I imagine everyone has had those days when reading or watching the news makes you feel fearful or depressed about our current state of affairs. I had such a day this morning, a culmination of the last few weeks. My depressing journey through current events began as I was researching Congressional candidates for the upcoming election. I came across what seemed to be an uninformed and disturbing quote from a candidate about Islamic Sharia Law being implemented in American cities. Knowing how easily quotes are misinterpreted out of context I did some research. I’ll leave the interpretation of Sharon Angle’s quote up to you, but what struck me in my research was the fear and distrust of Muslims I was inundated with. This came in the wake of a furry of opposition to building the Muslim community center in New York City. With that on my mind I opened CNN.com this morning to find that the German Chancellor had declared that, “multiculturalism has failed.” I hoped that she was implying how important it was to ensure its success, but found that not to be true. I then turned to the Economist.com, hoping to see some light news about recessions and Chinese currency deflation, only to see a special report about American efforts to ensure our country isn’t taken over by Islam.

Rarely am I an alarmist, in fact I am generally an optimistic idealist when it comes to foreign relations. However, I feel like we’re at what could be a historic turning point. We MUST make multiculturalism work; if it is allowed to fail like some political experiment gone wrong then I am convinced violence will become an inescapable constant in our lives. We cannot allow antagonism against Muslims to grow. We cannot base our acceptance of people on how “Westernized” they are willing to become. We must accept that there are fundamentally different ways to look at the world, and learn to live side by side with those of a different mindset.
We cannot isolate, marginalize, or alienate the Muslim world either locally or internationally. Such efforts toward any other people or religion would be seen as outrageously in violation of American principles, yet they are being condoned and called for against Muslims. I don’t know how to say it more clearly, Muslims are not our enemies! I used to think such a statement was unnecessarily obvious, but I’ve recently heard the common response to that statement as, “Yeah, but…” There is no “but.” I’m writing this post to plead for you to never respond in that way – never insinuate, accept, or condone the idea that the Muslim faith demands our resistance. If we treat a people as our enemy they will meet our expectations. What we need to end the conflicts and violence we are facing is to prove that we are not the enemy – and I fear we are failing.