Xenophobia, Islam, and the New Red Scare

In my last post, I said that the War on Terror can be best compared to the Cold War.  America is looking for a unified enemy to fight, somebody we can point to and say "Yes, these are the bad guys."  Of course, there is no Soviet Union, no great Evil Empire to battle in the War on Terror.  Yet many of our methodologies are the same. 

In Afghanistan in the late 70s we helped remove the occupying Soviet force, replacing it with the Taliban, a conservative fundamentalist theocratic group who would later back Al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the 9/11 attacks.  In short, the attacks can be traced back, not even far back, to American actions in the Cold War.  We did not learn our lesson, apparently, because now we're repeating the same mistakes.  We've invaded Afghanistan, completely destabilizing the country, and providing a new basis for anti-American terrorism.  We are, after all, an occupying force that the average Afghani has no particular reason to love.  Don't think that all Afghani terrorism is Taliban insurgents.

The biggest thing the modern War on Terror has in common with the Cold War is fear.  It is, after all, the basis for the entire war.  The message of the War on Terror is this: terrorists can strike you and your family any time, anywhere, and the only way to prevent this is constant fear.  We must preemptively strike all "terrorist" nations, hand over our civil rights, and support the military-industrial complex (we'll get into the military-industrial complex and their motivations for an ongoing war on terror in a later post) or else we will be destroyed.  In fact, the attempts to "democratize" Iraq and Afghanistan are a kind of reverse domino effect, invading them to cause what we invaded Vietnam to prevent.

But who should we be afraid of?  Who are these terrorists that are waiting to attack us?  Remember that, unlike in the Cold War, we're not simply fighting a political ideology.  Instead, we're fighting Islamofacism.  Islamism.  But regardless of the euphemism, the message is becoming increasingly clear: we're fighting Islam. 

As I discussed in my post on the 14th Amendment, America is perhaps more xenophobic than it has ever been.  We are terrified of the other.  And the biggest Other in America right now, besides Hispanics, is the Muslim population.  Never mind that Islam consists of 1.57 billion people.  Never mind that the largest Islamic population is in Indonesia.  Never mind that the U.S. has 2.5 million Muslims of all different ethnic groups.  To America, Muslims are terrifying Middle Eastern men in beards and turbans.  They are all terrorists.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but there is a significant number of Americans who genuinely believe, either consciously or otherwise, that all Muslims are terrorists.  For some evidence, just look at the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."

The "Ground Zero Mosque" is a large Islamic community center which also contains a prayer space.  Yes, it does indeed contain a mosque.  It is being built several blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center, on the site what was once a Burlington Coat Factory.  However, the Coat Factory was hit by rubble from the WTC, so obviously it must be a sacred site.

The argument against the mosque is that it is "insensitive."  It is insensitive because it is Islamic, and the majority of the 9/11 attackers were Saudi Arabian (which is why we invaded Iraq.  American schools don't teach much geography).  Therefore, to build a mosque is to build a shrine to terrorism.  A common piece of rhetoric is this: "Islam builds mosques on the sites of great victories against their enemies."  Aside from the questionable history behind this, it tells us all we need to know about American attitudes (a majority of Americans oppose the mosque).  Islam is our enemy.  We are at war with Islam.  (For more evidence, and a fun time, look at the comments on Fox News stories about the mosque.  Bring alcohol, you'll need it).

Reminder: there are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world.

This has also led to some fun bits of political posturing.  Naturally, Republicans have come out against the mosque.  They live on xenophobia, so of course it is in their interest to foster it.  But the Democrats have also come out against the mosque.  Harry Reid and Howard Dean have both spoken out against it.  And a rather entertaining story from New York's 24th district: Republican Richard Hanna came out in support of the mosque, citing the First Amendment.  So his Democratic opponent, Mike Arcuri, does the only thing he can: oppose the mosque, not because he does, but because his opponent supports it.  And so... Richard Hanna switches his position.

American politics, everybody!  This is why we have a low voter turnout.  Politics makes us, as a nation, nauseous.  

So aside from the fact that a fair portion of America opposes free speech, and believes we're at war with Islam.  What does this have to do with the Cold War and the Red Scare?

Because America has its communists now.  All Muslims are terrorists, so the worry is no longer "Is this Muslim a terrorist," but now "Is this person a Muslim?"

But instead of ordinary McCarthyism we have something even stranger.  19 percent of Americans believe Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim.  31 percent of Republicans believe this.  43 percent of Americans say they do not know what religion Obama is, in spite of his public support for Christianity, and public statements that he is Christian.  

Okay, so America is so terrified we believe even the President may be "the enemy." 

But this is more serious than just America being stupid and terrified.  This may lead to something much more dangerous: another war.