Unlike our neighbours, we do not currently face a threat from young, disenfranchised Muslims - but more could be done to keep it that way, writes Irish Muslim Arsheen Qasim
Back in May my Iranian-born friend and I sat waiting in the departure lounge of Dublin airport to be called to the US immigration desk so we could get our passports stamped. We were on our way to a two-week holiday in Florida.
I had heard how notoriously strict the US immigration officials can be, even though I had never had a problem going to the States before. But each trip to the Land of the Free brings a fresh set of concerns, an overwhelming feeling of disquiet and an uneasy feeling at the pit of my stomach before I even get a chance to board the aircraft. Travel is hardly stress-free at the best of times but post 9/11 things seem murky, not just for people with dark skin or certain backgrounds, but for everyone.
Trifling anxieties, some would say, yet I was tremendously aware of my conspicuous beige-brown skin and dark hair.
"There are brown people living in the States too, you know Arsheen," an American friend said one day. "I mean you don't have a big, bushy, black beard or anything," another colleague smirked. "But sure you're Irish!" they all said incredulously, eyes wide in mock-disbelief, shaking their heads at my frivolous paranoia.
And I just shrugged.
Yet sitting on the cushioned, reclining seats of the departure lounge, I couldn't help imagine the numerous ways the officials could incarcerate me. I had visions of being dumped in a dingy, spidery cell with nothing for food but stale noodles and soggy chips. Before the day of our departure I was plagued by images of pert, pointed fingers and disapproving, shaking heads, as I am dragged away from the airport desk.
However, my fear of being publicly humiliated and singled out for a search from a predominantly white travelling crowd because of our skin hue or the countries of our birth proved groundless. A few questions and an entry stamp later, a nice American officer let us through and off we skipped to steamy Miami, with no more worries about complex immigration policies and detainment nightmares.
Little did we know that a few months on and a foiled terrorist attack so close to home later we'd be facing the real possibility of visible, and politically permissible, racial profiling that would specifically involve searching and questioning people from certain ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Yet I have never said or done anything that would give me reason to fear being singled out. Except for the simple fact I am a Muslim. And very evidently so. It's not exactly the best of times to be running around with a placard hanging around your neck proclaiming your faith to the world - especially if that faith is Islam, especially in the West, and especially now.
No amount of discernible clutching of red European passports, lack of wiry facial hair, or screams of "Look at me, I love Adam Brody from The OC, I'm not a terrorist!" will be enough to deter the officials from suspecting Muslims any more. It seems as if not even the women and children will be free from suspicion. Years later and George Orwell's chilling prophecies seem to have become all but real. Queues of people separated in aisles for dark, tan, yellow and white at airport terminals manned by the "air travel police" in combat costume make for nightmarish visions of the future.
CERTAIN SECTIONS OF the British and Irish media have called for passenger profiling that focuses specifically on the stereotype of young Muslim men in their twenties to avert the massive delays still causing havoc at airports and to avoid aggravating a "less suspect" mass of the usual business and holiday travellers.
However, the newspapers cautiously add that the profiling system will be more sophisticated than simply picking out young, male Arabs and Asians.
Apart from selection based on ethnicity, people will be singled out on suspicious behaviour and for having an "unusual travel pattern".
So what constitutes an unusual travel pattern? I travel to my parents' native Pakistan occasionally to spend time with ailing grandparents, and back to Ireland, then on holidays to the US or sometimes England and then back to Pakistan.
Does that make me suspect? There was a furore last week when a Muslim personality living in Dublin, Sheikh Dr Shaheed Satardien claimed that radicalism was spreading among young, Irish Muslims. He asserted that young people were travelling to their mother countries - such as Pakistan - during their holidays and enrolling in fundamentalist schools.
I'm a young Muslim living in Ireland yet I wouldn't have the slightest inclination to spend my three-week summer holiday seated in a dingy school for brainwash lessons. My homebound vacation includes delighting in old Bollywood movies, sipping on cloying mango shakes while seated on my grandfather's veranda and feeding the jittery old peacock that runs amok. Nor do I know of any dubious Irish-Muslim friends secretly plotting to bring the whole world to its knees.
Let the media frenzy calm down a bit and let us not be too quick to make analogies with Britain. The Muslim population on this island is much smaller, relatively new and with a different profile compared to our neighbour. I don't believe we in Ireland have enough cause yet to worry about factions of disenchanted ethnic youths rising up in angry, mutinous mobs. Or retreating to plot blowing aircraft out of skies.
BUT THAT'S NOT to say we can be complacent about the dangers of Muslim extremists hijacking young, impressionable minds here. It would be foolish to deny that Ireland is open to Islamic radicalism just like any other country in the West is.
However, we are in a very good position to learn from other countries' mistakes. This is the right time to enforce stricter immigration policies to deter Islamic dissidents from taking refuge here, and it's important not to adopt provocative foreign policies like those of Britain and the US, which so many believe add fuel to the fire of Islamic jihadists.
Also, there may just be enough time to prevent ghettoising our newly emerging ethnic minority groups. There's enough fanfare about integration, but assimilation may be a better rhetoric to use. Take, for example, the reliance on alcohol for most of the cultural and social activities in Ireland. The majority of the Muslim community does not drink, and therefore can't join in the celebrations if, for example, Ireland has a sporting triumph, or when the students celebrate their Leaving Cert results. A clampdown on all pubs and clubs is not being called for, but diversity in the choice of recreation and a move towards a more encompassing cultural attitude that doesn't frown upon or ridicule abstinence is.
Equally, I don't believe the responsibility for assimilation lies solely with the Irish and other western governments and societies. For assimilation to work Muslims need to come out of their sheltered zones, be less dubious about the motivations of their fellow countrymen and grab immediately the open hand their adopted countries put forward. (I, for one, have never experienced anti-Muslim harassment in Ireland.) It's about time Muslims start to confront and not simply condemn the atrocities that are carried out in our name.
Because if we are to defeat extremism, we need to pluck our heads out of the sand and start to look within instead of playing the victim card. As important components of this society and of all other societies in the world, as Muslim doctors, businessmen, students and journalists, we need to raise our hands, stand up and acknowledge there's a problem.
Although I wouldn't be of the opinion that Muslim radicalism is rampant in Irish society, I do agree with Sheikh Dr Shaheed Satardien when he says: "It is high time the Muslim community stops hiding behind the labels of racism, Islamophobia and anti-immigrationism whilst there is a clear and present danger lurking in the shadows." As the moderate Muslim majority rejects the terrorist ideology, why let an extremist minority hijack Islam and cause ruptures in an already segregated and fragile society? Why should we pay the price, be it through loss of life (because let's not forget that Muslim casualties also existed among victims of 9/11 and 7/7) or through the constant degradation of our daily lives at airports, on the streets and in the media?
A few days after the thwarted terrorist attacks in England, my Iranian friend and I were walking down Camden Street.
"If we were ever on a plane that was blown up as part of a terrorist attack, do you think they'd mistakenly label us as terrorists forever?" she asked wryly. We laughed at the absurdity of the situation, our grins slowly fading as the realisation dawned that the prospect of being categorised with the radicals who take innocent lives was a more disconcerting thought than that of being blown to smithereens 35,000ft up in the air.