. There are people in this country who are making a living these days. No qualification is needed or required. You just have to claim that you know Islam and Muslims and suddenly you are classified as an analyst.
There are Internet sights managed by non-Muslims in the guise of Muslims, with eye-catching names to entrap the gullible and the innocents. So much so that now the United States government is hiring some of these charlatans to train law-enforcement agencies dealing with anti-terrorism, despite the protests from several Muslim organizations.
We as Muslims realize that as far as Western societies are concerned, we are in the dog house. Everywhere you turn, you find an onslaught going on against us. From Australia to Britain to France and Germany, we are sitting ducks and make excellent targets. France, the country which provided the idea of equality, fraternity and liberty, is leading the crusade by banning hijab and other signatures of Muslim identity.
Recently, Germany started a campaign to determine whether Islam should be considered a religion like Christianity and Judaism. Last time on the Internet it showed a measly 31% of the people favoring the idea. As if the beliefs of more than a billion people do not make a difference!
Some stoic people suggest that Muslims be patient, because what is happening is nothing new and has happened to other groups before us. If this argument is logical, then the simple question to ask is: why we have to suffer for the same mistakes which were done to the other groups in the past? Truly there is no answer.
Joseph McCarthy was a Republican senator from Appleton, Wisconsin. He was a rabid anti-communist and felt that any member or even a sympathizer to the communist ideology was disloyal to this country. Though in reality it was a campaign against political dissent, many innocent people were black-listed on these unsupported and flimsy evidences. Some were so discredited that they lost their livelihood. The only way this witch-hunt was brought to an end was when President Eisenhower spoke against this movement. McCarthy died at a young age of 48 in 1957.
Now congressman Peter King of New York, the new chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, is preparing to hold hearings next month about a “very real threat” of the radicalization of young American Muslims. Congressman King who represents Long Island New York, was once very close to the Muslim community of that area. He had visited the mosque and had been a guest in some of the Muslim homes to enjoy his host’s ethnic cuisine. He alleges that in his conversations with law-enforcement officials, he has been told about the lack of Muslim cooperation with such agencies. He also alleges that these young men are being influenced by radical clerics in the community mosques which they attend.
The rhetoric-prone Mr. King asserted in 2004 that “85 percent “ of American-Muslim community leaders are “an enemy living amongst us”. Three years later, in 2007, he again asserted, “We have too many mosques in this country.” ; again, in 2010, he declared that American Muslims are not ”true Americans.” According to newspaper reports, some of the witnesses being invited to appear before the Committee, are well-known Islamophobes and have their own personal agendas. What is deeply troubling is the simple fact that for the first time in American history an investigation of this nature is being launched against a faith community.
This raises some serious issues of definition, ideology and philosophy. On both sides of the spectrum, how far does one have to be from the mainstream to be called a neocon, a conservative, a liberal or a radical? And who defines that spectrum? To paraphrase the sociologist David Bell (who incidentally just died the other day at the ripe age of 91) a critic of one’s country is not the enemy of its promise.
Despite all the efforts made at different levels by Muslims and some non-Muslims, Mr. King is determined to go ahead. Congressman King does not realize that just attending a particular mosque or listening to a particular cleric, does not bring feelings of radicalism in a person. There are lots of ingredients which go into the making of these individuals.
Exercises like these hearings may provide some political capital for Mr. King, but they will not provide any answers or solutions to the issues of radicalization. In fact, they will demonize a dynamic, living, and vibrant faith and its more than a billion followers. This witch-hunt is similar to the witch-hunt of the 1950’s that will create a separate class of citizens and widen the gap which people of goodwill everywhere are desperately trying to bridge.. Thus it may turn the Muslim more introverted and more concerned about their future as a religious community in this country. It seems like a futile exercise in the use of power of a Committee chairman and wastage of time and taxpayers money. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the Committee, is absolutely correct in writing to Mr. King: “In the final analysis the ideology of a bomb-maker matters less than the lethal effects of his creation.”
What is really needed is a dispassionate, logical, and thoughtful analysis of the issues involved in the “radicalization of the Muslim-American youth.” In the end it is obvious that the agenda and names may be different, but it is nothing more than a new face of McCarthyism!!!
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