Arsalan Iftikhar Quotes

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, our country has been experiencing an "explosive growth in extremist-group activism across the United States" in recent years. The law center reported that so-called "patriot groups" - right-wing outfits steeped in anti-government conspiracy theories - grew in number from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009 - an astonishing 244 percent increase that apparently reflected a backlash against the election of America's first African American president.

The irony, of course, is that not long ago, it was Trump's own ancestors - German American immigrants - who were the demons of the day, as the United States fought two world wars against Germany. The only thing that saved Trump's people from being rounded up and put in camps during World War II, like Japanese American families - as Trump lauded President Franklin Roosevelt for doing - was that their skin color happened to be white. Those who are so eager to stigmatize Muslims today should keep this in mind - next time around it could be them. That's the way these American nativist, "know-nothing" uprisings work. One day it's Catholics who are the reviled aliens, then it's Jewish people, then it's Muslims. If you don't belong to one of these groups, just wait your turn - you could be next in line.
We will always be subjected to these us-versus-them hysteria campaigns as long as people in power seek to divide Americans for their own cynical political purposes - whether it's to whip up war fever, split apart working people, or simply keep the citizenry fearful and easier to manipulate.

This is the way a civilized society begins to devour itself. By allowing our political leaders and law enforcement officials to scapegoat one segment of our population - to turn innocent people into targets of suspicion, into the enemy - we demean all that is good and decent about our nation.