The November 13 terror attacks in Paris sent shockwaves through the international community. In the immediate aftermath, citizens around the globe stood vigil for Paris. French President Francois Hollande declared his country to be “at war” with the Islamic State (ISIS), and initiated a series of ground strikes aimed at Raqqa, ISIS’s capital in Syria.
Yet rhetoric within the United States in the days following the attack struck a different chord. Rather than initiating productive discourse, collectively mourning the loss of 132 lives in the Paris tragedy, and facilitating a targeted approach to defeating ISIS and containing terrorism, responses have largely been divisive. Statements made by a handful of Republican presidential candidates and roughly 32 U.S. governors, who have opposed the Obama administration’s plans to relocate thousands of refugees to their states, indicate a dangerous increase in Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiments within the country. The aftermath of the Paris attacks thus becomes a critical moment for the United States internally, as its military campaign to contain and defeat ISIS intensifies.
On November 15, Florida governor and contender for the GOP presidential nomination Marco Rubio criticized Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton for refusing to say that the United States was at war with radical Islam: “This is a clash of civilizations. … There is no middle ground on this,” he told ABC. “Either they win or we win. And we need to begin to take this seriously. These are individuals motivated by their faith. … This is not a geopolitical movement. It’s a religiously oriented movement.”
Rubio’s statement posits a conflict between Islam—a faith practiced peacefully by nearly 1.6 billion people—and the predominant ideologies and practices of the Western world. The notion of a “clash of civilizations” reflects a naïvely simplistic and monolithic understanding of Islam as fundamentally at odds with progress and democracy, and practiced, to a significant degree, by radical crusaders.
ISIS is driven by an array of socio-economic, geographic, and political circumstances. While it is certainly religious, and depends on its semblance of being Islamic, ISIS in no way reflects an inherent or unique radicalism in the Islamic faith. Oxford historian Karen Armstrong, in her work The Battle for God, defined “fundamentalism” as an “embattled form of spirituality, which has emerged as a response to a perceived crisis.” She defines this “crisis,” primarily, as the unequal socio-economic conditions of the modern, globally interconnected world. Columbia political scientist Stuart Gottlieb, in his book Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism, further analyzed how “poor people who lack economic opportunities are resentful of their socioeconomic status and become alienated from mainstream society.”
The intersection of social and economic marginalization—independent of religion—makes poor and disenfranchised minority groups easily radicalizable. By examining ISIS and terror attacks orchestrated by Islamist groups more broadly in a purely religion-based manner, Rubio inevitably neglects the social and economic context that Armstrong and Gottlieb describe. His comments added fuel to a global xenophobic, anti-immigration movement that is acquiring a vocal following within the United States.
The distasteful rhetoric of several governors in the aftermath of the attack reflects a similar misunderstanding of ISIS and the Syrian refugee crisis as the consequence of an irreconcilable difference between Islam and Western democracy. Refugees fleeing statelessness, near-perpetual violence, and lack of physical security have become the favorite scapegoat of many U.S. political leaders, governors and prominent members of Congress alike. “I don’t think orphans under five … should be admitted into the United States at this point,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told radio host Hugh Hewitt, hours after Rubio’s comments to ABC. Donald Trump predictably joined the anti-migrant bandwagon, tweeting, “Refugees from Syria are now pouring into our great country. Who knows who they are —some could be ISIS. Is our president insane?”
In a letter to President Obama, Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote, “Texas will not accept any refugees from Syria in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Paris.” In his response, Abbott seems to have neglected the precedence of federal law. Although the governors lack the jurisdiction to close off their individual state borders, their publicized opposition contributes to a generally divisive and exclusionary national sentiment.
Many took a slightly more lenient stance, calling for heightened security for and screening of the immigration process for refugees fleeing Syria, in wake of the Paris attacks. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan, which is home to one of the nation’s largest communities of Muslims, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, urging a “full review” of the screening process for refugees. Some have considered these proposed heightened security measures a viable middle ground between President Obama’s proposed acceptance of—an albeit meager—10,000 refugees, and many Republicans’ demand of closing national boundaries entirely.
Snyder’s proposal, backed by a number of federal government officials, is an understandable reaction to the Paris bombings. On November 19, however, the House of Representatives favored a hardline stance, and voted to close off all borders to Syrian refugees, regardless of migrant credentials. The tweets, letters, and statements became little more than expressions of partisan grievances, a thoughtless and ineffective politicization of the Paris attacks.
A tragedy such as Paris demands a nuanced, unified, and educated response. It demands emotion, mourning of lives lost, and a natural desire to avenge those lives. Emotional and heartfelt, however, shouldn’t be synonymous with reactionary, racist, exclusionary, and inflammatory. Deepening a wedge in the West between Muslims and non-Muslims and proclaiming a “clash of civilizations” echoes of ISIS’s own strategy of separatism. To beat back the scourge of the terrorist group, we must understand more comprehensively the forces that contribute to its continued expansion and must turn acts of terrorism into a moment of collective sympathy. To sympathize with others, think logically and cooperatively about responding to acts of terror, and unite rather than divide in the face of tragedy is to truly uphold the principles of the United States’ founding, inclusive democracy. A key component of that strategy? Accept more migrants. And do it graciously.
Image Credits: John Englart (Takver) /Flickr.