In the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, a rumor swept through Ventura, on the California coast, that the Japanese were lurking in submarines just off the shoreline. As my mother Joan, who was just a girl at the time, recalls, "The stories spread from mouth to mouth. People said, 'We can't see them, but they can see us through their periscopes.' It was really scary, feeling like we were being watched by these strangers. Who were they? We'd never even heard of Japan until then."
This was paranoia, to be sure, but it was not crazy paranoia. We were at war with Japan, a country that had already launched one highly successful attack against us. Why not a surprise invasion by submarine? The reaction to those fears, however, could not have been more irrational. Branding them "Japs," we herded loyal American citizens into concentration camps, just because they were of Japanese ancestry. Some of them had sons in the U.S. armed forces, fighting the very enemy we mistook them for.
Joan remembers that Japanese-American kids in her class just disappeared. No one in her school said anything about it. One brave man, however, refused to submit to internment. Fred Korematsu challenged the order in the courts and, with the help of the ACLU, pursued his case all the way to the Supreme Court. It turned him down on the grounds that national security was at stake. In dissent, Justice Roberts noted that that was nothing more than
convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. ... I need hardly labor the conclusion that Constitutional rights have been violated.
This was America at its worst. But at least, we thought, this was the America of the past.
Six decades later, on the morning of 9/11, I called my mother to make sure she was all right. As the Twin Towers fell, we watched in awe and horror and talked for at least an hour. I remember remarking to her, "This must be what Pearl Harbor was like." I had no idea how right I was.
The 9/11 surprise attack, though nearly a decade old, instilled a deep and abiding fear in us. We feel that "they" -- our jihadi enemies -- are lurking out there. It is not an unreasonable fear. Yet the reaction of the last few weeks is completely crazy. In our hysteria, we are mistaking loyal Muslim Americans and at least a billion peaceful Muslims overseas for a few thousand ruthless thugs who constitute the fascist wing of Islam.
Human nature doesn't change. Nor do the tactics of cynical sociopaths who prey on people's fears for power and profit. We were stampeded into war with Iraq on the totally false pretext that it was harboring both al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. More Americans died there than in the 9/11 attacks. Now politicians and Fox News pundits are whipping up hysteria over a so-called mosque at Ground Zero (which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero). Here is Public Cynic No. 1, a man who went to his dying wife's bedside to announce that he was divorcing her for another woman, the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich:
I am no apologist for Islam. It suffers from many of the same faults as fundamentalist Christianity: laws grounded in rough tribal justice, a fatalism about God's will, a hostility to science, and a drive to convert others, to name a few. But at least it is a moral system. At least it demands of its followers that they practice compassion and restraint. Gingrich, Fox News, and their fear-mongering mob have demonstrated no moral commitments at all.
At the very moment our young men and women are trying to win a war that Gingrich, Fox and friends bayed for, this campaign of hysteria threatens to make all of Islam the enemy, rather than the merciless Taliban and al Qaeda thugs. (If you haven't already, you really should read Frank Rich's column on how they've betrayed Gen. Petraeus.)
Gone is the "War on Terror." Now it's all about stopping the "Islamization of America." Huh? To listen to these guys, you'd think that we're all about to roll out our prayer rugs and bow to Mecca:
We can still stop the Hannity insanity. First, change the channel. Better yet, take a walk. Listen to the birds. Pause and think about what we're doing. If we let a few cynics scare us into declaring war on Islam, we will have handed al Qaeda exactly what they aimed at on 9/11. In their madness, they believe Allah will lead them to victory in a global jihad.
This is religion at its worst. It's up to us to be sane. May we find the courage to cherish the constitution that makes us great.
Follow Clay Farris Naff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/claynaff
Russell Simmons: The Sacred Ground of Deep Seated Hate
The "hate filled right" phrase is a lie and you need to stop repeating it. There may be a few people who actually have hate in their hearts for Muslims, but I think most of those who oppose them and their mosques are fearful and cautious because of the record of what the Moslems have done in the past. They are fearful that among the "peace loving communities" there will always be hot headed zealots who will spring up, accuse the rest of the community for complacency and not living the Koran, declare jihad, and go blow himself up, taking a few dozen (or thousand of) Americans with him/her in some shopping mall etc.The Right does not wish to see such an incident occur or that past repeated, and no one can blame them for that. Frankly I believe the Right has it right. In your heart you know I'm right. You KNOW I'm RIGHT!
Islamophobia is a classic example of "us versus them" mentality, another classic example is "left versus right". It's this particular mentality that is tearing the country apart and it is perpetrated on equal levels by the "left" and the "right". Granted, Islamophobia is much more frequent an illness of the crazies who define themselves as "right" (the crazies who define themselves as "left" have their own bag of tricks) so the title isn't actually wrong per se. But it is perpetuating the problem that the article so correctly defines.
Doesn't get any more true then this. Good article Clay.
It goes a long way in pacifying moderate and law abiding Muslims of the US and helps towards mutual understanding and peaceful co-existence of cultures in USA.
I want to make a note on the writer’s 'fatalism in God's will in Islam' He is vague. This is a complicated subject
In Islam God had created man with certain powers which man could exercise under certain limitations. It is the exercise of these powers in one way or another that produces good or evil. For example power of speech, man can use it to do good or bad to humanity using this power, to utter a truth or slander
According to the holy Quran, God is the first and ultimate cause of all things, but this does not mean that He is the creator of the deeds of man. God has endowed man with a discretion to choose how to act, which he can exercise under certain limitations and only in accordance with certain laws. Thus the holy Quran says, “The truth is from your Lord: So let him who pleases accept (it)and let him who pleases reject (it) Chapter 18: Verse 29.
This means that man can exercise his discretion or his will in doing a thing or not doing it. But he is responsible for his own deeds and is made to suffer the consequences. This is different from superstitious fatalism
Regarding the calls to deny the placement of an Islamic center near the Ground Zero area in New York, this is a warning. Those who do so are holding a religion responsible for the acts of some of its adherents.
Remember that it was Christians who tortured, burned and drowned women in Salem. It was Christians who shouted from the churches in opposition to freeing the slaves. It was devout Christians who formed and still operate the Ku Klux Klan and numerous so-called militia groups. It was a Christian terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, who murdered 168 people in the federal Building in Oklahoma City. Eight Americans have been murdered by Christian terrorists who oppose abortion.
So the questions are, what is the most dangerous and violent religion in America? Should we ban the building of churches in Oklahoma City, or Salem, or anywhere near a women's clinic? I don't think so, because as an American, I believe in FREEDOM OF RELIGION, and if you're going to expect to have a freedom for yourself, you have to defend it for everyone.
This of course, doesn't mean that WE should be intolerant of Islam. We should tolerate Islam. But we don't have to like Islam.
I recall that when Kennedy got killed, there was an early rumor that a Cuban did it. (Facts are dull; rumors are fun.) A Cuban student who worked in our shop then went home immediately.
The Japanese-Americans who were interred, were they U. S. citizens?
1. Science writer, editor, blogger OR 2. Demonizer of anyone who doesn't see it his way
I vote for # 2
Do you have any problem with that?
-- Clay Farris Naff
How generous of you.
Do you have any idea what percentage of the right are "haters", by any objective definition?
Make sure that you apply the same definition to lefties, just for some perspective.