Thank the New McCarthy

On March 11, House Representative Peter T. King of New York, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, commenced a series of Congressional hearings about “homegrown Islamic terrorism,” or the radicalization of American Muslims. Ironically, the sensational Congressional hearings set the stage for a potential shift in American public opinion from uneasiness toward the estimated 2.5 million Muslims in the United Sates to a willingness to engage with this small but politically significant demographic. The shift may have major repercussions affecting the Muslim-American community and the domestic radicalization that Representative King wishes to eradicate.

Although a rarity among liberal civil rights proponents, anti-Islamic sentiment has seen a resurgence in recent years. Perhaps this resurgence is related to the onset of the recession, which has prompted a national anxiety that has helped give rise to the arguably Islamophobic Tea Party movement. As a Muslim who grew up in conservative, rural Appalachia, I can attest that unease toward Islam is alive and well among certain demographics. Currently, 52 percent of Americans believe that the congressional hearings are appropriate; this includes 69 percent of Republicans and 40 percent of Democrats. As the hearings proceed and presumably continue to generate civil liberty concerns and parallels to McCarthyism, approval may very well decline.

In contrast to other recent Islamic-Western controversies, King’s hearings may unwittingly improve the image of Islam in the West. In this case, Muslims are not the instigators; the hearings have not been caused by anyone’s plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero, or anyone’s refusal to remove a hijab in France. The hearings were not crafted in response to a specific action, but planned by King even before he became the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. After these plans were set in motion, Muslims and non-Muslims gathered peacefully in Times Square to protest the hearings; King repeatedly dismissed their concerns as an adherence to “political correctness.” The net product of these factors is the perception of a passive community under fire from unrelenting politicians. Indeed, King’s adamant crusade has widely been compared to McCarthyism, as evidenced by the surging popularity of the satirical Twitter hashtag #MUAC, or “Muslim Un-American Activities Committee.”

In consistency with McCarthyist radicalism, much of the defense for the legitimacy of the U.S. Muslim hearings relies on murky, emotional logic. “To back down,” King stated at the first hearing in response to criticism, “would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the responsibility of this committee.” In reality, the ethical grievance of singling out a religious demographic to prove its loyalties before Congress is far more consequential than mere political incorrectness. Further, despite his committee’s broad focus on homeland security, King has rejected calls for the hearings to address domestic terrorism by sources other than Islamist extremists.

Representative King has inadvertently turned the tables on the Islam-in-America debate, providing non-Muslim Americans with a highly visible example of the threat of political discrimination against their neighbors. Supporters of King’s ideology will nonetheless continue to assert the legitimacy of the hearings and their anti-Islamic implications. As for the American population at large, which is nearly evenly split on approval of the hearings, King’s grand trials could decide the toss-up on Islam in public opinion. On one side of the coin is a continued trend toward misconception of the Muslim-American community; on the other side is the disentanglement of politicized fears and civil liberties. Ideally, popular opinion would espouse the notion that in order to properly investigate the phenomenon of “homegrown terrorism,” Congress, or a more suitable institution of government, must first elicit the cooperation of the American Muslim community via ethical engagement.

In the tug-of-war between civil rights and national security concerns, it would be easy to cast Representative King as a single-minded Islamophobe or, conversely, a right-wing champion of justice. To do either would be a gross simplification. Should we avoid ascribing an equally simplistic role to the Muslim-American community in the context of domestically bred terrorism, we stand to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the issue.

Tarina Quraishi ’14, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Hollis Hall.