DONALD Trump, who leads the ratings among candidates for Republican Party nomination for the US presidential election, has come out with the most ridiculous and insidious proposal after the Bernardino California shooting incident.

He stated that all Muslims should be banned from entering the US. He implied that Muslims irrespective of their origin are all terrorists, conveniently forgetting several mass killings in the US where the perpetrators were white Americans.

He said that even naturalised American Muslims, who were currently outside the US, should not be allowed to return home.

There has been a widespread reaction to this madness from within the US and the world. The French president, the British prime minister and Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowland condemned Trump’s fanatical outburst.

Over a hundred thousand British citizens signed a petition requesting their government to ban Trump’s entry into Britain.

When Trump was confronted by a TV anchor and told of the volatile reaction from American and world leaders, he was naïve enough to compare the situation with World War II and himself with President Roosevelt, who had placed restrictions on Japanese, German and Italian Americans for the duration of war.

The unfortunate thing is that Trump, has a substantial following in America, although the majority of Americans find such fascist statements in bad taste.

In contrast, President Obama gave a very balanced, sober and sensible reaction to the Bernardino incident, saying all Muslims were not terrorists and the Muslims themselves are the biggest victims of terrorism.

Zaheer Ahmed

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2015