In God we trust?

Though the Obama administration has retired the Bush-era phrase of Global War on Terrorism, yet a more urgent fight against stereotyping is yet to be launched.

"I want (Americans) to realize the extent to which Al-Qaeda is attempting to radicalize within the Muslim-American community," Peter King, the Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, told Congress as quoted by the Agence France-Presse.

Wary of such Islamophobes exploiting Muslim roots of his grandparents, Barack Obama stayed away from Mosques while repeatedly praying in churches during the election campaign. Nonetheless, a practicing Christian president appears Muslim to such myopic xenophobes.

The Obama administration swiftly moved to refute the impression created by Peter King’s campaign in the political arena and media. Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, told a briefing, “We believe that Muslim Americans are part of the solution, they are not the problem. It is through the helpful cooperation of Muslim Americans that we are able to effectively address this issue.”

Peter King may not have many subscribers for his paranoid view but Islamophobic trends are alarming, if surveys since 9/11 could be any guide.

Manifestation of irrational fear of Islam becomes vivid with Turkey's new foreign policy being branded as neo-Ottomanist, Indonesian economic success raising alarm of fundamentalism, well-organised Islamist parties’ participation in electoral process in Lebanon, Morocco, and Jordan being seen as non-democratic.

The same xenophobic minority branded the Cordoba House in lower Manhattan as a ‘mosque at Ground Zero’. The right-wing anarchists termed it “Islamic domination and expansionism”.

While the Egypt fought tirelessly for their basic fundamental right, often taken for granted in the western world, establishment in Washington kept its mum towards the desperate public demands. The very perception that xenophobes are not scared of conservative and primitive Muslim extremists but financially prosperous and politically modernizing mainstream Islam.

The opponents of inter-faith dialogue exist on both the sides. Besides the architects of 9/11 tragedy, radical outfits like al-Shabaab in Somalia, Taliban in Afghanistan et all carry out terrorist acts in spectacular fashion to make bigger and louder media statements. A Taliban-inspired militant group shot the Pakistani cabinet’s only Christian member for he spoke against widely abused blasphemy law in the country.

The Peter King campaign may not succeed in the end yet the most controversial congressional debates since the 2001 attacks may cause irreparable damage to efforts toward inter-faith harmony and cultural integration. Much depends as to how popular media channels like Fox News cover the Congressional debate that concerns 7 million strong Muslim population of the country.

Fair critique of proceedings in the absence of Muslim groups which have not been invited to testify at the Capitol Hill hearing on the national media can greatly fail the campaign of fear-mongers. A decade after the 9/11 attacks, the Muslims seek greater integration in the American society instead of being stigmatized.

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