Muslim Discrimination In American Government And Politics

Introduction

America is home to hundreds of different religions. The third most practiced religious affiliation is Islam; Muslims make up 1.1% of the American population (Mohamed, par. 2). However, a study by Lifeway Research, a research institution focused on religion, found that only 47% of the 3.45 million Muslim-Americans believe that America is a welcoming place (Green, par. 14). A possible cause of this feeling among Muslims is the American government’s continued Islamophobia under the Trump Administration. The U.S. government has introduced numerous restrictive Muslim policies in the past three years, like the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act (MBTDA) that aimed to designate a popular Muslim political movement a terrorist group (Kirkpatrick, par. 27). The MBTDA and other similar policies could foster fear and other discriminatory feelings among the American people.

Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act

The current government fears Muslims without taking time to look at the facts, basing their views on how Muslims are portrayed in the media and not how Muslims are in real life. According to Arab-American News, a newspaper that discusses every aspect of Arab-American life, the MBTDA was drafted as an attempt to designate Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, suppressing their influence on Islamic members of congress (“Former FBI Agent…”, par. 1). The MBTDA is built upon the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood is violent in nature and therefore any Muslim Brotherhood individual is a terrorist. The Muslim Brotherhood, in actuality, is a missionary movement aimed to create the perfect Islamic government through missionaries and charitable giving. The attempt to pass the MBTDA revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood did not qualify as a terrorist group because it neither engages in terrorist activity nor threaten the United States in any way, leading to the multiple failures of the act to pass (Kirkpatrick, par. 27).

President Trump’s Contributions to Islamophobia in the Government

In 2019, the government sent an executive order to reevaluate the MBTDA in order to get the act passed (Savage et al, par. 1-2). Passing this act would have adverse effects on Muslims, such as the shutdown of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization (Abdelkater, par. 7). If CAIR was shut down it would hurt the millions that rely on CAIR for justice. Along with the Muslim Brotherhood Act, Trump proposed a temporary ban on Syrian refugees entering into America in an attempt to prevent terrorists from coming into the country (“Timeline of Muslim Ban”, par. 1). In 2018, only about 20,000 refugees were admitted into America, succeeding 2017 in which 47,000 refugees were admitted (Cole, par. 11-13). This limiting of Syrian refugees, as well as the MBTDA, are some of the hostilities that have shown the Islamophobic influence President Trump on the government.

Muslim-American Perspective

In September 2001, America was attacked by Al Qaeda, a group of Islamic extremists. Since those deadly attacks, the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists has adhered to as much as 73% of Americans (“How the U.S. General…”, par. 10). Moustafa Bayoumi, a Muslim and political writer focused on Muslim-American issues, compared life as a Muslim in America today to the discrimination he faced directly after the 9/11 attacks in a 2018 edition of Nation, an opinion- based political magazine. Bayoumi feels just as unsafe living in America with the current state of government as he did directly after the 9/11 attacks (1). In April 2019 Trump posted an edited video of the 9/11 attacks, tagging Muslim U.S. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, implying that Omar glorified the 9/11 attacks because she was a Muslim (Herndon, par. 2). Trump discriminates and threatens Muslims, making them feel unwelcome and unsafe in America.

Counterargument

Although some might argue that when the government attempts to protect the nation from terrorists by preventing Muslims from entering the country, it is actually uneducated on the teachings of Islam because it still implies that Muslims are all terrorists. Islam, which comes from the root word “saalam” meaning “peace”, is a monotheistic religion that believes Allah (God) made people to worship him (“What is Islam?”, par. 1-2). Trump, in promoting policies such as the MBTDA, clings to the stereotype that Islam is a religion that preaches violence. In actuality, less than 6% of people who committed terrorist acts in America between 1980 and 2005 were Muslims (Alnatour Par. 5). A 2017 study found that Muslim terrorists get 758% more media coverage than other terrorists (“What Determines the Amount…”). This warps the perception of the actual number of Muslim terrorists, leading people to believe that there are an astonishing number of Muslim terrorists.

Conclusion

America has always been a melting pot of cultures, establishing an incredible mix of every part of the world. The government attempts to suppress Muslim culture in America because it is strung up on the stereotype that people who follow Islam are violent people. The many policies against Muslim people, like the MBTDA, that the government has implemented throughout the past 3 years have revealed the evident Muslim discrimination in America. With the government as an example for how the American people should think and feel on certain issues, Muslim discrimination is passed off as acceptable.