As the news of the Brussels attacks rang throughout the world, I found myself wondering how long it would take for the journalists and politicians to blame the attack on the West, then attempt to reassure us that most Muslims are moderate/peaceful (or the attacks altogether have nothing to do with Islam) and finally voice their concern that there will be a backlash against Muslims.
After a dreadful terrorist attack, the public fairly quickly receives information about the perpetrators. The perpetrators are usually from the same cultural and religious milieu as the perpetrators of the last terrorist attack, so no one considers that information very interesting. The only bit of information that can be novel/interesting is where they were radicalised.
When Obama was finally forced to take ISIS as a serious threat, at least according to his rhetoric, he was also determined to state his view of Islam. He defended the “true peaceful nature of Islam” that he felt was being twisted and co-opted by a handful of people. He did not back up this positive view of Islam with Islamic Scholarship or Doctrine. Rather, he felt it so an obvious truth as to require no defence. And no-one pressured him to defend this judgment either.
It has become orthodoxy in Western societies to believe that most Muslims are moderate and only a handful are radical. What follows from this line of thinking is twofold. Firstly, Muslims as a whole should not be held responsible for the acts committed by the radical members of their religion. Secondly, Islam is actually a peaceful religion, but is being distorted by a minority. Whether or not these two considerations are true is beside the point. What is important to note is they are widely believed and stem from the first premise that most Muslims are moderate.
Angela Merkel has made it clear that it is Germany’s duty to take in every refugee that manages to make it to Germany’s borders. She has repeatedly advocated strong refugee rights based on economic reasoning and a sense of moral duty. Furthermore, she has made it clear that she is determined to lose the reputation that Germany garnered in the past century, by turning the country into a ‘Willkommenskultur’ (welcoming culture). It is within this context, that many proponents to the resettlement of masses amount of refugees are branded racist and economically illiterate.