“Presumed Guilty”, a book addressing Islamophobia after Trump became president

Mohamed Abdel-Ghaffar

Todd H. Green’s book , entitled “Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism”, holds a message that it is time to stop asking Muslims to condemn terrorism under the assumption they are guilty of harboring terrorist sympathies or promoting violence until they prove otherwise.

The 250-page-book, issued on Sept. 1, 2018, provides three main reasons to why the world should stop asking Muslims to condemn terrorism.

Renowned expert on Islamophobia Green suggests in his book that the question wrongly assumes Islam is the driving force behind terrorism, ignores the many ways Muslims already condemn terrorism, and diverts attention from unjust Western violence.

Issued by Fortress Press, the book is identified as an invitation for self-examination when it comes to the questions that are being asked of Muslim and the rest of the world regarding violence. “It will open the door to asking better questions of our Muslim neighbors, questions based not on the presumption of guilt but on the promise of friendship,” the book presumes.

Todd H. Green teaches religious studies at Luther College and is an internationally recognized expert in Islamophobia. He served as a US State Department adviser on Islamophobia during both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Green also gives lectures on college campuses as well as to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, not to mention that his work has been featured in the Huffington Post, and his expertise has been cited by organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for American Progress, the NAACP.

The book is an effort to do more and raise the bar even higher when it comes to how to talk about and to Muslim neighbors. “That said, publishing books calling for understanding and compassion toward Muslims is not for the faint of heart at this moment in our political history.”

The book quoted a number of experts in Islamic studies such as Omid Safi, director of Duke Islamic Studies Center, who strongly recommended the book for members of the media, policy makers, and anyone interested in interfaith conversations.

“Todd Green’s Presumed Guilty moves us through treacherous terrain in a thoughtful fashion, filled with great stories, and without unnecessary jargon. We learn how to talk about religion and the role it does play in terrorism, how to speak with Muslims about terrorism, and how to understand that the larger context of terrorism has nothing to do with Muslims,” Safi said in praise for Presumed Guilty.

Green says that the day after the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, he felt overwhelmed; “The feeling had less to do with whether my candidate won or lost than with the reality of the blatant key role Islamophobia played in electing a politician to the most powerful position in the World. Trump’s unlikely bid for the White House could not have succeeded without his orchestrated effort to stir up fear and hostility toward Muslims.”

“The connective tissue binding these reasons together is the presumption of guilt. Muslims as a whole are presumed guilty because they have failed to reform an inherently violent religion, to atone for the sins of their co-religionists, and to come to terms with their religion’s unique history of horrific violence,” Green stresses in his book.

Green adds that the political and media establishments have taught the people to view Muslims as objects of suspicion, not as sources of wisdom or insight. “This means many of us harbor implicit biases against Muslims. These biases will not disappear easily, or without effort.”

“This presumption of guilt is an exercise in racist scapegoating. It enables us to project our sins of commission and omission onto the Muslim “Other” so that we need not come to terms with our own history of unjust violence or our own complicity in a violent world order,” Green added in the book.

The author further focused on proving a fact that terrorists and extremists make attacks and plot schemes for their own aims, that have nothing to do with religion.

He also pointed out that only crimes committed by Muslims are labeled as “terror” acts, while crimes by white Christians for example are called other things other than being “terrorism”.