By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Indolink on August 22, 2006

Demands for racial and religious profiling abound in the news ever since the discovery of the terror plot in London. In the recent USA Today/Gallup poll 39 per cent of Americans felt some prejudice against Muslims. The same number wanted Muslims, even those who were American citizens, to carry a special identification card. Also 22 per cent of those asked did not want Muslims as neighbors. 

The justification for one writer was “Most terrorist acts of the past several decades have been perpetrated by Muslim men between the ages of 17 and 40.” Another said “If the only terrorists these days are Muslims then why should we not target them in our profiling.” The arguments are both morally and politically self-defeating.

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in this world and each and every one of them is not a terrorist or jihadi. The vast majority of them are not even sympathetic towards the jihadi cause; something we forget when we make statements like these.

 

A lot has been made of recent surveys in Europe where the majority of Muslims surveyed considered being Muslims their primary identity. What was left out was that the same survey held in a Muslim majority country like Indonesia gave the opposite answer. What this meant was that any minority, especially one that considered itself under threat, would consider its religious identity its primary one. Like any Jew would feel in a purely Catholic country or a Hindu in a predominantly Muslim country.

 

The radical jihadis form a small minority of the Muslim community. Like every organization they need a support base and recruits in order to continue their fight. A black and white world suits the goals of these extremists. If the world all around them is echoing the same language and views as the radical jihadis then the young men or women – from among whom potential recruits or sympathizers will come – will believe it to be true. If, however, the world they live in talks of moderation and reconciliation – the shades of grey we often ignore in life – then they too will think differently.

 

The language we use when we refer to events and people often says a lot more than our actions. Calling it a ‘crusade’, a ‘war on Islamism’ or referring to our enemies as ‘Islamo-fascists’ only increases the perception of it being a war against a specific community.

 

Added to this is the threat, perceived or real, that has been built up since the late 1990s that Islam is under threat from the West. Or that this is a clash of civilizations with the ‘faultlines’ between the Islamic and Christian civilizations having ‘bloody borders.’

 

Radical jihadi ideology will not disappear overnight or even in a few months but we can surely try to limit its spread to a tiny fringe. A tiny fringe which will die its own death when it no longer receives recruits for its cause.

 

What we need to ponder on before we make blanket generalized statements about certain people or communities or religions is- are we by our words increasing the divide or lessening it. Our aim needs to be to ensure that the majority of Muslims continue to believe what they do right now – that senseless violence and killing is wrong and needs to be condemned.

 

America is the melting pot par example in the world. Immigrants from around the world came and still come to this country. In Europe identity was and still is defined to a large extent by your being born ‘German’ or ‘French.’ In America you are ‘American’ if you believe in certain core values “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” individual liberties and self achievement.

 

The terrorists have taken advantage of the liberty and freedom prevalent in this country and they might try to do so again. However, as long as the vast majority of Americans believe in the ‘shades of grey’ the jihadis will not succeed. However, if the jihadis through their actions and words are able to change the very essence of what it is to be an American then maybe they will have succeeded far more than even they would have imagined.

 

Maybe what the US needs to consider is what image they are portraying of themselves and their ‘treatment of their Muslim communities’ to the rest of the Muslim world. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service points out that American policy in Muslim countries is helping jihadis gain public support. It also pointed out that American foreign policy is undermining the effort of American public diplomacy to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Muslim masses.

 

‘Indians and dogs are not allowed to enter’ was the sign outside every eating joint and entertainment place in India during the British rule. For the average man on the street that, and not the fact that the ruler was a white British monarch who lived hundreds of miles away, was the face of the British Raj and that was what turned him against it.

 

Profiling – racial, ethnic or religious – is reprehensible and should be treated as such.