[R-G] Blowback from the GOP's holy war

[Anthony Fenton]

Blowback from the GOP's holy war
The 2008 Republican race has left a bitter legacy of sloganeering  
against Muslims. It may well haunt the party this November.
By Juan Cole
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/02/01/islamophobia/

Feb. 1, 2008 | For much of January, one might have thought that the  
Republican candidates for president were already competing against a  
single opponent. Not one called Hillary or Barack, but with a moniker  
even more chilling in the eyes of hard-line Republicans: Islamic  
fascism.

The American public, worried about mortgages, recession and a  
seemingly interminable war in Iraq, was unimpressed -- those who fear- 
mongered the most about Muslim terrorists have faltered at the polls.  
Even the remaining front-runners, John McCain and Mitt Romney, have  
said bigoted things about Muslims and their religion. But  
Islamophobia as a campaign strategy has failed, and it may well come  
back to haunt the Republicans in the general election.

Back when the GOP presidential field was still flush with tough- 
talking right-wingers, no one was more outrageous in targeting  
Muslims than Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, who suggested that Muslim  
terrorists inside America were plotting the imminent detonation of an  
atomic bomb on U.S. soil. How to prevent this Tom Clancy scenario?  
"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this  
homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy  
sites in Mecca and Medina," Tancredo declared. "Because that's the  
only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what  
they otherwise might do."

That sort of wild-eyed bigotry only fuels the cycle of mistrust and  
vengeance. One can only imagine how much more difficulty Tancredo  
generated for U.S. diplomats attempting to explain to America's  
Muslim allies why a presidential candidate was talking about nuking  
Islam's holiest cities, the larger with a population nearly that of  
Houston.

But the failure of Islamophobia as a campaign strategy is no better  
illustrated than by the spectacular flame-out of Rudy Giuliani.  
Throughout his campaign (deep-sixed after his dismal showing in  
Tuesday's Florida primary), the former New York mayor evoked the  
Sept. 11 attacks at an absurd rate. Giuliani and his advisors  
appeared to revel in demonizing Muslims. They also reveled in their  
own ignorance -- never learning the difference between "Islamic" and  
"Muslim."

"Islamic" has to do with the religion founded by the prophet  
Mohammed. We speak of Islamic ethics or Islamic art, as things that  
derive from the religion. "Muslim," on the contrary, describes the  
believer. It would be perfectly all right to talk about Muslim  
terrorists, but calling them Islamic terrorists or Islamic fascists  
implies that the religion of Islam is somehow essentially connected  
to those extremist movements.

Giuliani complained that during their debates, Democratic rivals  
"never mentioned the word 'Islamic terrorist,' 'Islamic extremist,'  
'Islamic fascist,' 'terrorist,' whatever combination of those words  
you want to use, [the] words never came up." He added, "I can't  
imagine who you insult if you say 'Islamic terrorist.' You don't  
insult anyone who is Islamic who isn't a terrorist."

But people are not "Islamic," they are Muslim. And one most certainly  
does insult Muslims by tying their religion to movements such as  
terrorism or fascism. Muslims perceive a double standard in this  
regard: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols would never be called  
"Christian terrorists" even though they were in close contact with  
the Christian Identity Movement. No one would speak of Christofascism  
or Judeofascism as the Republican candidates speak of Islamofascism.  
Muslims point out that persons of Christian heritage invented  
fascism, not Muslims, and deny that Muslim movements have any link to  
the mass politics of the 1930s in Europe.

Giuliani's pledge to take the United States on an offensive against  
Islamic fascism, which he also said would be a long-term battle,  
failed to excite the imagination of voters. It may well have alarmed  
them in a way different from what Giuliani intended: If, by  
Giuliani's logic, the United States is only on the "defensive" now,  
with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, what would being on the offensive  
look like? Would Giuliani have started four wars? Interestingly,  
Giuliani did especially poorly in Florida among retired and active- 
duty military personnel.

Giuliani was also hurt when the co-chair of his veterans' campaign in  
New Hampshire, John Deady praised Giuliani for being able to stop  
"the rise of the Muslims," an effort necessary to continue, he said,  
until "we defeat them or chase them back to their caves, or, in other  
words, get rid of them." When asked if he was really condemning all  
members of the religion, Deady replied, "I don't subscribe to the  
principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. They're all  
Muslims." Deady was forced to resign after a video of his remarks was  
put on the web by the Guardian. Other Giuliani advisors have had some  
bigoted things to say about Muslims as well. Rep. Peter King of New  
York complained that "unfortunately we have too many mosques in this  
country." Daniel Pipes, a professional Islamophobe advising Giuliani,  
once said it would be dangerous to let American Muslims vote.

Meanwhile, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has done well among  
evangelicals but has had difficulty attracting votes from other  
segments of the Republican Party, had a revealing response to the  
assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. "I am making  
the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across  
our border than all other nationalities except those immediately  
south of the border," he said. He added, "And in light of what is  
happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many  
illegals coming across these borders." In fact, there are almost no  
Pakistani illegal aliens to speak of in the United States. Only 13  
percent of the estimated 12 million persons in the United States  
illegally are estimated to be Asian, but almost all of them are East  
Asian. Pakistani and Indian immigrants, moreover, are among the  
wealthiest immigrants in the country.

Current GOP front-runner John McCain has been prone to hyperbole and  
has let some bigoted statements escape his lips as well. He has said  
that the threat from Islamic extremism is greater than the one  
presented by the Soviet Union. Recently, McCain proclaimed, "I'm not  
interested in trading with al-Qaida. All they want to trade is  
burqas... " The senator seemed to be relating the Muslim custom of  
veiling to terrorism. The Detroit Free Press, whose city has one of  
the largest Muslim populations, reported on Jan. 12 that McCain's  
remarks were hurtful to American Muslims. "Local Muslims say that  
criticizing al-Qaida is legitimate, but wonder why he would make a  
snide remark about a dress? The remark was especially bothersome,  
some said, considering that McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget  
McCain, is from one of the biggest Muslim countries, Bangladesh." One  
would think that raising a daughter from the Muslim world in the  
United States today would be difficult enough, even without the  
adoptive father's denigrating the customs of the women from that  
culture.

On another occasion, asked whether a Muslim candidate for president  
would be acceptable, McCain replied, "I just have to say in all  
candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian  
principles ... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a  
solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that  
someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don't say  
that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different  
faith. I just would -- I just feel that that's an important part of  
our qualifications to lead."

But according to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, "no religious  
Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or  
public Trust under the United States." Secularists and Jews joined  
American Muslims in condemning McCain's assertion that the United  
States was founded on Christian principles, and that Christian faith  
could be a key determinate for taking the Oval Office.

McCain's misconceptions about Muslims and perceived hostility toward  
them predates his 2008 presidential campaign. In 2005, he said on  
"The Charlie Rose Show" that a Muslim had killed the Indian political  
and spiritual figure Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, the assassin belonged  
to a radical Hindu organization, the RSS.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has, like his peers, regularly  
invoked the dangers of "Islamic fascism." He allegedly told one  
Muslim-American he would not put a Muslim in his Cabinet, since there  
were not enough Muslim-Americans to justify it. (Romney later denied  
the charge).

Why might all this rhetoric targeting Muslims be unwise? For one  
thing, allowing the Christian conservative base to set an agenda that  
demonizes Muslims contains the danger of turning off more moderate  
segments of the GOP and American voters at large. McCain's comment on  
the importance of a president's being Christian appeared to have  
backfired on him in precisely that way.

Moreover, Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans are swing voters in key  
states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida.  
While they tended to vote for George W. Bush in 2000, by 2004 these  
groups overwhelmingly supported John Kerry, and the heavy-handed and  
bigoted rhetoric of the Republican candidates may drive them away  
from the GOP altogether.

The candidates who played to fears of "Islamic fascism" the most --  
Tancredo, Huckabee and Giuliani -- failed to light any fire under  
partisans in the party, and they have now faded from the scene. But  
the campaign has already left behind a bitter legacy of sloganeering  
against a single religious and ethnic community. The Republicans have  
repeatedly asserted that Islam has been perverted by radicals; their  
rhetoric effectively reduced American Muslims to second-class  
citizens and branded them as suspicious. Perhaps most worrisome of  
all: If any of the remaining candidates does win the presidency, he  
is going to have to cultivate close relations with Middle Eastern  
regimes to even begin resolving the mess in that region. And that  
president will have to do so saddled from the start with a legacy of  
denigrating Islam and Muslims.