Playing with Fire

I just saw another version of my op-ed on the current anti-Muslim scare in the United States. It's in de Gelderlander (in Dutch), and there's one reader comment arguing that this is actually driven by the "authorities" to justify further military involvement in the Middle East and Central Asia. That I don't believe. Not even the Bush administration believed there was anything to be gained by stigmatizing an entire group (Muslims) exactly at a time when it is of vital importance to convince members of the same group all over the world that your policies are aimed at small groups of extremists and that the last thing you or anybody else needs is a global religious war. Of course U.S. policy has displayed plenty of screw-ups (and worse: "Abu Ghraib," "Guantanamo"), and of course the Bush administration cynically employed "9/11" to maintain support for its foreign and domestic policies. But that's still very different from deliberately implicating all Muslims, everywhere, in the crimes of a fanactic minority. The current scare is not spontaneous--specific individuals in the U.S. and elsewhere speak with reckless irresponsibility about Muslims, often unhindered by any real knowledge or direct experience. (I do agree with the commenter that the media often seem all too happy to repeat or abet a lot of the garbage being uttered). But, as witness yesterday's comments by Attorney-General Holder and Secretary of State Clinton, and earlier warnings by General Petraeus, the U.S. government understands full well how we're playing with fire here. To repeat: this intolerance is not just profoundly un-American (this would be bad enough), it can also fatally undermine the efforts by the U.S. and others to build some common ground between the West and the Muslim world. As anger about illegal immigration and Latino immigrants also shows (even though the numbers are actually down), these are anxious times. Absolutely no need to fan the flames. But Western societies have their share of fanatics too, not to mention cynically opportunistic politicians and "opinion leaders."