Some of the reactions to the Fort Hood massacre defy all logic. Take Jeffrey Goldberg, who takes issue with the fact that massacres often teach us nothing more than that the individual was deeply psychologically disturbed. NOT SO FAST, he and Andrew Sullivan say: THEY WERE MUSLIM/ARABS! But this godamn liberal American army was too P.C. to say anything.
As an aside, this kind of discourse always conflates the two (Muslims/Arabs): after all, all Muslims are Arabs (well, no, really only 20% of the world’s Muslims are Arab)–and all Arabs are Muslims (no, actually only 25% of Arabs in the United States are Muslims). Prejudice knows no facts, only linkages based on identity–a practice more broadly understood as either racism or racial profiling.
Both Goldberg and Sullivan effectively call for investigations into American Arabs/Muslims, particularly those in the military. Right, good idea: let’s alienate the few Arabs/Muslims who love their country–in spite of their country’s and fellow soldiers’ prejudices against them, drawn out by incidents like the Fort Hood massacre–enough to die for it.
Fort Hood was incredibly tragic, and incredibly sad. Did Major Hasan scream Allahu Akbar? It does not matter. He may have believed himself to be religiously motivated, he may have had ties to radicalizing Imams, but at the end of the day — he was clearly disturbed. Indeed, the military and society as a whole should watch out for people who gave warning signs of mental instability — but not warning signs based on their religious or ethnic identity, which is what Goldberg and Sullivan are demanding
There are so many underlying assumptions to Goldberg’s arguments that I’m going a little crazy myself trying to unpack all of them. I really can’t focus on it for too long, because my blood will literally boil. TNC took him down at the obvious point: what do we learn by focusing on Islam as the cause of violence?
I think this mostly hinges on what “means” means. If we grant that Hasan was motivated by religion, what does that actually tell us? What is there beyond the fact that people will, at times, interpret religion as a justification to commit heinous acts? … That’s really my issue. What is the big “thing” that we should be seeing, in this case? What are those elite blinders preventing us from seeing?
Goldberg’s response is telling:
Let me use an example from my own religious group (I’m Jewish, in case any of you were wondering) to illustrate a possible answer to this question. Jonathan Pollard, an intelligence analyst for the Navy, was convicted of spying on behalf of Israel in 1986. Pollard’s actions cast a shadow over many Jews working in the American national security apparatus. Loyal Americans were questioned, and sometimes denied security clearances, simply because they were Jewish, or had visited Israel. The FBI pursued some dubious cases, including the recently-aborted prosecution of two former AIPAC employees, in large part because of fears that another Pollard was lurking somewhere inside the American government.
Was it fair that loyal American Jews had their patriotism questioned by the FBI? No. Was it right of the FBI, in the wake of the Pollard case, to be concerned that Israel, having turned one American Jew into a spy, had turned others? Unfortunately, yes. I’m not excusing the witch-hunts that took place after the Pollard scandal, but I am saying that it would have been a dereliction of duty on the part of the FBI to ignore, because of political correctness, an actual threat. Ultimately, it was the fault of Jonathan Pollard, and the Israeli officials who used him as a spy, that innocent American Jews were suspected of spying for Israel.
Here’s the logic: America has wrongly used racial profiling in the past to discrimate against ethnic groups. Therefore, we should commit that same wrong again, because political correctness endangers us. Plus, it’s the terrorist’s fault anyway that people who have similar background are then discriminated against.
Here’s Goldberg’s logic applied to another historical example: America put Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II. It was wrong. But, they were a threat. Anyway, it’s the Japanese’s fault: they shouldn’t have bombed Pearl Harbor in the first place.
What Goldberg/Sullivan’s argument misses is the motivation behind attacks like September 11th, or the violence at Fort Hood: terrorists use violence to achieve their ends. Marc Lynch brilliantly describes why Goldberg/Sullivan’s arguments are so dangerous: they in fact, fulfill, the goals of terrorists like th 9/11 hijackers:
Since the Ft Hood atrocity, I’ve seen a meme going around that it somehow exposed a contradiction between “political correctness” and “security.” The avoidance of Nidal Hassan’s religion out of fear of offending anyone, goes the argument, created the conditions which allowed him to go undetected and unsanctioned in the months and years leading up to his rampage. American security, therefore, demands dropping the “political correctness” of avoiding a confrontation with Islamist ideas and asking the “tough questions” about Islam as a religion and the loyalty of Muslim-Americans.
This framing of the issue is almost 100% wrong. There is a connection between what these critics are calling “political correctness” and national security, but it runs in the opposite direction. The real linkage is that there is a strong security imperative to prevent the consolidation of a narrative in which America is engaged in a clash of civilizations with Islam, and instead to nurture a narrative in which al-Qaeda and its affiliates represent a marginal fringe to be jointly combatted. Fortunately, American leaders — from the Obama administration through General George Casey and top counter-terrorism officials — understand this and have been acting appropriately.
It’s worth walking through the connection once again, because how America responds to Ft. Hood really is important in the wider attempt to change the nature of its engagement with Muslim publics across the world. Get the response right, as the administration thus far has done, and they show that things really have changed. Get it wrong, as its critics demand, and the world could tumble back down into the ‘clash of civilizations’ trap which al-Qaeda so dearly wants and which the improved American approach of the last couple of years has increasingly denied it.
Terrorism is a means towards that end. The object is to create a violent, polarized environment in which Muslims are forced to embrace a narrow, extreme version of Muslim identity. They want Muslims to accept a master narrative in which the Islamic umma is existentially threatened by Western aggression, and the only theologically and strategically appropriate individual response is to join the jihad in the path of god (as they have defined it).
They recognize that most Muslims won’t embrace this radical conception of their identity just through messaging, internet rhetoric, or preaching. To make inroads with mainstream Muslim communities, they need to change the context in which they live — to render their status quo unacceptable and to make their narrative resonate. And for that to happen, they need a lot of help — for the targeted governments to take inflammatory measures against their Muslim populations, for the non-Muslim citizens in the targeted countries to discriminate against them, and for the media to fan the flames of hatred and mistrust.
Understanding this strategy points towards some fairly obvious guidelines for judging various responses. Al-Qaeda and its affiliated ideologues don’t just want their targets to overreact with blanket crackdowns on the mainstream Muslim community — they are counting on it. They want to create a homogenous, undifferentiated Islam on whose behalf they speak and a coherent master narrative which justifies and validates their actions. American reactions which feed AQ’s master narrative, lump together disparate Muslim movements, and tar a wide range of Muslims with the AQ brush therefore serve al-Qaeda’s strategy. Responses which disrupt AQ’s narrative, disaggregate the Muslim world and relegate AQ to a marginal fringe frustrate its strategy.
I’m proud of the Obama Administration’s response thus far, which has not given into racial or religious prejudice and fearmongering. Fort Hood was tragic. Investigations will determine if he had terrorist connections, etc.
But there is another tragedy that can be averted: the impulse toward racial profiling, alienating Arabs and Muslims, and all the accompanying garbage to the “clash of civilizations” narrative. It would be so sad to fall back into that trap because of the senseless violence of one disturbed individual.
