Right’s Anti-Muslim Hysteria Plays Into the Hands of ISIS
John Havelock
Alaska Dispatch News
November 23, 2015
“Christianity is a great religion,” Mahatma Gandhi is said to have remarked. “Too bad nobody practices it.” Not only standard Christianity but that core doctrine of America’s civic religion inscribed on the Statue of Liberty assert a duty to accept refugees from violence and persecution. But, religion aside, our national security interests require that accepting refugees, without differentiating Muslims, is mandatory.
By rejecting these refugees, we are doing exactly what our real enemies want. The ISIS terrorists are a fanatical, pseudo-Muslim sect of the Sunni branch of Islam. By acknowledging their victory as “Muslims,” we offer a gift, since these fanatical thugs aspires to be seen as not only a part of the greater Sunni Muslim religion but as its leader. Some of us are handing that role to them by saying that (in effect) all Muslims are security risks and should be kept out of America.
Unfortunately, the anti-refugee sentiment feeds off a precedent, the xenophobic political strategy of the American far right, as it fights for leadership of the Republican Party. The far right says we are also against those of Latin heritage in our midst. At least we should get rid of the 11 million men, women and children who immigrated without first following the required two-year paper trail.
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