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from the moment the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center,
three reactions have been repeatedly expressed by the official voices
of America's government, media, and cultural institutions from President
Bush downwards. Two of those reactions have been entirely unsurprising
and would have been expressed in almost any country in the world:
namely, a deep national mourning at the murder of our innocent dead
and a firm and somber determination to bring their murderers to
justice.
The third reaction,
however, could only have occurred in America or in a handful of
Western countries such as Britain and France (where, indeed, exactly
the same reaction has been heard.) That reaction was an assurance
that the great majority of America's Muslims, whether native-born
or immigrants, were as hostile to terrorism as everyone else coupled
with a warning against any anti-Muslim backlash by other Americans.
What lies behind
that reaction? It stems from commonsense, history, and a third less
attractive emotion. Commonsense tells us that there will always
be a few bigots and drunks who will use patriotism as an excuse
to hit someone over the head with a bottle. History reminds us that
there was upsurge of hostility to Japanese-Americans after Pearl
Harbor which led to their being interned and robbed. And the third
factor is the unspoken conviction of America's elites that the majority
of Americans are so racist, sexist, and homophobic that other people
must be constantly protected from them.
As the reaction
of almost all Americans to the crisis has shown, this last conviction
is false and libelous. Incidents of drunken attacks on Muslims have
been vastly outnumbered by stories of ordinary Americans going out
of their way to reassure Muslim neighbors of their respect and confidence.
Tolerance is a virtue deeply embedded in the American people —
more so indeed than in their elites who are periodically swept up
in intolerant puritanical campaigns whether for prohibition or university
"speech codes."
American Muslims
are threatened all the same — and, paradoxically, by the elite
tenderness that seeks to exempt them from all criticism.
In the past,
before assimilation to America was replaced by multiculturalism,
demands were imposed on both majorities and minorities. The majority
was expected to show a welcoming tolerance to a new minority; the
minorities were expected to demonstrate loyalty to their new country.
In the context of a crisis like today's, this two-way street would
have meant asking Muslims to offer whole-hearted support to America's
war against bin Laden while other Americans were urged to respect
their Muslim neighbors. Everyone would thus be reassured.
Under the multiculturalism
inspired by suspicion of the American majority, however, no expressions
of loyalty are demanded of American Muslims. Indeed, it is regarded
as a sign of intolerance to suggest that such expressions should
be given. We are supposed to assume the loyalty of every single
person in America until someone furnishes legally recognizable proofs
of his or her disloyalty. Hence the official condemnation of the
practice of subjecting men of "Middle Eastern appearance"
to especially intrusive questioning when they are boarding airplanes
("ethnic profiling.")
This apparent
indulgence damages American Muslims. For it reduces the incentives
for Muslims to join the collective unqualified condemnation of bin
Laden expressed by all other Americans. Some Muslim leaders have
issued such condemnations anyway. But others, encouraged to stress
a Muslim identity over an American one, have been noticeably equivocal
in their criticism, complaining for instance that American foreign
policy invited the attacks on the World Trade Center or that U.S.
sanctions on Iraq are also a form of terrorism.
This was illustrated
last weekend at a New York conference of the Inter-religious and
International Federation for World Peace attended by a considerable
number of Muslims from America and around the world. Indonesia's
former president, Mr. Wahid, himself a Muslim cleric, defended America's
actions as "honorable" and in a multilateral framework.
But the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, in a speech that admittedly stressed
the unity of all religions against terrorism, noted that more than
1.5 million Iraqis had died under sanctions imposed after the 1991
Gulf War "while we are crying over 5,000."
If the Muslim
trumpet gives forth such a contradictory message, it will understandably
instill in other Americans the very suspicion of Muslims that official
policy is designed to dispel. Worse, it might also instill a nervousness
of official policy. After all, one reason we need not fear our neighbors,
even when they seem less than loyal, is that the government is protecting
the country and us. Once the government seems to be more suspicious
of our potential bigotry than of their advertised ambivalence and
in some cases disloyalty, however, then we are tempted to be more
suspicious of our neighbors than the actual facts may warrant. And
that way social madness lies.
This particular
social contract has three sides: majority tolerance, minority loyalty
and government vigilance in both directions. In 1942 a Japanese-American
leader issued the following loyalty statement on behalf of his followers:
"I believe in [America's] institutions, ideals and traditions;
I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her
future. Because I believe in America, and I trust she believes in
me, and because I have received innumerable benefits from her, I
pledge myself to do honor to her at all times and in all places."
(I am indebted to Lance Izumi, a senior fellow of the Pacific Research
Institute, for this quotation.)
Partly as a
result of such leadership, 33,000 Japanese-Americans volunteered
to fight in U.S. forces and 800 died. One result of their patriotism,
however, is that the Second World War, a bitter war between the
U.S. and Japan among other things, actually accelerated the process
whereby Japanese-Americans became full members of the American family.
If that is
the aim of Muslim-American leaders, as it should be, it will be
attained more quickly and certainly by unqualified expressions of
loyalty and commitment to the common struggle against terrorism
than by incessant demands of the American majority that they avow
a tolerance they have already shown in practice.
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