Written by manningmiller   

Ignoring the dangerous, opportunistic blathering from the Trumpsters, it seems to me that the more liberal statements do not go far enough. Statements like “Muslim Americans are just as much Americans as ‘we’ are,” “Muslim Americans have just as much or even more of a stake in opposing extremism,” and “Islam as a religion cannot be blamed or condemned” are all true enough as far as they go. But such sentiments also serve to unfairly lock in Muslims citizens to an all-inclusive supportive or positive position toward our national behavior. Muslim citizens should not be put in the position of having to posture as jingoistic, super-patriots. Muslim citizens should be completely free to criticize those aspects of national life that fail to meet high moral and ethical standards. Patriotism does not mean my country right or wrong. The highest patriotism, in addition to appropriate support, means monitoring critically, and constantly calling the nation back to its own highest ideals of internal and external behavior. As poet Adrienne Rich put it, “A patriot is one who wrestles for the soul of her country!” And, as William Sloane Coffin said, “The true patriots are those who carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country as a reflection of God’s eternal lover’s quarrel with the entire world.”

It is hard for me to imagine that authentic Christians could ever be uncritical pseudo-patriots. It is equally difficult for me to believe that any authentic Muslim, however patriotic and committedly American, is not off put by the United States throwing it’s imperialistic military weight around the world dominating and disrupting international life and law and imposing its will on Islamic related nations and cultures as well as others. Or, with the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians by drones (in itself acts of terrorism). Or that authentic Muslims would not find legitimate critical differences with our corporate and Wall Street-dominated, predatory dog-eat-dog capitalism and plastic consumer culture with its self-aggrandizing practices that leave so many poor and marginalized. Where profit and return-on-investment reign over people and where possessions count for more than compassion, equity and human decency, then people of any humanistic religious commitment are duty bound to criticize and call nations back to their higher ideals. Muslim citizens must not be denied this right as surely as Christians or secular humanists or other traditions or populations with humane and ecologically responsible ethical standards. To deny them this in order to avoid being identified as a sympathizer with extremism and terror is the most unbecomingly anti-democratic imposition and continues to force second class citizenship on our fellow Americans. Any attempt to use the Orlando terrorist killings to further extend a war on Islam or to in any way restrict the civil liberties of our Muslim citizens is thoroughly reprehensible.