Trump using Islamophobia to gain support: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Zafar Bangash, president of the Islamic Society of York Region in Toronto, about Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump saying he would be open to having a “Muslim database” in America for security reasons.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What did you actually think about the US Republican presidential candidate’s comments regarding Muslims and the security measures that he has in mind in order to make America a safer place?

Bangash: American Republican presidential candidates and in particular Donald Trump has a habit of making outlandish statements because they know that Islamophobia can gain them some support among racists in the United States.

Muslim Americans are American citizens. They are law-abiding citizens. They pay their taxes. They do all the things that other Americans do and Donald Trump and his likes are involved in spreading Islamophobia so that they can appeal to a certain type of Americans.

Muslims are not a threat to anybody. In fact it is the United States government and its policies that are a real threat to the rest of the world. I do not think anybody should have any doubt about the fact that in the last two decades alone, the United States has launched numerous wars, killed a lot of people all over the world from Afghanistan to Iraq, to Somalia, Pakistan, the list is endless, so in that sense the kind of talk that we hear from American politicians is patent nonsense and it is not going to serve America’s interests at all.  

Press TV: So what do you think hate speeches like that of Donald Trump bring for the United States and given the fact that he is the forerunner at the Republican presidential rate, what does that tell us about the American society in general and how much awareness do the American public have when it comes to the fact that America, the United States has actually been waging a war on Muslims?

Bangash: As far as the level of education or information of the average American is concerned, I am afraid it is quite low. There is a deliberate attempt at dumbing down of America. This exists at the institutional level, at various institutions in the United States as well as their media led by such outlets as Fox News and CNN, etc. and then there are radio stations and people that absolutely they are full of hate. So what they do is they appeal to the basest instincts of the American people. They try to arouse jingoistic feelings among some segments of the American population, not all, but some, and that is obviously the base of the Republican Party.

We can see also of course in the United States that racism is widespread. In the last couple of years or so, we have seen these horrific attacks on members of the African American community by police forces in various states of the United States. Totally innocent people have been murdered in cold blood.

This is what is happening in the United States today but unfortunately they get away with it because of the climate of hate and the climate of hysteria that they have created. But as I said earlier, within the Republican Party, the various candidates that are vying for positions and as Donald Trump as you mentioned is the lead candidate at the present time, although I do not think that he will necessarily win the Republican nomination because he is so outlandish that even the Republican Party would not support such a candidate, and yet they try to outscore each other by talking all of this hatred and spreading all of this hatred against the Muslims. It is ultimately going to prove counterproductive for the United States itself because if they want to spread hatred against the Muslims in the United States, then I am afraid this is going to arouse even more hatred against the United States worldwide than what it currently faces. 

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