The anti-Muslim fearmongering we can't see

A generation ago, irresponsible pundits inflamed anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment, claiming that the election of then Senator John F Kennedy to the presidency would put the White House under the control of Rome. Today, where Muslims are concerned, it seems there's no claim too absurd, no charge too baseless to command the full attention of certain public officials and even the investigatory powers of Congress. Representative Peter King should know better.

We can expect a litany of ominous claims about Muslims during House homeland security Committee hearings on domestic Islamic radicalisation scheduled for this week. Representative King (Republican, New York) chairs that committee and has singled out Muslims as the source of potential terrorism on our shores. We were most recently exposed to a sustained public airing of wild-eyed Islamophobic storylines during the controversy over a proposed Islamic centre for lower Manhattan. Seemingly moderate American Muslims were said to be secretly plotting to replace the US constitution with Sharia law. Civil rights organisations were portrayed as front organisations for violent foreign "jihadi" groups. Islam was revealed to be an inherently violent, even terroristic religion. Such slanders and conspiracy theories demonise Muslims and Islam. They would be laughable were they not so ubiquitous, and therefore dangerous.

Hysterical Islamophobic rhetoric casts suspicion on all Muslims and amounts to fearmongering, plain and simple. It deserves to be condemned, not dignified with congressional hearings. Unfortunately, Representative King has invited witnesses with records of making outrageous claims about Muslims, such as Walid Shoebat. Shoebat asserts that "Islam is of Satan".

As poisoned as our public discourse has become where Islam is concerned, at least the King hearings, like the Manhattan community centre debate, will take place in public view, where there is an opportunity to refute baseless charges and rebuke those who would characterise Muslims as the enemy within. Certainly, the mob-like crowds jeering and vilifying Muslims at New York street demonstrations should give us all pause. But we should perhaps be even more alarmed at the ongoing – and, until now, largely unknown – promotion of these same Islamophobic messages to law enforcement, intelligence personnel and other public servants charged with our national security and public safety.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/09/congress-islam

People thought JFK would have a bat phone in the oval office that only took calls from the Pope. :rofl: