Throughout the course of our national dialogue, I’ve noticed America’s conservative bloc desperately trying to define terms of identity by means of behavior.
For example, conservatives unequivocally contend that being an “American” means not kneeling during the national anthem or sitting for the pledge of allegiance.
Last week, in the comments section of an IDS article titled “Professor and students discuss Islamophobia,” a conservative user complained that 43 percent of Muslim women wear hijabs outside of worship. The user then wrote, “If you want to be seen as American, time for the general Muslim population here to act American.”
Apparently, wearing a hijab is “un-American.”
Of course, any sensible person knows there are absolutely no terms, qualities or characteristics, other than legally designated citizenship, that make someone an “American.”
In the 1943 Supreme Court decision West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett, Associate Justice Owen Stevens wrote, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Stevens essentially put an end to anyone trying to define what it means to be an American, a Muslim, a Christian, a Republican, a Democrat or any other term of identity.
Readers of history know these labels aren’t fixed and change dramatically over time.
Additionally, these labels can mean something different to anyone who claims one or more of them, which is why it’s irresponsible and misguided to say Islam is incompatible with Western values or the way a Muslim practices their faith is “un-American.”
If “no official, high or petty” can say what it means to be an American or a Muslim, then no one can say they don’t belong together.
Of course, I won’t let the Supreme Court do all the talking. The facts agree as well.
Pew Research found Muslims in the U.S. are just as religious — measured by their belief in God, how often they pray and how often they attend religious services — as American Christians.
“Virtually all respondents” in countries with significant Muslim populations, such as Lebanon and Jordan, have an unfavorable view of ISIS.
Concern about Islamic extremism is just as high in predominantly Muslim countries, such as Nigeria and Pakistan, as it is in Western countries, such as the United States, France and Germany.
In a PBS interview, Professor Chandra Muzaffar, from the University of Malaysia, listed several historical and contemporary factors that have affected the perception of Islam in the West. These include the defeat of Western Christendom after the Crusades, colonialism and the dependence of Western civilianization on Middle Eastern oil — all of which, of course, have nothing to do with the way a Muslim behaves.
In an unsurprising survey, the Brookings Institute found of Republicans who knew no Muslims, only 22 percent viewed them favorably. But of those Republicans who knew some Muslims very well, that figure rose to 59 percent.
And let me conclude with a global perception of “Americanism.” In a Gallup poll of over 66,000 respondents, in more than 60 countries, the U.S. was overwhelmingly viewed as the “greatest threat to world peace.”
Not North Korea, not Iran, not Pakistan, not a “Muslim country.”
America.
thshowal@indiana.edu
@TherinShowalter
