One Body

By Anonymous / Winter 2020

As human beings, every individual has a certain faith and trust in spiritual life. I am not different from the rest of the individuals in society. I am a Catholic and I trust in Jesus Christ. I believe that without being a Catholic, I would not be living the meaningful life that I am right now. Like the freshness of flowers being watered everyday, I feel my soul being healed every time I sit down and pray with God. The prayers and readings from the Gospel refresh my mind. They also motivate me to keep moving the material life outside. Since spiritual life is an inseparable part of my body, having the freedom to practice religion is very important to me. Back to the day when my family and I were living in Vietnam, we did not have the great opportunity to practice my religion, Catholicism. Although the Vietnamese government has laws restricting religious freedom, they barely reinforce those laws inside the border. Within the communist country that does not encourage its citizens to be part of the Catholic church and where Buddhism is the oldest religious institution, Catholic people become the minority and are subjected to religious discrimination. In my experience, being a Catholic is like being an outsider inside my motherland. I remember those Sundays when my family and I would attend church, we practiced at the Sunday mass under the supervision of the policemen. Besides for the cross, the policemen become an inseparable part of the mass. The Vietnamese government was afraid that the priests may preach democracy and believers would absorb too much Western ideology through the Gospel that was against the communist ideology of the government. As the minority in the society, Vietnamese Catholic people could not protest against the government for their right in religious freedom. Having moved to the United States six years ago, I feel more comfortable going to church and praying while nobody watches me. 23% of the U.S population believe Catholicism, the second largest religion in the Country. Catholicism is an arguably dominant religion.

On account of my experience of religious discrimination in Vietnam, I pay close attention to the minor religious groups in the U.S. In this paper, I would like to specifically discuss the discrimination targeted towards the Muslim community within the U.S. In the last couple of decades, Americans have had a constant fear of the Muslim community. The conflict between the United States and Middle East countries spans across countless decades; tensions rising especially, in the 1980’s, after American military began to deploy troops in the Middle East to secure resources, such as oil, abundantly available in the Middle East. However, the tension reached its peak when Al Qaeda terrorists attacked America on 9/11/2001, killing more than three thousand American people. This event triggered the shift of U.S authorities’ attention to Muslim religious groups simply because those terrorists were of Muslim belief and from the Middle East. Based on the idealogy portrayed in Ronald Takaki’s “Different Mirror - War of Terror”, Muslim communities suffered the worst times in their lives after this unfortunate event. A majority of American citizens began to believe Muslims to be a source of danger and terrorism. Takaki argues that the fears of the U.S public brought American Muslim people countless difficulties and threatened their livelihood.

Muslim people can easily be identified in the public; for example, women wearing hijabs is a tell-tale sign of the Muslim culture. Unfortunately, as a result of discriminatory identification, Indian women wearing hijab have been shot and killed. Muslim children are bullied at school with racially presumptious questions asked by classmates; starting with “Are you Muslim?” leading to “Do you know Osama Binladen?”. In fact, the Muslim community in the U.S are facing much of the same discrimination and hate that Catholics faced in Vietnam. In the past couple of years, major political events shook the Muslim community; the Muslim Ban Executive Order sparked controversial debates on the U.S political stage. This Executive Order caused major chaos in U.S societies because it negatively affected the image of Muslim people and violated the Muslim people’s freedom to practice their religion. Our society should not ignore the truth that the terrorists who attacked America were Muslim extremists; however not all American Muslim people are terrorists or even Muslim extremists. In a country that already hosts all sorts of racial discrimination, executive orders and laws, such as the Muslim Ban Executive Order, only encourages further religious discrimination, increasing religious tensions in the country. This ban has also affected the immigrants and refugees who were living in the U.S prior to terrorist attacks as well as their family in the Middle East. In the other words, the Muslim community views the ban as a specially designed ploy to exploit their community and promote stronger discrimination.

Mirrored to the situation of Muslims in America today, I think history is repeating itself. If we turn to history and analyze through it, many immigrant groups were wronged by an anti-immigrant ideology existing in the U.S society. Once Americans begin to feel threatened by immigrants, the American government, especially those nationalists who embrace powers, will begin to target citizens and residents related to that particular immigrant group. Nationalists become concerned about that specific racial/immigrant group, considering them as a potential danger to the country. The government will begin to prosecute that group via lawmaking and discriminatory actions that have various targeted negative impacts. Before the Muslim people caught the special attention of the U.S government, Japanese Americans used to be the victim of the same anti-immigrant movement. After Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese military, the United States government began to lay their concerns on the Japanese American community. They were afraid of the Japanese Americans because Japanese Americans posed a risk of espionage and vandalism. A few days after the Pearl Harbor event, more than one hundred thousand Japanese American along the Pacific Coast were forced to relocate to government camps under Executive Order 9066 signed by President Roosevelt. Many Japanese Americans were not even aware of the location of the camps they were being forced into. Ronald Takaki’s “Different Mirror - World War II '' describes Japanese American’s most difficult times by giving situations that exemplified the unconstitutional treatment of Japanese Americans. He quoted Congressman Robert Masui that even a 6 months-old Japanese baby in the United States was determined as a potential threat to the nation and had to be reallocated to a camp. This example made me feel a strong contradiction between the nation’s intent and the rights cemented in the constitution. While the conflict between the U.S and Japan was very specific, the government began to lose trust in all their Japanese citizens. Conclusively, Muslim people are met with the same difficulties and experiences that Japanese Americans had gone through.

After contrasting the similarities of Japanese and Muslim American, I think about why the white supremacy and xenophobia prevents us from helping the Muslims break through the religious barrier. Besides being known as the country of immigrants, the U.S have been better known as a xenophobic and racist country. Since the beginning of the United States, the foundation of the country was built upon the white supremacy and slavery. The white supremacy treated skin color people with inequality and injustice. They created a social hierarchy where they are on the top. Being on top of the social hierarchy grants the white people a natural privilege to embrace political power; therefore, they are able to give themselves the right to violently exploit skin color and immigrant groups. Throughout history, white people think it is natural that they are the supreme in society.

In this century, people think white supremacy and xenophobia have been erased. Contrary to common belief, these racial bias thought processes are still widely relevant, specifically in regard to the Muslim community. Under the leadership of a white nationalist controlled government, the U.S society is blinded to the urgency of discrimination issues related to Muslims. In various media outlets from youtube advertisements to flyers and newspapers, white nationalists propagandize the potential dangers of the Muslim community. Our eyes are covered with their ideology, and as expected, many people blindly accept these discriminative concepts; naturally, this leads many Americans to discriminate against our brothers and sisters' religious identification. Many people find it uncomfortable to break something that is so widely proclaimed; they cannot find the courage to break out of the conniving loop where the Muslim people are defined as the primary source of terrorism.  Eventually, religious discrimination towards Muslim will build off of the culmination of hegemonic beliefs and a lack ethical and moral values. In fact, the white supremacy ideology is still being practiced nowadays prevent the U.S society from moving to a more democracy society to solve social problems such religious freedom.      

Now that I’ve deeply examined the historical roots of the Muslim-American community’s obstacles, I would like to shift the topic of discussion to the materialistic maze that traps many Americans. Chasing the materialistic lives, many Americans forget their moral and humanitarian values that we are expected to withhold. It is imperative for the American people to realize that they are religiously discriminating and exploiting the Muslim American community. I don’t hesitate to argue that Americans need to refresh their ethical compasses. One of the preferable directions of that ethical compass is the loving principle taught in the Catholic church. Martin Luther King suggests, in his paper “The World House'', that humanity is the key to solving social problems, not wars and human destruction. I strongly believe that considering this no violence policy will unite Americans and make the country a utopia. I suggest that, as taught in the Bible, love and good deeds should be used to neutralize hatred and eliminate the very roots of such evil. By practicing these loving lessons taught in Catholic church, society may come to understand that building a wall of hatred and crime is not the solution to their issues. Hatred will only result in more hatred; hatred spreads like that of infectious viruses such as COVID-19, which is currently causing many societies to collapse. We all must live interdependent on each other to avoid that future humanitarian collapse. There will be no wall nor any racial or religious barriers that divide our society. Our corrupt country will transit into one built on humanitarian virtues, promoting prosperous lives with tightly knitted communities. As long as there is love, conflict can be solved and prevented, and pain caused by those conflicts can also be healed. To better understand the loving principle, individuals should place themselves in the shoes of Muslim-American people.  Understanding their hardships and resilience will help Americans overcome social problems and build a richer, more civilized humanity.

To understand the effectiveness of loving and understanding where other people come from, we can look at the reactions of different groups guided by their principles. In fact, the loving principle has been practiced when the Muslim ban was published. For example, the Catholic church in America strongly disagreed with the Trump’s administration about the Muslim ban. Based on the lesson loving people like brothers and sisters, the U.S bishop committee proclaimed “Where our brothers and sisters suffer rejection and abandonment, we will lift our voice on their behalf. We will welcome them and receive them.” When we look at the U.S bishop committee’s statement through the lens of social construction, we can see that Catholics feel a strong solarity regardless of different races and religions. As a Catholic, myself and other Catholics feel sinful for our thoughts, our words, and our actions against the Muslim group. On a similar note, many immigrants and working groups expressed their concerns about the discrimination against the Muslim Americans as well. To help illustrate the solarity of the working and immigrant group, around 19,000 taxi drivers in JFK airport organized a protest and strike to express their support for the Muslim community. In sum, the loving principle already proved that it can gather forces and build a sustainable mass of national solidarity to liberate the exploited and discriminated.

Although the obstacles that the Muslim American community are currently facing are very specific to their religious, you and I should be aware and stand up to help the Muslim community have their voices heard in public. When there are victims of injustice and inequality, we must be willing to stand up, support, and even lead protest movements. Even though we are not the victims of religious discrimination at this moment, we should always be aware of the injustices that many other fellow Americans face. We need to be ready for opportunities to make an impact. The readiness to assist and make a difference is a sign of a civilized society. Who knows? In the future, you and I may be victims of another social problem. Regardless of the fact, we need to build a solid foundation for future generations. A solid foundation is very much like a financial investment. Early investment will help protect our savings throughout life. We can build and develop a foundation that will help us procure more valuable assets. In the other words, the future is dependent on our actions in the present moment. If we can handle the present with what we consider to be the best, in terms of ethics and morality, we have done everything we can for the future. Finally, we can see a clear idea of why we need to concern about the current situation of the Muslim Americans through the famous poem below:

            First they came for the Communist/Socialists/Unionist or Jews

I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communists/Socialists/Unionist or Jews

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

Work Cited

Takaki, Ronald. “Different Mirror a History of Multicultural America”, Revised by  Ronald Takaki, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, pp. 394-402 (World War II)

Takaki, Ronald. “Different Mirror a History of Multicultural America”, Revised by  Ronald Takaki, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, pp. 376-483 (War of Terror: Afghanistan)

King Jr., Martin Luther “The World House” Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Beacon, 2010, pp. 177-202.

J. O'loughlin, Michael “Responding To Trump's Ban, Top Catholic Bishops Pledge Solidarity with Muslim Refugees”. American Magazine, 30 January 2017.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance “Strike Against Muslim Ban”

Martin Niemöller’s famous confession “First they came”