NEW YORK -- I think of myselff irst and foremost as an American.
I'm proud of that identity because asan immigrant, it came to me throughdeep conviction and hard work, notthe accident of birth. I also think ofmyself as a husband, father, guy fromIndia, journalist, New Yorker and (onmy good days) an intellectual. But intoday's political climate, I must embraceanother identity. I am a Muslim.
I am not a practicing Muslim. Thelast time I was in a mosque, except asa tourist, was decades ago. My wife isChristian, and we have not raised ourchildren as Muslims. My views on faithare complicated -- somewhere betweendeism and agnosticism. I am completelysecular in my outlook. But as I watch theway in which Republican candidates aredividing Americans, I realize that it'simportant to acknowledge the religioninto which I was born.
And yet, that identity doesn't fullyr e pr e s ent me or my v iews . I amappalled by Donald Trump's bigotryand demagoguery not because I am aMuslim but because I am an American.
In his diaries from the 1930s, VictorKlemperer describes how he, a secular,thoroughly assimilated German Jew,despised Hitler. But he tried to convincepeople that he did so as a German; thatit was his German identity that madehim see Nazism as a travesty. In the end,alas, he was seen solely as a Jew.
This is the real danger of Trump'srhetoric: It forces people who wantto assimilate, who see themselves ashaving multiple identities, into a singlebox. The effects of his rhetoric haveal ready poisoned the atmosphere.
Muslim Americans are more fearfuland will isolate themselves more. Thebroader community will know them lessand trust them less. A downward spiralof segregation will set in.
The tragedy is that, unlike in Europe,Muslims in America are by and largewell-assimilated. I remember talkingto a Moroccan immigrant in Norwaylast year who had a brother in NewYork. I asked him how their experiencesdiffered. He said, "Over here, I'll alwaysbe a Muslim, or a Moroccan, but mybrother is already an American."I n a n es say i n Foreign Af fai r s ,British writer Kenan Malik points outthat in France, in the 1960s and '70s,immigrants from North Africa werenot seen as or called Muslims. Theywere descr ibed as Nor th Af r icansor Arabs. But that changed in recentdecades. He quotes a filmmaker whosays, "What, in today's France, unitesthe pious Algerian retired worker, theatheist French-Mauritanian directorthat I am, the Fulani Sufi bank employeefrom Mantes-la-Jolie, the social workerfrom Burgundy who has converted toIslam, and the agnostic male nurse whohas never set foot in his grandparents'home in Oujda?" His answer: "We livewithin a society which thinks of us asMuslims."Once you star t labeling an entirepeople by characteristics like raceand religion, and then see the wholegroup as suspect, tensions will build.
I n a poig nant a r t icle on Musl imAmerican soldiers, The WashingtonPost interviewed Marine Gunnery Sgt.
Emir Hadzic, a refugee from Bosnia,who explained how the brutal civil warbetween religious communities beganin the Balkans in the 1990s. "That'swhat's scary with [the] things that[Donald Trump is] saying," Hadzic said.
"I know how things work when you startwhipping up mistrust between yourneighbors and friends, ... I've seen themturn on each other."I remain an optimist. Trump has takenthe country by surprise. People don'tquite know how to respond to the vague,unworkable proposals ("We have todo something!"), the phony statistics,the dark insinuations of conspiracies("There's something we don't know," hesays about President Obama) and thenaked appeals to peoples' prejudices.
But this is not the 1930s. Peoplef rom all sides of the spect rum arecondemning Trump -- though thereare several Trump-Lites among theRepublican candidates. The countrywill not stay terrified. Even after SanBernardino, the number of Americanskilled by Islamic terrorists on U.S. soilin the 14 years since 9/11 is 45 -- anaverage of about three people a year.
The number killed in gun homicidesthis year alone will be around 11,000.
In the end, America will reject thisfear-monger ing and demagoguery,as it has in the past. But we are goingthrough an important test of politicaland moral character. I hope decadesfrom now, people will look back andask, "What did you do when DonaldTrump proposed religious tests inAmerica?"
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