Tuesday, 31 January 2017
I am not a fan of
Donald Trump, the incumbent President of the United States. I didn’t
stand with him. I stood with her- Hillary Clinton- in the last US
Presidential election. No other election in recent American history has
been more international in terms of interest and emotional involvement.
Trump’s election even divided the Nigerian middle class. Majority of
Christians in Nigeria stood with Donald Trump. They liked his
anti-Muslim rhetoric, and in a country where religion is such a volatile
subject and the Christian community feels as if it is under siege from
radical Islamic extremism, it was easy for a category of Nigerians to
see Trump’s politics being in sync with their own fears and
expectations.
Pro-secessionist,
Biafran and Christian protesters in the South East also supported
Trump. On his Inauguration Day, they organized a rally, some of them
were killed, in the process, by Nigerian security agents. It is always
so easy to read American politics into every other politics globally
because of America’s status as a superior power and the global dominance
of its culture. Many Nigerians who opposed Hillary Clinton of the
Democratic Party also did so, for example, for partisan reasons, because
they felt the Democratic administration of President Barrack Obama was
responsible in many ways for the outcome of the 2015 Presidential
election in Nigeria. They wanted a pound of flesh – they wanted the
Democrats out of the White House, the same way the PDP exited Aso Villa.
The funny thing is that Nigerians who do not hold American citizenship,
were not in a position to vote in the US election, but this didn’t
deter us from weeping more than the Americans. In my case, I opposed
Trump because I consider him a vile, navel-gazing, crude, child-like
nativist, whose Presidency could pose a threat to the free world.
I have been
proven right. The United States is in trouble because of Donald Trump.
In less than two weeks in office, President Trump has signed executive
orders, which amount to an assault on the liberal international order.
America is great because it became the dreamland and the symbol of
freedom, prosperity and fulfillment for persons and families across the
world. It is great because it became the melting pot for global genius,
the preferred destination for generations of talented persons in all
fields of human endeavour. America is great because its diversity and
multiculturalism became pillars of its exceptionalism.
Donald Trump, on
twitter where he spends his waking hours, and on the podium, where he
rants, says his ambition is to “Make America Great Again” (#MAGA), but
it is beginning to look as if Trump will end up making America small.
The Executive Orders which he has signed so far, are intended to upturn
America’s foreign policy in the last 50 years, isolate the country from
the rest of the world and turn it into an island. America appears
destined to become a pariah state for the next four years. With Trump,
America now sees the rest of the world as an ocean of enemies, with this
persecution complex dressed up as national interest.
The most
pernicious of the Executive Orders is Trump’s suspension of the US
refugee programme for four months and the entry ban for 90 days imposed
on nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Is
the action legal? Section 212(f) of the US Immigration and Nationality
Act (INA) (1952) empowers the President to restrict immigration access
to the United States:
“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants and non-immigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
The sentiment behind this legal provision is protectionism, which is ironic in a country of immigrants.
This is Donald
Trump keeping his campaign promise to protect America for Americans and
review immigration policies. Is this new? No. Over the years, America
has always tried to control the influx of immigrants. This was the case
even under President Barack Obama. Trump reminds us of the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act which turned back the Chinese, and a similar law in 1924,
which targeted Asian and African immigrants, both of which were
corrected by the Immigration Act of 1965, which forbids discrimination
on the basis of national origin, ancestry and race. The only problem is
that Trump’s approach is crazy, a case of policy mixed with bigotry and
narcissism, and an unconstitutional gambit which violates the First
Amendment, hidden under the banner of “protecting the nation from
foreign terrorist entry.” Given the contradictions between the 1952 and
1965 Acts and the First Amendment, Trump’s actions are perhaps better
tested in the court of law.
He wants to build
a wall at the Mexican border. This has already caused a rift with
Mexico. He is also holding radical Islam responsible for security
breaches in the United States, and this is certainly because
foreign-born Muslims have been responsible for many acts of terror in
the US: the 9/11, the Boston bombing, the Nigerian underwear bomber;
across Europe, radical Islamic extremism has also proven to be a
problem. Trump’s solution is to demonize Muslim-majority countries and
arrive at the simple solution that the best way to protect America is to
shut out the Muslims. He insists that “This is not about religion –
this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are 40
different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not
affected by this order.” I don’t believe him.
The chosen seven
countries that have been shut out have not in any way been responsible
for most of the acts of terror in the US in recent times. Trump leaves
out Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim-majority
countries, but the kind of chaos that has been generated makes every
Muslim going to the United States vulnerable. You don’t have to be from
the seven targeted countries, once you bear a Muslim name, you could be
subjected to greater scrutiny by Customs and Border Protection
Officers. Some of the people who have been harassed at the borders
since last Friday when the Executive Order was passed are American
citizens with dual nationality.
While Donald
Trump is proposing greater vetting and scrutiny of the influx of
Muslims, and refugees, he is nevertheless willing to allow more
Christians into the United States. This is the message that comes
across: Christians are welcome. Muslims should be carefully scrutinized
before they are allowed in. In other words, Christians are better than
Muslims. This may sound like an over-simplification, but that is just
how it is. President Trump is likely to make the United States more
unpopular in the Muslim world, damage established friendships and
promote a culture of hate that has proven a threat to American foreign
relations in parts of the world.
American liberals
are justifiably upset and angry. President Trump’s policy moves and
rhetoric depart from the America they have known for the past 50 years.
But right now, America is so divided, nobody can comfortably sit on the
fence, and that is why public opinion is so viciously divided too.
Trump addresses the fears of those Americans who, like him, don’t want
more immigrants and asylum seekers. This is the ultimate rise of
American xenophobia and an attempt to turn that country into “a camp of
saints.” But there are limits to nativism as seen in Jean Raspail’s
novel, The Camp of the Saints (1973) and The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. The Environment (2011) by Lisa Park and David Pellow.
But no matter the
tone of global outrage, Donald Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn.
Mexico has cancelled a meeting with Trump, a protest calling for
signatures to prevent his proposed state visit to the UK has attracted
over a million signatures, Iran is threatening reciprocal action, the
entire Muslim world is outraged and inside America, California is
threatening to secede because of Trump! And Trump? He wants to be
President of the United States, not President of the world. He wants to
serve the American people who voted him into power, not some immigrants
coming from the slums of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle
East. Across the world, there are millions who look up to the United
States as the land of freedom. Trump is saying America is no longer
ready to be the world’s Atlas nation. It is not just immigration that
will be affected: trade, aid, military relations as well. This has
created a regime of fear among many who depend on the United States.
There are
millions of Africans living in the United States, particularly
Nigerians. They don’t all have the papers granting them the right of
stay. There are asylum seekers, refugees and many who are still
processing their residency papers. An American for Americans only policy
is likely to place them at the risk of rejection and eventual
deportation. When you talk to some of them, you can actually sense
panic, fear, despair. They panic because America has become their
adopted home. It is their place of work, their source of hope, and the
best place in the world where they are happiest.
They panic
because their original homeland offers them little hope. They don’t want
to return to a Nigeria where there is no regular power supply,
employment opportunities, good roads, communications or transportation
system. Living in America confers a special status on them among
friends, family members and the community at home. There are others who
are already naturalized Americans, and who may have nothing to fear,
and there are those Nigerians who have helped to build America with
their talents and intellect, and who don’t really care on what side of
the bed Donald Trump is likely to wake up tomorrow morning.
Then you have the
big crowd of I-must-go-to-America-by-force set of Nigerians who are
daily trooping to the American embassy in search of visa. Since the
Executive Order by President Trump, that crowd has not been smiling at
all. I know many of our compatriots who have suddenly become experts in
analyzing American immigration rules. Nigeria is not one of the seven
countries on the Trump list and the review and restriction are supposed
to last for 120 days, but long-time US visa applicants in Nigeria
believe that what a typical American immigration officer has actually
been looking for is a President like Trump. An inconsolable applicant
tells me he is no longer sure he will ever get a visa to the United
States.
No comments:
Post a Comment