How Donald Trump Made Us Muslims

Shadi Hamid

We are talked about, fretted about, debated. For some, we are a worry; for others, a cause. We have our own perpetually trending hashtag, which tends to make me, and us, nervous (#Muslims). We are, for better or worse, a “we.” It wasn’t always like this. It happened over time.

For most of my life, I saw myself as an American who happened to be Muslim, rather than a Muslim who happened to be American. But now — almost imperceptibly and without quite wanting it to — I find my identity narrowing. I suppose I have Donald Trump to thank partly for this. From the very start of his campaign, Trump, like so many of his fellow right-wing populists, seemed preoccupied with the “Muslim threat.”

The attacks of September 11 began a process that continues to this day, in which Muslims are categorized as “good” or “bad,” either “loyal” or vaguely suspect. Without really meaning to, Trump has helped to salvage the legacy of President George W. Bush. Today, Bush is hailed as a great statesman for his words of solidarity in the aftermath of the attacks, saying, for instance, that “Islam is peace” and insisting that intimidation against Muslim citizens “should not and… will not stand in America.”

The hypocrisy of New Zealand's 'this is not us' claim

對美國知名穆斯林的批判

Last week, Muslims of the World (MOTW) - a platform describing itself as "designed to give a voice to Muslims around the world" - launched an Instagram contest offering a free trip to New Zealand. It claimed the winner would meet families of Christchurch shooting victims and visit the mosques with the platform's founder, Sajjad Shah, Imam Suhaib Webb, and author Khaled Beydoun - all US-based.

The announcement swiftly provoked a backlash, including from Maha Elmadani, the daughter of one of the victims, who wrote, "I don't know who you think you are but you and your idiot friends are not welcome to come here and look at us like animals in a zoo." 

The contest has since been cancelled and Muslims of the World issued an apology, and so did Beydoun - who deleted his Twitter after the controversy - and Webb. It is tempting to see all this as a one-time, isolated occurrence - an individual mistake - but it is not. This type of social media-related opportunism has many manifestations and is very much rooted in Muslim celebrity culture and trauma tourism inspired by Orientalist attitudes.

The trend of Muslim figures rising to almost untouchable celebrity status has been noted in closed circles for some time, but many have been reluctant to speak out about it on a public platform. 

THE DIFFICULTY WITH DIVERSITY

對一本研究美國穆斯林專書的評論

It is an unexpected consolation that the Trump era, while offering unusually severe levels of polarization, has also produced fascinating, even groundbreaking writing on the difficulties of living in a diverse, plural society. I believe that diversity is a good thing, but many of my fellow Americans seem to disagree.

This diversity skepticism might be problematic in moral terms, but it is not entirely unfounded. Early on in the new book Out of Many Faiths, the Muslim interfaith leader Eboo Patel notes that “the higher the diversity, the more people distrust their neighbors and the less they volunteer and give to charity.” So, whether or not we like it, diversity has become a “problem” that at the very least demands more creative ways of thinking and acting. The central task of Patel’s book—and the three welcome commentaries that accompany it—is to ask how we might move from mere diversity to a deeper pluralism and to understand the role that religion can play in the process. Diversity, Patel writes, “is simply a demographic fact; pluralism is a hard-won achievement.”

Bosnia and Herzegovina is Andalusia in the making

這段複雜的歷史還在了解中

Rule number one of border changes in the Western Balkans is that they are always about Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As the presidents of Kosovo and Serbia, Hashim Thaci and Aleksandar Vucic, are seeking the support of the EU for a "land swap" between their respective countries, one should keep in mind that talk of partition - because this is what it really is – of Kosovo is not about Kosovo, but about Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

It is somewhat ironic that Thaci and Vucic have openly broached the issue of border changes between Kosovo and Serbia on the anniversary of another attempt to carve out Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

In August 1939, the prime minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Dragisa Cvetkovic, and leading Croat politician Vladko Macek reached a deal whereby Bosnia and Herzegovina ceased to exist as a distinct political and administrative entity, with the autonomous region of Croatia annexing roughly one-third of it and the Serbian region keeping the rest. The deal is known as the Cvetkovic-Macek agreement. 

Muslim Tatars: The patriots practising a 'light version of Islam'

波蘭的Tatar穆斯林簡介

The year was 1395.

Tokhtamysh and his Tatar Muslim army were rushing to the northeast across the vast steppes of Ukraine, unsure of what was to come. 

The journey was long and strenuous, but the warriors were disciplined nomads skilled in horsemanship and accustomed to hardship.

Tokhtamysh's army was escaping the battlefield of the Terek river, looking for safety after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Tamerlane, the ruler of the Timurid Empire. 

For the Golden Horde - Tokhtamysh's khanate, this was the beginning of a prolonged decline. 

The army was heading to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which under Vytautas the Great was in a period of its greatest territorial expansion, looking to take control of lands in the east.

概念性探討生活在非穆斯林主體建構社會的穆斯林型態 (草稿)

生活在非穆斯林主體建構社會的穆斯林，大致有三種型態。第一種型態是族群化，即外來穆斯林來到該地，很自然物以類聚，找尋屬於自己的群體(如同一個種族、語言與文化相近)。如在台灣的巴基斯坦與印尼穆斯林是個典型的範例。

第二個型態是去中心化，即沒有一個統一的穆斯林領導機構，而是出現數個具有相同功能的穆斯林團體，協助穆斯林大眾爭取宗教實踐(如禮拜場地、清真飲食、墓地)的權益。

第一種與第二種型態通常有重疊之處，即以族群為導向的穆斯林分別成立穆斯林組織，但其成效如何仍有待觀察。

至於第三種型態，則是以個人為導向，不盲從群體組織意識的城市穆斯林。這一類的穆斯林可算是另類的遊牧民族，不以特定的清真寺或穆斯林協會為隸屬單位，而是以理念為導向，但這是少數中的少數。

透過這三種型態為分析單位，或許可以深入了解穆斯林在台灣的現況。

Anti-Islam Movement Has New Rallying Cry — Let’s Delete Verses of the Quran

YOU THINK LIFE is bad for Muslims in Trump’s America? Spare a thought for the Muslims of France.

Over the past few years, they have been collectively blamed, and punished, for a series of horrific terror attacks carried out in France by so-called “jihadists.” The latest, a knife attack in Paris by a man shouting “Allahu Akbar,” killed one person and injured four others last weekend.

While anti-Muslim bigotry has become a hallmark of the Republican right in America, in France it is a truly bipartisan affair. Islamophobia is peddled by left and right alike, with both socialists and conservatives falling over one another to defend French secularism, or laïcité, by demonizing French Muslims.

Consider: Successive French governments have criminalized the face veiland banned the headscarf in schools. French mayors have targeted Muslim women who want to cover up at the beach and Muslim schoolkids who try to have a pork-free lunch. The French president — and new liberal hearthrob — Emmanuel Macron has introduced draconian counter-terror legislation that United Nations human rights experts have warnedcould have a discriminatory impact on Muslims in particular.