Sam Harris is an American public intellectual and a neuroscientist. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "The End of Faith," "Letter to a Christian Nation," "The Moral Landscape," and "Free Will."
Dear Sam,
I am a big fan of your work and you have greatly contributed to my intellectual growth since I discovered your work a few years ago. You are a brilliant thinker, great writer and an eloquent speaker and I always find your arguments well thought out. I have read most of your books, including "The End of Faith," "Letter to a Christian Nation" and "The Moral Landscape." Your debates and speeches, easily available on YouTube, are a great treat to the mind. You use well-reasoned arguments and a calm disposition to disarm your opponents, who normally attack with straw-man arguments and red herrings. It is always a relief to see your voice of reason prevailing over irrationality.
However, I was disappointed with your latest blog, in which you justify the profiling of Muslims at airports (I encourage all readers to check it out; perhaps they will arrive to a different conclusion). In the blog, you write that:
Imagine how fatuous it would be to fight a war against the IRA and yet refuse to profile the Irish? And yet this is how we seem to be fighting our war against Islamic terrorism.
We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it. And, again, I wouldn't put someone who looks like me entirely outside the bull's-eye (after all, what would Adam Gadahn look like if he cleaned himself up?) But there are people who do not stand a chance of being jihadists, and TSA screeners can know this at a glance.
I am not sure how you'd recommend that the TSA go about identifying Muslims. Unless all Muslims are forced to don a star and crescent on their clothing, I am assuming that you are advocating for the profiling of people who appear to be from the Middle East and other Muslim countries, i.e. identifying them by their race. My missive is based on the assumption that you are advocating for racial profiling at airports. I hope that I am dead wrong on that, and if I am, I owe you a sincere apology.
Religion, of course, does not determine a person's race. You have unjustly been called a racist in the past due to your views on Islam. But in your call for profiling people who "could conceivably be Muslim," aren't you assuming that Islam should be viewed in terms of race and ethnicity? Is there any other way to distinguish people from other religions? As you say, the TSA might miss frisking a potential terrorist by spending more time on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But if we went with your recommendations, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the "Underwear Bomber" who is a black man from Nigeria, would also slip through security while the TSA frisks a Pakistani family heading to Disney World for holiday. If the TSA was to use "Muslim names" instead of race and ethnicity, I doubt that your friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be happy to be subjected to excessive TSA inspection just because her name fits a certain profile.
Racial profiling, by the TSA or the police, should be categorically denounced by anyone living in the 21st century. It is utterly insensitive that while the U.S. is dealing with the extremities of such a barbaric practice that's suspected to have ended young Trayvon Martin's life, a respected public intellectual like yourself would advocate its practice on others. Of course, you are not in any way a racist, but your callous sentiments lack the sensitivity requisite in contemporary public discourse on race-related issues. They are manifest to the white privilege that still looms large in the United States.
As a Kenyan citizen (I have a long-form birth certificate to prove this), I share your concerns on the threat of global terrorism. My country has sustained severe attacks of terrorism and our army is currently engaged in a war with Al-Shabaab, a terror group with links to al Qaeda that's based in Somalia. But I do not share your discriminatory approach in guaranteeing safety. During the recent attacks in Kenya, internal security forces subjected distinct looking Somalis in Kenya (most of who are bona fide Kenyan citizens) to unwarranted mistreatment in the name of cracking down on Al-Shabaab operatives and sympathizers. It was sad to see my country sink into paranoia to the extent of infringing on its citizen's civil rights. You shouldn't want the same for your country or for anyone.
Profiling is a cheap short-cut to security and should never be recommended as a solution. It hasn't worked in deterring crime in the U.S. and I doubt it would work in flight safety. I know that many Americans are vehemently opposed to any form of racial profiling even after 9-11 and I was happy to see that your Facebook fans were the first to condemn your views. I hope you will reconsider your position.
Sincerely,
Concerned Fan.
Follow Michael Mungai on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@MungaiMichael
We are making far too much fuss, in a manner that gives encouragement to people who hate us, over our fear that one measly aircraft could be destroyed.
And even the September 2001 attack being compared to the London Blitz is wild hyperbole, see
http://www.gatesofhorn.com/content/may-10-1941-my-911
Racial profiling, by the TSA or the police, should be categorically denounced by anyone living in the 21st century.
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Racial profiling is used in crimes in which race is an important factor, and it should be.
But why are you twisting religious/ideological profiling, which our government has been doing regularly and properly since 9/11, into racial profiling?
Your assumption that Islam should be viewed in terms of race and ethnicity is false.
It should be viewed as it is--a religion divided against itself. It is suffering a civil war between spiritual Muslims and Islamists with a supremacist political ideology, the violent proponents of which are driving jihadist terrorism.
Those are the people we should be looking for in airports.
Unfortunately, most people mistake that type of profiling for racial, and thus a great argument over nothing arises.
The border patrol employs behavioral profiling at the Mexican border. People acting weird or nervous are shunted over to secondary for a closer look.
Maybe we need to use a different noun. "Profiling" seems to confuse the average American.
Those without skills are doing that just fine as it is (to absolutely no end).
You both fall into the trap that this is all about race, religious belief and hurt feelings. And fail to see what this is really about, which is efficiency and devising intelligent ways of going about airline security versus the current stupid and ineffective way we are currently going about it.
It isn't always about race gentlemen.
He is a true believer in materialism and his research is more about scientism than science, but: when it comes to airports and security why would we shake down a grandma with 8 grandchildren watching and let 12 middle eastern men walk right through the gates?
The odds of that grandma taking down that plane with her 8 grandchildren is nil to none.
Take a course in statistics and you will see in some cases we need to profile. seen it done in europe often.
I hope they profiled every white man who took a plane in Europe in 2010, because since statistics should tell us who to profile, clearly they were the bigger threat than the Muslims!
Clearly the 'religion of peace' needs reformers and unfortunately the peaceful, more tolerant ones are being butchered by the violent mainstream.
Uyghur killing Hui in China
Violent Deobandi, Barelvis slaughtering sufis and Ahmaddiyas and Qadiyannis, especially in Pakistan.
Sunni and Shia leaving no place for Bahai in Middle-east.
How long are you going to deny that islam is a religion of 'Peace' ? Good luck with your hypocrisy and dishonesty.
"When I speak of profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin. In fact, I included myself in the description of the type of person I think should be profiled (twice). To say that ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, dress, traveling companions, behavior in the terminal, and other outward appearances offer no indication of a person’s beliefs or terrorist potential is either quite crazy or totally dishonest. It is the charm of political correctness that it blends these sins against reasonableness so seamlessly. We are paying a very high price for this obscurantism—and the price could grow much higher in an instant. We have limited resources, and every moment spent searching a woman like the one pictured above, or the children seen in the linked videos, is a moment in which someone or something else goes unobserved."
There, I fixed it.
Any adult not confined to a wheelchair or clearly diminishing physical skills should be subject to screening. Anybody can be a terrorist and Sam makes this clear.
Preliminarily, I could almost justify profiling for airports. At least I am sensitive to the silliness and injustice of the current system. But when I tried to extend this to police activity, it became problematic. Pull over more black people? This isn't sound.
Now if Sam is suggesting rebranding the security checks at the airport as "Searches for Islamist Terrorists," you could almost justify the profiling aspect.
A few problems with it I see, that you also may have noted:
1) TSA agents will likely conflate, for example, Sikhs with Muslims. They aren't going to have the knowledge or ability to pick out the right people. The silliness of the system won't improve with profiling.
2) Competent terrorists will adjust their strategy. They've already started using women. How difficult would it be to get other non-threatening people through? This whole scheme would unravel if Al-Qa'eda got one caucasian terrorist to wear a kippah.
3) There are also non-Muslim criminals and violent people, though they may or may not be part of organized terrorism. These people need to be checked by metal detectors and so on. Given this, it does make sense to have a general security check.
4) The general problems with profiling. The shame and anger of Muslims who are profiled and searched in front of less "Muslim-looking" people, whatever that means.
The most competent terrorists are the ones who Harris defends the most-and those are the US armed forces in the muslim world.
The whole system is ridiculous. I had to laugh because my in-laws are so fed up with all of it, my MIL has said if they have to fly, she'll show up wearing just as sarong and my FIL says he'll just be wearing boxers. The system as it stands needs to be revamped in favour of efficiency and targeting resources on the most likely sources of trouble instead of harassing those who are not even remotely likely to be terrorists.
The sentiment of Harris, Obama, Holder, and millions of Americans: "Meh, Niemöller Schmiemöller."
4. “As a Kenyan citizen (I have a long-form birth certificate to prove this), I share your concerns on the threat of global terrorism. My country has sustained severe attacks of terrorism and our army is currently engaged in a war with Al-Shabaab, a terror group with links to al Qaeda that's based in Somalia. But I do not share your discriminatory approach in guaranteeing safety. During the recent attacks in Kenya, internal security forces subjected distinct looking Somalis in Kenya (most of who are bona fide Kenyan citizens) to unwarranted mistreatment in the name of cracking down on Al-Shabaab operatives and sympathizers. It was sad to see my country sink into paranoia to the extent of infringing on its citizen's civil rights. You shouldn't want the same for your country or for anyone.”
Please forward this to the families who have lost their closed ones due to the insurgents. Please explain what rights have exactly been infringed here? The civil right according to sharia law to blow up infidels? I guess that ‘civil’ right could be compromised. A little bit of collateral damage is more prudent than total destruction.