by VINAY LAL
Donald Trump speaks to the crowd Monday at a Pearl Harbor Day rally at the USS Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, S.C. PHOTO/Sean Rayford/Getty Images/NPR
The swirling controversy that has arisen over the remarks made in recent weeks by Donald Trump regarding the place of Muslims in American society has far-reaching implications that extend well beyond the question of whether it has now become acceptable in certain circles to be openly Islamophobic. We had previously heard much about “the Muslim mind”, and among academics, and not only those who have been persuaded by the late Samuel Huntington’s thesis about “the clash of civilizations”, there were certainly some who had always thought that the adherents of Islam posed special problems in the narrative of American integration. But what has been transpiring recently, especially in the ranks of Republican politicians and their base following, is of a different magnitude than the arguments prevailing about Muslims in polite circles. In the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks a little than two months ago, Trump described himself as open to the idea that mosques might have to be shut down in the United States. A few days later, he came out with what seemed akin to a suggestion that a national registry may have to be established for all Muslims in the United States. Trump has explicitly warned that American Muslims are incapable of extending their loyalty to the United States. Thus he has repeatedly circulated the discredited story that a large number of Muslims cheered when the Twin Towers were brought down by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Though not an iota of evidence lends credence to his narrative, Trump has sought to give it the stamp of veracity with the imprimatur of his own experience: “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down”, Trump told an audience in Alabama on November 19, “and I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building came down.” Trump would not budge from this story when he appeared on the ABC network: “It did happen, I saw it. It was on television. I saw it.”
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