A couple of diabolically ingenious (or phenomenally stupid) plans have been recently reported on in the media, both plans intended to ascertain where American Muslims be hanging out (so as to keep tabs on the potential terrorists hiding among them). The first was Los Angeles’ Muslim Mapping Project. At first I assumed that the LAPD intended to map the spread of Islam in the world since the birth of Muhammad…but then I realized that the department probably doesn’t employ many history or religion PhDs. “Muslim Mapping” must mean something else. Here is an excerpt from the LAPD officer who briefed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (headed by Joe Lieberman):
“In order to give our officers increased awareness of our local Muslim communities, the LAPD recently launched an initiative with an academic institution to conduct an extensive “community mapping” project. We are also soliciting input of local Muslim groups, so the process can be transparent and inclusive. While this project will lay out the geographic locations of the many different Muslim population groups around Los Angeles, we also intend to take a deeper look at their history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socio-economic status, and social interactions. It is our hope to identify communities, within the larger Muslim community, which may be susceptible to violent ideologically-based extremism and then use a full-spectrum approach guided by an intelligence-led strategy…” [Link]
“We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities,” LAPD Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing was quoted by CBS news as saying Thursday. [Link]
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p>This plan actually makes a lot of sense to me (and doesn’t Downing seem downright neighborly?). It would be much too difficult to move all the Muslims into ghettos with well-defined boundaries. I don’t think Homeland Security has that kind of budget (yet). Why not use GIS data and other high tech strategies to simply make a virtual map of Muslims? I mean, Google Map already has overlays for satellite imagery, traffic, and street view. It wouldn’t be hard for Google to simply add a “Muslim neighborhoods” overlay to their GoogleMaps would it?
We have learned that Muslim communities in the U.S. are mistrustful of the mainstream media. Therefore, they may turn to other sources of information for news and socialization, such as the Internet. Unfortunately, despite all of the positive aspects of the Internet, it allows those individuals and groups with ideological agendas to easily make contact with like-minded individuals and access potentially destructive information. [Link
Holy crap. I know that Muslims read our site and socialize here with like-minded individuals through comments. Despite the fact that I like this plan I hope we aren’t getting mapped as well.
As you might have guessed, people immediately started whining about this. Here is the LA City Beat’s critical take:
We can imagine Daryl Gates got a good chuckle during one of his jogs in the Monterey Hills as he pondered the suggestion by LAPD’s terrorism expert to map neighborhoods where Muslims hang out in Los Angeles. The bad idea ranks right down there with the political spying unit that flourished under Gates and amassed files on Mayor Tom Bradley and city councilmembers, among others.
Before we revert to the dark ages of the 1980s, the mayor and police commission must embark on a high-profile campaign to ensure that Deputy Chief Michael Downing’s mapping idea, even in the vague utterings given last week to a congressional subcommittee in Washington, D.C., finds a home in the deepest recesses of the very crowded Gates’s Hall of Fame of Bad Ideas.
Set aside the constitutional and ethical objections, it would be logistically impossible to come up with any sort of comprehensive map showing where the hundreds of thousands of Muslims reside in our diverse city. They, like the rest of us, are too scattered, from San Pedro to El Sereno, from Brentwood to Boyle Heights. You can crunch Census stats and other public records and you’ll never know our religion, if any. Muslims aren’t all called Mohammed. We don’t want any undercover cars in our neighborhoods keeping an eye on our Muslim neighbor. [Link]
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p>And then the plan was cancelled. Just like that:
The Los Angeles Police Department is scrapping its controversial plan to create a map detailing the Muslim communities in the sprawling metropolitan area, bowing to the outcry among Muslims and others that the project was a thinly disguised form of racial profiling.
“We put it out there, it was rejected, it’s dead on arrival,” the police chief, William J. Bratton, said at a news conference after a meeting with Muslim residents and civil rights organizations who had criticized the plan. “It will not be going forward…” [Link]
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p>Awww. Maybe this was just an idea ahead of its time. But…that wasn’t the only “cool” idea to recently surface. The next one is just full of awesomeness:
Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.
The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.
The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.
A check of federal court records in California did not reveal any prosecutions developed from falafel trails. [Link]
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p>Growing up, my family loved falafels. My mom made them at home and we sought them out at local restaurants. I know many other Indian families that love falafels as well. Anna once took me to a great falafel joint in Adams Morgan. I for one support ANY plan that would be able to help identify the best falafel joints (by tracking their raw materials) AND keep the homeland safe as an extra bonus. Again, imagine if GoogleMaps added an overlay feature identifying the best Middle Eastern restaurants with little falafel icons. Yum. But alas, this idea too was killed:
The program, however, was short lived and was quickly “torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist [watch] list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal…” [Link]
Tom Friedman is right. As a country we have stopped innovating and seem to scrap our brightest ideas before they are allowed to mature. Is it any wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world?
On the falafel trail, I’m curious to know – were they planning to track sales of ready falafels or also the sales of garbanzo beans and onions and herbs and spices? See, they might catch the terrorists who are too lazy to cook for themselves, but not the genuine terrorists who will accept only the authentic home-made falafel. This is why it is important for terrorists to learn how to cook.
I also deduce that Saddam Hussein liked Doritos, and Doritos sponsored Stephen Colbert’s presidential bid, therefore Doritos is more evil than Saddam Hussein but less suspicious than a lobster that can milk a bicycle.
I don’t understand why this is a bad idea. It better to be safe then sorry, and stop the problems before they become what they are in many western European countries are dealing with.
I just love the double standard on this website when it comes to islam and christianity. You can not say anything critical of islam, yet christian bashing is out of control. Yet these same people who do this would all rather live in Christian country over an Islamic country. That kind of funny if you think about it.
Seriously, you have the most perfect handle name of any SM visitor.
Next we will have rice dal & curry mapping.
Hahah, damn, I’ve been laughing at that for the past two minutes.
And now I feel deprived for never having had a falafel in my life. I’ll have to go hunt a place down when I’m back in the D.C. area.
post-9/11 paranoia continues…..effects of asymmetrical warfare ?
Honestly, I think this works the same way as a nuclear bomb. You don’t track whole bombs, but rather fissile material, centrifuges, etc. In this case, any old Joe can buy a falafel, but the right combo of raw ingredients could lead you to a master falafel maker (whose roots must be, we can deduce, in the Middle East).
My comment #1 was somewhat snide, but I realized that garbanzo beans, onions, garlic, with some herbs and spices can be used to make channa masala (I admit it also needs tomatoes). So I suppose if the falafel maker wanted to camouflage themselves as a channa masala maker, they could also buy a pound of tomatoes with their falafel ingredients and use it for something else. Ah! The joys of culinary proliferation!
I completely agree. In many Western European countries, you can’t find a good falafel place even if you wanted to. We must act now and make a catalog of all falafel places before we become as culinarily unsophisticated as the Europeans.
Maybe Bill O’Reilly needs a cold shower after Falafelgate.
He/she’ll also need to buy ginger along with rest and also some not so useful for falafel spices. Alas the wastage resulting out of culinary deception. But then it would just be collateral damage.
“These same people who do this would all rather live in Christian country over an Islamic country.”
Christian country? Where?
“Falafel Awareness Week”
You know what is so funny about this?
Falafels are not even a part of Persian, i.e Iranian cuisine. How stupid are these ugly rednecks who run our government out of the East Coast? There are several hundred thousand Iranians living in California, and they have their own series of ethnic markets to support them. Such markets are highly unlikely to be “data mined” in any fashion, since they lack the necessary logistical systems to “hack”. Besides, what are they going to track? An increase in sales of Lavash or Basmati? Is that supposed to give away the presence of Iranian intelligence agents?
Hell, when has an Iranian-American, or even an Iranian national, ever done a terrorist attack in the U.S?
Besides, no self-respecting Middle Easterner, or South Asian for that matter, is going to by their ingredients at a Safeway or Ralfs.
Observing people buying Falafels at a mainstream supermarket in the San Francisco Bay Area is more likely to give you data on Vegans and Vegetarians, foreign nationals visiting America from the Eastern Mediterranean, such a Lebanese, Egyptians, Greeks and…Israelis!
Do these morons even have a clue?
Abhi: You are right. We love “falafels”. The homemade ones which your Mom makes are preety good. I sugget Anna should arrange the next SM meetup in DC at this place in Adams Morgan you are talking about? We can also have some “Dosa” catered from Amma – of course! Forget the pita pocket bread, eat the falafels ball with some nice (sour cream based cucumbered mint/cilantro flavored) spicy stuff and I assure you even Joe (Don Knotts) Lieberman would eat them during Rosh Hashana. I am just saying.
This is so stupid that I must share it. I once had a white girlfriend in college. A Pakistani prankster friend of mine told her to yell out ‘Lafafa!” right in the middle of … you know… boom-chaka-boom. Well, guess what she yells into my ear at the opportune moment? — “Falafel baby! Falafel baby…!” I won’t mind if this gets filtered out 🙂
Finsbury park in London has the best falafels. And some of the best lakmajues, (apologies if spelt wrong).
“Seriously, you have the most perfect handle name of any SM visitor.â€
‘Hahah, damn, I’ve been laughing at that for the past two minutes.â€
Laughing for five to ten minutes! 🙂
Don’t see what’s the big issue here .. the FBI profiles people on the basis of what they read and could pull up my NYPL record on a whim. Marketers profile people based on just about any factor. (I have some doubts that it was truly by chance that I got picked for special screening on each of my first 5 trips after 9/11).
Besides, keeping tabs on the muslim population has been a factor in limiting bombings in britain. Tracking falafels may be stupid but if the principle works in britain, why wo’nt it work here?
Wow, I thought that only happened to me.
Well, hummus is a good substitute for whipped cream. Less fat too. =]
That’s about keeping tabs on individual suspects, not the entire Muslim ‘population’, try and work out the diffrence with clarity and honesty.
Not legitimizing the British system, but part of why you can’t use a cookie-cutter approach to safety rests largely on the fact that the Muslim population in the U.S. is profoundly different from the British Muslim population, with a different history of political activism, identity, etc. Not least of all due, in part, to the fact that many Muslims in the U.S. are African-American. What will they map next? Soul food restaurants? It’s not only profiling, it’s stupid profiling.
Also, can we not throw out the word “redneck” like it’s not a racial/classist slur? Thanks.
I think the 1st thing immigrants from the middle east or South Aisa do is look at tall buildings and 2nd, check out the things of story book fairy tales, those places that have been talked about since childhood.
Im talking about the motha fuc#ing strip clubs! Those 9/11 terrorist did and the last thing you most likely want to do before you know you are going to die is to get slapped in the face with pair of silicon filled boobies. If I am a FBI agent I am going to interview strippers every night and asking them about any terroristy looking customers.
It sounds perverted, but I bet it would work. I bet those London bombers visted a strip club a day or 2 before there horrific actions.
I don’t think so. It’s actually those with a conventional and quite linear mindset, who really have their heads up their fourth point of contacts, dreaming up such stupid schemes.
Yup
@Camille
Also, can we not throw out the word “redneck” like it’s not a racial/classist slur? Thanks.
Actually, you are the racist in this case. After all, you are the one making the insinuation that all Whites/Europeans/Caucasians are “rednecks”, and that is hardly the case.
That is doubly funny to me, giving into the fact that I am half Irish.
Rednecks are uneducated, 80 IQ inbreds who get promoted beyond their means, creating trouble for the rest of us.
As long as the U.S Government comes up with idiotically racist programs such as “Falafel Awareness” using my tax money(and I do pay a lot of it), I reserve the right to call the people creating such programs as “rednecks”. It is an accurate description that I picked up in the U.S Army, and it works just fine.
Fair is fair, and when I get profiled and labeled for eating a damn falafel, well, its my duty to point out how uneducated and “country” those overpaid morons who came up with the idea actually are.
Do you think for a second that these government geniuses creating these plans don’t think of me in terms of “raghead”, “towelhead”, and “sandni@@er” when concocting such ideas? I’ve been in just too many meetings over the years to even have a doubt.
Oh, and when someone labeled as a “redneck” complains about it, nobody much feels sorry for them. I wonder why…
Oh, and for all the sociology types out there, how exactly does one ascertain who is and isn’t “Muslim” in Los Angeles.
The whole concept is moronic!
Is some cop just going to walk up to a bunch of Iranian-American teenagers at a coffee shop on Westwood boulevard, and demand their reiligious affliation?
What if they say they are Jewish/Zoroastrian/Baha’i/Atheist/Orthodox Christian?
Do you demand proof?
Not in my town, and not in my country.
Just make sure to get/prepare one that doesn’t have any hot/chili pepper in it. Otherwise someone’s falafel/pita bread might get unnecessarily baked. 😉
@ 10,
@ 22,
.
Initially I was pissed off by the these profiling news in the media but then later I was inspired by a NYC incident a few years back when ban on photographing of buildings/public places was instituted. There was a mass uprising of folks on the metro/sub with huge number of people coming with cameras and photographing each other. After that I started deliberately booking one way tickets whenever I had to travel multiple destinations, visit incendiary websites once a month. Infact thats how I came across this blog and got hooked up.
Btw considering this thread,I recommend two books for the mutineers – Culture of Fear: Why Americans fear the wrong things and Paranoia switch. One thing is certain, apart from all defence/security contractors these liberal/democrat book-writers, psychologists, therapists, media etc. are making a lot of hay !!
Similar monitoring has been going on for a while in the DC area:
Can falafels be weapons of (m)ass destruction? They are usually a good source of natural gas (after digesting them.)
Sorry for sounding like a crude 7th grader’s attempt at gross humor. I guess US homeland security people are extremely desperate for ideas to stop terrorism, even dumb ones. The real outrage here is that our taxes are funding this idiocy.
Abhi,
I realize that you pinkos like to get all uppity about protecting Das Homeland from this most obvious of threats. But I for one fully support these sorts of innovative measures.
In case you aren’t aware of it, son, there is a vast and ever growing supply of sub-par, store-bought baba ghanoush, hummous and falafel in this country. We have reached the point where a War on Muslim Digestion is not only desirable but necessary. We must fight them at the grocery store, lest we have to fight it in our refrigerators.
Bobby, How do you think the individuals (over 2000 as per last weeks report) are identified as “fanatics” in the first place? The MI5’s approach of creating a network of informers in the muslim community to report on any unusal activity (I am talking of the kind of wearing muslim dresses, being religious, etc here not the obvious ones such as a non-farmer stocking up tons of fertilizers), constant surviellance of mosques and other places with a large muslim population. Heck, the BBC even has shows where muslims are told that surveillance is good and muslims who have nothing to hide will benefit from it
@ Cyrus, #23:
Whether or not you think that the word ‘redneck’ has racial/ethnic or class associations (which I would argue it does), it definitely does have the connotation of describing people from either certain parts of the country (the South and Midwest) or from certain areas (rural v. urban or suburban). Your use of the word “inbred” has similar connotations.
I would argue that using the words ‘redneck’ and ‘inbred’ obscures the fact that plans like the ones Abhi describes above do not just come from folks raised in the rural South. They come from the LAPD, from people who went to prep school in Connecticut, and from cosmopolitan New Yorkers. Folks from all over the country can be racist and stupid. Remember, America is the land of equal opportunity. 🙂
A map of Muslim communities would do nothing to infiltrate groups with radical agendas and prevent terrorism. That’s what the federal government has been doing since 9/11, and rightfully so.
Step aside Zagats/Michelin/Routard, here comes the LAPD Guide to Traitorous Treats. They should pay special mind to halwa, that stuff looks sneaky to me. You can’t trust a dessert that looks sweaty
gm @29: Now you can arrest them for global warming too! (in that sense falafal is indeed a WMD)
Fine sociological work being done here. You do know that the military is a completely different environment and mix of demographics than the civilian population, right? It’s interesting though, many of my white co-workers share the same propensity for blaming the ‘redneck’ bogeyman, every time a person from their perceived ethnic community is involved in a ridiculous incident or implementing embarrassing public policy (corrupt cops, dim embezzlers, etc).
Given that about 50% of India is uneducated, I would definitely avoid using the term “redneck” as a synonym for “ignoramus”. And as per inbred….Indian “cross cousin” marriages, favored traditionally in many communities but now dying out, leave us a bit exposed on that front too.
You know, none of this still gets to a very basic point being that in Los Angeles, the single largest group that will be targeted as “Muslim”, aren’t even “Muslim” in any sense of the word.
Mostly secular or agnostic.
That, and the fact that Iranians don’t eat falafels at a rate any higher than the rest of the American population just makes me cringe.
Its akin to targeting Indian-Americans, by their consumption of Falafels and Tahini.
What in the hell is the point?
“We have learned that Muslim communities in the U.S. are mistrustful of the mainstream media.” Really?No s—t. Even I, who have worked in mainstream media, don’t trust them. And I trust “homeland security” even less. Who thought of that fascist phrase anyway? The point about it being difficult to ghettoize Muslims is well-taken. However, research suggests that there have been plans in place for a version of what happened to the Japanese/Japanese Americans for Arabs/Muslims around LA since the 1st Gulf War. This is a repellent idea- and for anyone yammering about Muslims in Europe and how awful it is- I have one word for you- colonialism. There is a level of perspective which is missing in that particular discussion- especially the one about how they don’t conform, won’t get with the program, etc. Take the colonialization of Algeria, as an example. !50 years of French presence, of dismantled indigenous education, of a parallel society where Muslims were third in the ranks of society, if that : French, Pieds Noirs, Jews,the rest of Algerian society, of cities with the old city (the casbah) separated from the jadid (French) by Hausseman-like boulevards so if the natives rose up you could mow them down. Churches everywhere there were more than 50 Europeans. And when the Algerians fought for the French in WWI and WWII and asked for independence as promised, they were not only refused but massacred when they demonstrated. It is an astonishing hypocrisy to ask one group to do something your group had no intention of ever doing when they colonized that country. But back to the mapping: what good could this possibly do? Homeland Security and this government has routinely demonstrated breath-taking ineptness when it comes to dealing with terrorism,immigration and minority populations. This mapping takes on an insidious undertone- is it like the mapping of neighborhoods where paroled sex offenders live, or gang activity? How about the number of known crackhouses and prostitution stings? What will people say- I’m not moving there- that’s way past the number of Muslims I can tolerate? And so you don’t have to actively create a ghetto- by effectively red-lining neighborhoods (I’m sorry, your insurance rates are going up because you live in a Muslim-dominated neighborhood- we’re concerned about the possibility of car bombs…), presto- de facto segregation. Yippee for you. So, in fact, we have a police and civil structure that is creating a post 9/11 take on Jim Crowe. I am so disgusted. Because where does it stop? The Muslims are today’s boogieman-very convenient – think of all those potentially thuggish groups running around out there- but another group will be needed after awhile once that trope gets tired and it will all repeat itself.
Cyrus, grow up. Aside from your ridiculous use of the phrase “redneck” (and subsequent bizarre defense), that term has a very specific meaning in this country, even by your own definition. Go ahead and hate on poor, white, working class Americans — that sounds like an EXCELLENT way to promote intelligent conversation. Just because someone else uses racist slurs does not give anyone else free license to do the same, particularly when there are rules of etiquette on this board. I don’t care about their bad behavior, I care about ours. I don’t have to agree or disagree with someone’s politics and world-view to find the term disgusting and offensive.
Not by mapping where Muslims live. They do it through intelligence, surveillance of individuals. That is targetted and specific intelligence relating to individuals and cells. Not the mapping of an entire religious group. You can’t tell the difference, can you?
Camille, are you a REDNECK by any chance?
What the hell? Someone takes exception to a classist slur, therefore they must BE a member of that category? Under that logic, straight people can never take exception to gay jokes, white folks have no business calling other white people out on racist comments, and men shouldn’t point out misogyny when they see it.
Camille called it like she saw it – her pointing out your derogatory use of the word ‘redneck’ says nothing about her background or identity. When you’re reduced to name-calling, you’ve lost. Give it up.
I guess that I was misled by the Economist’s article on Gordon Brown’s “Panopticonic Surveillance”. I guess I was fooled by the big words the economist used and did not realize that the article was just typical of its consipiracy theory obsessed radical left wing philosophy.
And when the statesman talks about MI5 keeping “tabs” on britains “muslim community”, it uses community interchangebly with targetted “individuals and cells”.
And when a former head of counter intelligence of RAW talks of britains “intense surveillance” of the “pakistani diaspora”, he uses the term diaspora to mean “specific individuals and cells”
And when the head of MI5 talks about “forensic profiling”, and sending Bobbies (that would’nt be you would it?) to Mosques, businesses, etc to notice anyone who has taken to wearing Kutra pyjamas and who has rediscovered allah, he is only reffering to .. err targetting specific individuals?
In any case I bow to your amazing insight, and thank you for enlightening me about the difference between targetting specific individuals and profiling a community.
Camille @ 20
Thanks to a history of dealing with NOI, the black panthers, prison conversion/terrorist rectruitment, etc, the US probably has a good understanding of the black islamic community and what parts of it could be possible threats. For various reasons it has no similar depth of understanding of other muslim communities in the US. Bone headed ventures like the falafel operation are probably just part of an unaviodable learning curve.
(besides the focussing on falafels may not be a bad idea … I see a lot of suspicious looking long bearded religious types in the falafel place I go to)
. When i get a 3 for 1, I do start looking a little terroristy by the end of third one!
zazou (#39):
Uh, are you saying that because the French did horrible things to Algerians in Algeria, the French of today have a moral responsibility not to cavil when the Algerians do the same to them? Good luck convincing any flesh-and-blood human with such moral absolutism. If moral systems are theories justifying group and individual survival strategies, as human history indicates they are, then the Algerians may surely be moral in their desire to give back the same treatment they got, but the French are in such circumstances moral in their desire not to let it happen. And like it or not, when two moral systems are so violently contradictory, the one with the more power gets to decide which one prevails.
A moral system in reality is a little bit closer to a deal. For it to be acceptable to both sides, it has to be win-win if to unequal extents. Arguments about universal human rights, past colonial crimes etc confer soft power to the militarily weaker side as well as a sense of feel-good justice to the stronger one, but only so when its survival is not at sake. Liberalism and charity work only when the liberal and charitable do not have to lose their children, their employment or their retirement savings to liberalism (the tighter the situation the less the inclination to altruism– e.g., look at the difference between protests against affirmative action in India and the US). A bargain or an equilibrium needs to be reached, and polarizing arguments like yours do not help that.
None of this is to imply that the French Muslims actually want retribution for colonization or that the survival of the indigenous French is really at stake– both are clearly untrue–just as Mexican immigrants today aren’t really seeking to declare Aztlan independent. My point is more about the self-righteousness of your argument.
well, some may argue that the best felafel is in the historically jewish marais neighborhood of paris.
Its funny as a muslim..oops..I really enjoyed that. I just wish Clueless would come back and realize his/her increasing popularity.
Given the long history of Your Black Muslim Bakery, it’s not entirely bad to keep tabs on those folks.
The profiling argument has been made a thousand times before about Timothy McVeigh, Charles Manson, and a host of other white ‘terrorists’; No one profiles Christians/military folks, even though both groups have a history of extemist ideas and violent actions. There is no ‘outreach’ by the government or tracking of churchgoers. While we can cite the British model for its efficiency, we can also look at our current system (no fly lists, ‘extraordinary rendition’ and all that), and see that clearly something is severely fucked here. Denying civil rights, circumventing the law (wiretapping without warrant, detainment without due process, etc.) and tracking people based on ethnicity or religion are not going to help ‘outreach’ to the targeted communities. To draw a distinction between “homeland” and “Muslims” is essentially akin to declaring them Enemies of the Party (sorry, reading Kundera and the theme resonates). To make this distinction absolute is to increase the divide, and to encourage the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ feeling, in which case, you might as well do.
And now I’m craving falafel. Perfect.