Islamophobia.

IT'S LIKE THE BEGINNING of a thunderstorm; you can sense the electricity in the air. Islamophobia is raising its ugly head in the United States as in Europe. It's beginning to metastasize into a virulent form of xenophobia, an eruption of the atavistic human tendency to pick sides and then if necessary fight to the death for the side one chooses, and to not reason why.

The administration of George W. Bush has tried to avoid condemnation of Islam as a religion. But it follows inconsistent policies and has been caught in a web of its own contradictions. The excessive national reaction to the news that Dubai Ports World was going to take over management of twenty-two U.S. ports is an example of how sowing so many seeds of fear has backfired. The administration reacted to the 9/11 outrages by declaring that the United States is a nation at war with international terrorism. But what has been attempted is more like international police action than out-and-out war in the old-fashioned sense. Never mind, it suited the Bush administration's purposes to whip up war fever in order to muster flagging support for its other policies. That effort was successful enough to enable Bush to launch his ill-prepared and unjustified adventure in Iraq, but it had the inevitable collateral effect of persuading many Americans that they weren't just fighting a few Muslim terrorists and an evil despot in Baghdad, they were fighting an implacable enemy and its name was Islam. Some rightwing Christian leaders, who were obsessed with their own reasons for fighting the faith of the crescent, encouraged their flocks to make this association. And they weren't the only ones. There are arsonists in every society who feel compelled, when they see a fire starting, to help it along.

In this tense situation it was perhaps inevitable that the Danish cartoons depicting (and to certain audiences, mocking) the Prophet Muhammad made latent tensions erupt into violent demonstrations in many Muslim countries. Yes, the Muslims overreacted, in part because some of their religious leaders egged them on in order to embarrass pro-Western leaders or otherwise advance their narrow sectarian agendas. But there were instigators in the Western camp as well. The Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten was more than a bit shortsighted when he said he had printed the inflammatory material just to uphold the principle of free speech, without taking into account the ramifications of this decision. Freedom of speech is a fine principle, but how about including in it the responsibility to consider how one's speech may become an incitement to riot?

Where should we Humanists stand in this complex situation? Yes, we are in favor of freedom of speech and, yes, we deplore many of the restrictions on human freedom that traditional Islam mandates. But in any civilized society, as in any functioning family, freedom of speech has to be tempered by good manners. You don't use the n-word when referring to African Americans and you don't denigrate the importance of the Holocaust. Indeed, you don't say a lot of things, even if you hold them to he true, when you know that saying them will be hurtful or worse. Good manners are a lubricant that makes a free society function. This is as true on the global level as on national or community or family levels.

Before we decide that the world of Islam is the enemy and start mobilizing for a full-scale "clash of civilizations" let's take another look at this fifth of humanity that seems so bothersome. It's true that many of the billion plus Muslims in today's world are unfriendly towards Western policies and attitudes. This stems in part from a long history of colonial subjugation. And even since that period ended there's been subjugation by other means, leaving many Islamic countries precious little nourishment for their self-respect. Any objective observer of the recent history in the Middle East would have to conclude that perceptions of injustice and resentment against the West are common. Over the last several decades our support for Israel has reinforced these resentments, shifting them away from Europe and toward the United States. Our present misadventure in Iraq has accelerated and strengthened this trend. But even with all this background, many polls show that most Muslims in the Middle East detest the present policies of the U.S. government but continue to admire America as a nation.

It would be the act of a schoolyard bully if we were to let our anger at a few Muslim terrorists becloud our vision to the point where we were "taking on" a whole gaggle of states that are united primarily by a religion. We would fail to distinguish friend from foe and only worsen the problems that produced their hostility in the first place. There has to be a better way to deal with the problem.

So back to the question: what should be the proper stance of Humanists? Humanism means confidence in human beings, a sense of belonging that includes all humanity. This worldview will hopefully persevere beyond the competing views of the old religions because of the fact that we are all one people, one society, enjoying our diversity while coexisting in peace. It follows that if anyone is to set an example of international good manners for the rest of the world, it should be, first and foremost, the Humanists.

We are teetering on the brink of a kind of mass hysteria--Islamophobia--that can set us back a generation or more in our quest for a world at peace. Let's stand back and let cooler heads prevail.

Carl Coon is a former ambassador to Nepal and author of One Planet, One People, Beyond "Us versus Them," published by Prometheus Books in 2004. He is also vice president of the American Humanist Association.