I agree with Americans on at least one thing when it comes to Donald Trump: he is making a difference. He’s giving a voice to American concerns and he doesn’t care if he’s not supposed to say it.
But dear supporter of Mr Trump, the fact is that much of what the billionaire says simply isn’t true and that should bother you. He thinks he can take you for a fool.
He claims to understand the need to keep the country secure and safe. But when his chance came to join the army, it was your sons and daughters who had to protect him. He hid behind excuses to escape Vietnam. When he says he understands financial hardship, it’s because he had “only” a million dollars from his father to start his business empire.
Americans and I are very similar. I am a law-abiding, peace-promoting, God-believing, community-building, family-orientated human being.
We agree on a lot more things. We want to keep our families safe. Those terrorists that Americans worry are attacking the country, well they are targeting my country – Britain – just as much. In fact, they are attacking Muslims in greater numbers. And the truth is, we’re on the same side when it comes to wanting to defeat them. But in many ways, we are not alike. I’m a female Asian Muslim. I’m the kind of person Mr Trump wants to ban from coming to America.
As a Trump supporter, you’re most likely white, male, graduated only from high school. On many of these counts, you have far more privileges than I do, but you feel like the privileges you have are being usurped by people like me. You know what? Your privileges are being eroded not by me, but by the likes of Mr Trump himself, exacerbating the levels of fear in America, and diminishing the financial resources available to the country.
Americans have decent common sense and logic that’s come from real life experience, not the kind of politically correct nonsense that elites try to palm off. So I put this to you, America: 100 per cent of violent white supremacists are white. Does that mean we should ban white people? Of 353 gun attacks in the United States last year, 353 were carried out by guns; one was carried out by Muslims. The answer of what to ban is logical: guns.
Don’t become ISIL-like. ISIL says that Muslims are at war with the West. That’s what Mr Trump says too. ISIL wants Muslims to stop seeing you as human, but I along with millions of other Muslims refuse to do that. Mr Trump wants America to stop seeing me as a human being.
Don’t become trapped in a circle of history that is built on hatred; a circle that targeted native Americans; that continues to demonise black people; that created the other out of the Vietnamese. Instead, I encourage you to embody the Christian values on which America was founded.
Don’t let Mr Trump push the United States to betray the constitution you hold dear. Look at the facts of his behaviour – he calls Mexicans rapists, he says women are just there for their looks, he wants to ban Muslims. He’s proud to flout the equality and respect enshrined by America’s founding fathers, while Americans stand and defend it.
Americans do have one important privilege: they have the chance to ensure Mr Trump is buried by history, along with the opportunity to make their own lives better. I urge them to take it.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www. spirit21.co.uk
