All that seems needed to push US over the edge is a singularly deadly attack on American soil for which Islamist militants take responsibility, writes Shannon Ebrahim.
The drums of war are beating in the US - not only from the White House but from the pulpits of Christian right-wing churches, which are galvanising their congregations towards a new crusade against Islam. Listening to the latest sermon of popular American evangelical Pastor JD Farag on Middle East Bible prophecy is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine.
Farag’s message is one of hate and fear-mongering. The essence of which is that Muslims are “streaming” into the US to turn churches into mosques, to impose Sharia, and to weaken, dilute, and eventually destroy the Christian religion. His “be very afraid” sermon is met with rapturous applause by the congregation, and the YouTube version of his sermon is reaching millions in the US, if not the world. All that one anticipates is a blatant call to arms. Israeli Christian clerics such as Amir Tsarfati are preaching the same message from Jerusalem.
These preachers are not necessarily on the payroll of the Trump administration, but are fanning the flames of intolerance and hate to an almost hysterical level, acting intentionally or unintentionally as the foot soldiers of a US administration bent on waging war with the Islamic world. Unfortunately, this is giving the rest of the Christian churches in the US a bad reputation as militants in the grand “clash of civilisations”.
In fact, mainstream Christian churches across the US have been doing quite the opposite to Farag and his ilk, using every imaginable lever to counter this message of hate. Thousands have opened their doors as havens to illegal immigrants and mobilised their congregants to fight for their cities to be sanctuary cities, which will protect refugees and migrants in defiance of the national government, even if it means being starved of federal funding.
These forces of division were unleashed before Donald Trump came to power, when the Breitbart News proudly posted online: “It’s war, America’s at war.” The message Breitbart spread was that the Judeo-Christian West must fight back to avoid a repeat of Constantinople’s fall to the Ottomans in 1453.
Prior to taking over Trump’s election campaign, Stephen Bannon, as the editor of Breitbart, claimed in July that he believed there’s a fifth column in the US that seeks to overthrow the government and impose Islamic law. According to him, that fifth column includes Muslim community groups, the media, government agencies, and even Jewish organisations.
How Jewish organisations became part of Bannon’s mix is curious, given that he purports to be the guardian of the Judeo-Christian West.
In practical terms, what becomes most concerning is these dynamics entrench a perception of America under siege, and prepare the public psychologically for what might become a curtailing of civil liberties in the name of national security.
All that seems needed to push US over the edge is its own Reichstag moment - a singularly deadly attack on American soil for which Islamist militants take responsibility. It seems more and more likely that Trump and his cohorts will seize the opportunity to declare a state of emergency in the name of national security - suspend civil liberties, adopt exceptionally draconian security measures, and launch a retaliatory attack in the Muslim world.
Ironically this is precisely what the Islamic State wants. In their world view it would be a fulfilment of prophecy that could usher in a cataclysmic war between the Islamic and Western worlds. This is precisely where the the White House and the leaders of the IS intersect - two extreme camps with similar views of the apocalypse are baiting each other - to see who makes the next move.
The IS needs the new alt-right in the US to validate its own fanatical narrative.
Germany’s Reichstag moment was a month after Adolf Hitler came to power in February 1933, when an arsonist set fire to the Reichstag or German parliament. Hitler declared it a plot to take over the government and the next day signed a law suspending all civil liberties. Hitler proceeded to purge his political opponents from government, consolidating his grip on power.
Tomorrow Trump will have been in power for a month - one which has ushered in an attempted ban on Muslims entering the US, extreme vetting, the purging of senior officials in government, particularly in the security establishment and the State Department, and the deportation of hundreds of illegal immigrants. It is just the beginning. A new ban is expected next week.
The result has been a climate of fear where civil society and churches are hiding refugees and migrants. The streets of many cities have been flooded with protesters. All we can hope is America’s Reichstag moment comes later as opposed to sooner.
* Ebrahim is Group Foreign Editor.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.