Muslims! Which Ones?
11 January 2016By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
The US presidential candidate Donald Trump has built part of his current
success on playing on people's fears of Hispanic and ''Muslim terrorist''
immigrants. As for the rest of his campaign promises, they are the same as
those of rival candidates; the customary issues such as jobs, health and
education. He has called for a ban on Muslims entering the country until the
government can differentiate between good ones and bad ones.
Americans usually take pride in the fact that they have immigrant origins and
that this is the secret of their country's success and its greatness, and this
is certainly true. Arabs and Muslims arrived 200 years ago in the US and
participated in building the state. They have their share in this historical
legacy.
When Trump uses the word ''Muslims'', he does not explain what it means. The
world's Muslims amount to 1 billion people made up of different nationalities,
just like Christians. There are Chinese, European Albanian, Nigerian and
Indian Muslims. There are Muslims of all European nationalities and most
countries don't write citizens' religions on passports. So how will they be
identified?
There are Muslims with Chinese, Indian and western names that don't begin with
''Muhammad'' or ''Abdullah''. As with Christianity, there are different sects in
Islam.
If Trump decided to limit the ban to Arab Muslims, there are more than 15
million Arab Christians. How will he recognise them? In addition to this, what
will he do with the 5 million American Muslims, some of whose grandfathers may
have arrived on ships before Trump's grandfather and who consider themselves
to be as American as Trump?
Trump is just another politician whose main concern is to make it to the White
House. I do not believe that he means what he says against Muslims as he has
had personal relationships and business dealings with them since decades ago
and still does to this day – more than most Americans.
Anyone who has listened to the promises of former candidates during the past
decades knows that they are subject to the laws and constitution of the
country which are considered higher than the decisions of the president and
congress.
I do not think that there is anything legal that remains to be done against
bad Muslims that has not been applied by former presidents, whether that be
with regards to illegal immigration or the surveillance of Muslims. It is
unfortunate that Trump is breaking the ethical norms and rules respected by
most US presidential candidates by bringing ethnicity and religion into the
competition.
Al Rashed is the general manager of Al -Arabiya television. He is also the
former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly
magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in the daily newspapers
of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is a US post-graduate degree in mass
communications. He has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs. He
is currently based in Dubai.
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EsinIslam.Com
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