Now that that the tempest has died down and life is taking its normal course, after a month of heated; not always honest, debate over Muslims in the United States; it is time for us to reflect on some important questions, away from bigotry and partial political agendas. Let’s first reflect on this political maxim: “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. This historically powerful statement is necessary to revive today, more than ever before, for its general validity in the American political mind and representation of one of the tacit maxims of the American political life. This is how one of the founding figures of the United States of America talked about the necessity of unity between the different components of the nascent nation. He understood that the United States is a society that was destined from the outset to be colorful, diverse and a checkered piece of fabric reflecting the beauty of difference in the world; its fate is to be a place for everyone to seek refuge.

Americans, all politically active ethnicities comprised, can be mad at each other, wage destructive political campaigns against each other (using biting ads to discredit their rivals) and even obliterate their enemies using the most immoral charges they could find against them. However, political differences that risk endangering the supreme national interests have always been treated in their natural battlefield which is the political arena, in a country where the political institutions function democratically. The reverence enjoyed by these institutions has prompted them to be the safeguards where all American values could find refuge. This said, the recent events and the heated ongoing discussions about the constitutional rights of a specific religious group in the United States seem to escape this rule.

Any keen observer of the American political arena would easily notice that Muslims are being targeted for no reason other than being Muslim; believing in and practicing a religion that is associated, in the minds of a lot of people, with terror, confiscation of human rights and people from the Gulf States. Islam and Muslims are not and have never been one bloc. Throughout their history, Islam and Muslims have evolved in all ways and directions imaginable that all of the main religions and civilizations have taken. Talking about Islam and Muslims as a uniformed entity is misleading. It, simply, does not take into account the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, geographic and doctrinal differences that permeate Islam as a religion and a way of life. It would be ignorant to talk about the same Islam in France, Russia, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Comoros Islands, India or Kenya. Of course some societies in which Islam evolves are more liberal, more lenient and more moderate than others, however the tendency watched in the United States regarding Islam and Muslims is characterized by over-generalization, over-simplification and most of all a deliberate lumping-together of irrational facts about Islam and Muslims without taking into account the existence of dissent, deep philosophical and doctrinal debates among Muslim jurists and scholars for hundreds of years.

It is true that Muslim puritan groups have, over the years and by their unnameable actions, overshadowed the diversity that permeates Islam and Islamic values. The bombings of civilian targets, the numerous beheadings of foreigners in conflict zones and violent attacks against people who espouse a different world view within Islam have marred the image of not only a religion but of a civilization as a whole, in the minds and hearts of Western people. Yet, this should not serve as an excuse for rapacious politicians and fear-mongering groups to target Muslims in the United States, as a religious group, because they want to build a community center or an abode for God, where people could practice their faith in serenity and quietude. It is not even worth mentioning that many of the leaders of this movement, that has unfortunately gained momentum, have no understanding of the nature nor of the tenets of what they are fighting. If such is the case, how could they understand the richness and variety that exists within Islam in the United States and in the countries where the majority of the population embrace the Islamic faith?

It is very disturbing if not demoralizing to see an important fraction of citizens of a country that has long been considered the citadel of democracy, the haven of mutual understanding and the place where people are of a colorful array, in a place where everyone could belong; slip into bigotry and brandish the most racist slogans against a religious group. There are so many injustices in the world that are worthy of their organizational and funding efforts. The recent multi-thousand rallies in DC, New York and the fringy attempts of local churches and marginal forces to target the religious symbols of Muslims reflect a very deep fissure in the political fixtures that have so far underpinned the existences of minorities in this country. It is all the more alarming that highly educated people and important politicians are associated with acts of bigotry, fanaticism and hate dissemination discourse.

Fortunately, the clamor did not override the voices of wisdom and humanism. Many Americans came out to say “not in my name”. Millions of spots of light illuminated the many abysmally dark parts where the forces of bigotry were emitting their hate-filled messages. They were men and women, young and old, employed and jobless from all social classes and confessions. Their only message was defending the values on which this country was built as a democracy where everybody could belong. The umbrella of civil and constitutional rights affords every person, on the American soil, the right to respect and difference. Their voice must have been heard all over the world and their activism must have made the forces of darkness, in the other side of the world, sad because it withdrew the carpet from under their feet.

Many elements have concurred together to make this campaign unprecedented in the American history. The announcement, of a real estate developer and an Imam, of their plans to construct Cordoba Community Center in Manhattan not far from Ground Zero that witnessed the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil. The commemoration of the ninth year of these horrendous events and the remembrance of the thousands of people who gained martyrdom on a Tuesday that changed world history. Then, the electoral season and the need of the various would-be candidates to score political points against their opponents have all created a climate where everybody was competing to outsmart each other, not in presenting the best political and economic choices that the nation needs badly but in using the most vehemently humiliating words, to describe not only a people but a whole civilization and faith.

Many Americans—statistics have shown that one in every five Americans—have a strong believe that Obama is a covert Muslim and treat him as such. Mentioning Obama is also important to understand the unprecedented slur against Muslims in the country. When the new administration was elected, people were full of hope to see another America evolve, an America where people could have a say over the Washington bureaucracy. Unfortunately, people have become disaffected, the hopes they harbored for change evaporated and, finally, the economic crisis has corroded the momentum that Obama’s campaign has gathered in 2008. “Yes, we can” has become a magical sentence that haunts the political life of those who devised it.

All these factors and others pertinent to the American people’s frustrations with their politicians, economic and social institutions; have made the concoction ready to stoke. The timing was necessary and any reason would have been furnished to justify fanaticism. Here, the real estate developer and the Imam gave a glimpse of hope for… fanatics. We know the rest… What was also striking during that trying time was the Media coverage of the acts of bigotry. One could not tell, in the blurred vision and in the accompanying clamor at that time, whether the media were denouncing these acts or highlighting them as acts of heroism and true nationalism. The certain thing was the existence of a supremacist chauvinistic discourse. The way that a fringy pastor has become a national celebrity, solicited by the most influential media outlets in the country, is a case in point of how the media could stoke the fire of hatred if the sensational comes foremost. This example exhorts us to ask the disturbing question of the relationship between freedom and responsibility and the extent to which people can be free to voice their opinions when these latter are likely to ignite religious discord or racial slurs against the targeted groups or vice versa.

Americans, more than ever before in their three hundred years of existence as a nation, need to reflect on the wisdom, long-term-sightedness and vision of Abraham Lincoln’s above-mentioned saying carries. These words were said in times of hardship when two different visions divided America between the south and the north. A division whose devastating results we all know. These words were the end result of a painful experience. Whatever lessons we learn from pain are always true and everlasting. Many noble Americans have paid their lives on the altar of freedom. Curtailing these freedoms and disseminating religious hatred would be the biggest insult to the memories, the struggles and the good intentions of these men and women who have struggled to make America who she is. Be it from a marginal priest or a rapacious politician, other-hating discourse—directed to Muslims or to any other ethnic or religious group—is a debased form of demagogy that lacks any degree of rationality not to say wisdom. Maybe nothing has divided Americans, in their short history, as that atrocious civil war and the political climate of nowadays where a specific religious group is being targeted, vilified and demonized by large sections of the population. The danger is in the contempt of the other people’s constitutional rights. Recalling history is the best way to preserve the future. Wise are not those who act after the fact but those who see it coming and act to stop it from being. May we all be wise to preserve this country and its beautiful social fabric from the acts of the so many ‘unwise’ among us. The constitutional rule is the barricade to protect the weak and bridle the powerful.

Brahim teaches Arabic language and culture in the United States. His areas of research include Arabic literature, Islam and society, and “berbérité” and Islam among the Berbers of southeast Morocco. Brahim is currently working on an anthology of young Moroccan poets.