At Least In America They Understand The Notion Of Cultural Difference

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 12-11-2006 | Gary Younge

[blam]

At least in America they understand the notion of cultural difference

The US is not free from Islamophobes, but nor is it a racially monolithic culturally static state like Tony Blair's Britain

Gary Younge in Minneapolis
Monday December 11, 2006
The Guardian (UK)

Afew weeks ago, Washington-based radio host Jerry Klein announced his own very radical plan to assuage public fears of terrorism. All Muslims, he suggested, should be branded with a crescent-shaped tattoo or be forced to wear a red armband. The phones rang off the hook. The first caller said Klein was "off his rocker". The next thought he was a genius. "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country," the caller said. "They are here to kill us."

And so it went on, with Klein being praised or pilloried, until he finally confessed that the whole thing was a hoax to see how deep the rivers of American Islamophobia ran. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his listeners. "It's beyond disgusting."

When it comes to popular prejudice and state repression, the Muslim experience in the US does not seem to have differed much from the rest of the western world since September 11. Klein was pushing at an open door. A Gallup poll this summer showed that 39% of Americans supported requiring Muslims in the US, including American citizens, to carry special identification. In 2005 the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) recorded a 30% increase in the number of complaints received about Islamophobic treatment.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the US government undertook the "preventative detention" of 5,000 men on the basis of their birthplace...

[TeenagedConservative]

Great idea. Muslims should either wear identification letting us how know that they subscribe to a murderous religion, or recant, or leave the country.

[expatpat]

Dhimmitude for Muslims!

[muawiyah]

This area has many Middle Eastern, South Asian, SE Asian, and African types who can come in various religious flavors.

It's virtually impossible to differentiate them from each other.

Giving Moslems some sort of special marking might help, but you've got to control this stuff at the point of immigration and entry at an international port (airport) or border crossing.

[sageb1]

Ironic isn't it, that some of the biggest "Islamophobes" are former Muslims.

[sgtyork]

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the US government undertook the "preventative detention" of 5,000 men on the basis of their birthplace...

This is a lie.

I just read Ashcroft's book. All the arrests (however many there were) were on the basis of violation of law mostly immigration law...We freepers know it.