An American nightmare

The first stage of the Muslim ban Donald Trump had proposed during his election campaign is now in place and its effects are just as shameful and cruel as predicted. Everyone from the seven Muslim-majority countries named in Trump’s executive order is barred from entering the US, even if they possess green cards, have dual citizenship or valid US visas. Also, there is every possibility that the ban will not remain confined to these seven countries. There are heartbreaking stories about Syrian refugees who had gone through a year-long stringent security check only to be detained at US airports. Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, who was nominated for an Oscar award, will not be allowed to attend the ceremony. Students and permanent residents who were out of the US when the executive order went into effect cannot return for at least 90 days. Families will be ripped apart and an estimated 500,000 people will have their lives upended. It is hard to overstate the cruelty of Trump’s actions and the urgent need to resist him. There was admirable outrage in the US, as activists flocked to airports and hundreds of lawyers donated their time to handle the cases of those detained at airports. Some relief came from the courts, when a federal judge blocked the deportation of those who have been detained. But that will only provide temporary relief unless the executive order itself is overturned.

The international community has been mostly united in its condemnation of the ban but there has so far been silence from Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK, the one country which could have some influence with the US. The UK’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, though, has demanded Trump not be allowed to enter Britain until the ban is lifted. Unfortunately, Islamophobia has infected not just the US but all of Europe too where far-right demagogues in the mould of Trump have been gaining power and resentment against Syrian and Iraqi refugees is rising. Even Trump, though he has gone much further than Obama and Bush before him, has only been able to impose this ban because Muslims have been thoroughly dehumanised since 9/11. It was Bush who forced all Muslim men visiting the US to register and Obama who had introduced tougher visa restrictions for citizens of the seven countries that Trump has now outright banned. For the last 16 years Muslims have been spied on, made to feel unwelcome in the US and attacked by drones abroad. With this latest overtly discriminatory ban, what the current US administration is failing to see is that such dangerously divisive policies will only lead to further resentment against the US. That is hardly the right way to fight terror.