Copyright@shravancharitymission
By Kamlesh Tripathi
Donald Trump was being willfully scandalous
when he recently said that the U.S. should shut its doors on all Muslims as his
verbal assault to the equally outrageous gunning down of civilians in
California by a couple owning allegiance to ISIS. Was it a campaign stunt to pacify
the public mood, or just a stray ambient outburst one can’t say. But any which
way Trump shot himself in the foot with his off the cuff remark. A person of
Trump’s stature who happens to be a billionaire and an aspirant for the
Republican nomination surely overlooked the demographic sketch of his own country;
whether by sheer ignorance or design he alone knows but by doing so he labeled
Muslims in general as derogatory stereotype.
On the other hand ‘Uncle Sam’ poses itself
as the big daddy of the world, showing deep concern for everyone in the planet.
Simultaneously, it even keeps track of the maze of weaponry better than anyone
else in the world. It also preaches terrorism is a curse, yet remains one of the
largest suppliers of arms in the world. And
with these analogies one can safely say Donald Trump exactly knew what he
wanted to say and it was not just an off the cuff remark; and it may not be out
of context to ask, if he orated what Republicans had in mind?
If we for a moment run through the world’s
demography we will find, out of a total world population of 7.26 billion people;
2.40 billion (33.06%) are Christians; 1.70 billion (23.41%) are Muslims; 1.13
billion (15.56%) belong to the unaffiliated religions (The religiously unaffiliated include atheists, agnostics and people
who do not identify with any particular religion); 1.08 billion (14.87%)
are Hindus; 0.49 billion (6.75%) are Buddhists; 0.40 billion (5.50%) practice
the Folk Religion (The precise definition of folk
religion varies among scholars.
Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion, but outside of official
doctrine and practices); 0.06 billion (0.83%) belong to the other religions
and 0.01 billion (0.01%) are Jews.
Islam therefore, is the second largest
faith on earth with around 1.7 billion adherents and not just a race that Trump’s
U.S might think of doing without. But currently it is quite definitely under
duress, going through some trying times because of Islamic fundamentalism, that
at its worst perpetrates holocausts in the form of terrorism and because of that,
average Muslims are losing their sheen and are not apparently welcomed in some of
the most developed and powerful countries and continents of the world such as
the U.S., Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand to name a few, for no
fault of theirs. But by ranting about Muslims Donald Trump has not only added
salt to their wounds but has also hoodwinked the American public in general and
let me tell you how. For, you can shut your doors and that too for sometime on something
that is flooding but not on something that is seeping under your door.
If we analyze various religions vis-à-vis countries
and colonies we will find there are: 161 countries where Christianity
is in a majority; 49 where Muslims are in a majority; 7 countries where
unaffiliated religions rule the roost; 3 countries where Hindus are in a
majority; 7 where Buddhists are in a majority; 3 countries where folk religion
is in a majority and 1 where the Jews are in a majority.
The data above only tells us that the World Muslim Population by percentage (Pew
Research Center, 2014), constitutes the world's second largest religious group.
And if we dig in a little more on the Muslim population across the world we
will find.
Concentration
of Muslim population
66% of the world’s Muslims reside in Asia
and the Middle East. They are 27% of the total population of Asia and Middle
East with around 1.12 billion adherents and thus the heart of Muslim
civilization on earth. And it is notable they share space with over a billion
Hindus in the same region. Balance 34% of the Muslim population is spread
across other continents and countries such as Africa, Europe, North America,
South America, Australia & New Zealand, Melanesia, Caribbean, Micronesia,
Mexico & Central America and Polynesia.
Africa is
home to 26% of the world’s Muslim population and 43% of Africa’s population is
Muslim. So not surprisingly, Asia, Middle East and Africa together notch up 92%
of the world’s Muslim population. And only a paltry 8% is left for the powerful
and affluent countries and continents to share. Out of that let us glance at
Europe and America.
Europe has a total of 2.56 % of the world’s
Muslim population and 5.85% of Europe’s population is Muslim. If we take
Australia and New Zealand, 0.03% of the world’s Muslim population lives there which
is 2.2% of their population. South America is home to around 6.7 lac Muslims
which is around 0.04% of the world Muslim population and 0.17% of their own
population.
But coming back specifically to Donald
Trump, North America is home to only around 35.08 lac Muslims which is 0.2% of
the world’s Muslim population and only 1.02% of their total population. Coming
to the U.S. in particular, it is home to only 0.16% of world’s Muslim
population, which is only 0.9% of their own population. So the point is whether
Trump says it or not the Muslim population unlike Asia, Middle East and Africa
has traditionally been extremely low in the U.S. and whether it was restricted
by design or was never a favourite habitat of the Muslims in particular is a
different question altogether.
A Breibart News review of the State
Department and Homeland Security data reveals that the United States already
admits more than a quarter of a million Muslim migrants each year. President
Obama intends to add another 10,000 Syrian migrants on top. In 2013 alone
1,17,423 migrants from Muslim majority countries were permanently resettled within the United States. Additionally
in 2013 the US voluntarily admitted an extra 1,22,921 temporary migrants from
Muslim countries, as foreign students and foreign workers as well as 39,932
refugees from other Muslim countries.
Even though every year the U.S. admits a
number of Muslim migrants larger in size than the entire population of Des
Moines, Oowa; Lincoln, Nebraska; or Dayton, Ohio but still it remains a miniscule
and therefore it is not flooding but seeping where closing of doors doesn’t help.
The lethal point therefore is that US
cannot do without the best of brains whether they come from Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, Unaffiliated, Buddhist, Folk Religion, Jews or any other
religion; And Trump’s US will have to realize that you can’t continue to be the
big daddy of the world by closing doors on faiths.
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