FROM MAULANA’S DESK

It turns out that Adams is an Australian immigrant who struggled for nearly five years to get a US Green Card, because, he says, he was persecuted by the Obama administration for being a conservative. He writes in the book that he was eventually granted an “extraordinary ability” Green Card by the US, but it wasn’t easy. “It was a 4.5 year battle, and cost almost fifty thousand dollars. It is an incredible tale of sabotage and juxtaposes the enormous difficulty of legal immigration with the red-carpet welcome of illegal immigration”, he says. Now a resident of Texas, Adams runs a foundation on “American Greatness” and calls himself a conservative “culture warrior” appearing often on TV shows plugging the Trump line. It was one such appearance on Fox News channel on Friday morning that appears to have caught President Trump's eye and generated the tweet a few minutes later. In the show, Adams maintained that “if America is going to remain the best nation on this earth, we’ve got to make sure that we bring only the best people here”. “There has to be a cultural buy-in from those that decide to make America home. They can’t just come here and milk us. They’ve got to love the place and they got to become American”, he argued. Incidentally, Government ethics rules barring product endorsements don’t apply to Presidents, so Adams can happily milk the bonanza. (‘Donald Trump endorses book on Green Card pursuit via merit’, The Times of India, 6 March 2017) The comment made by Nick Adams is appropriately applicable to American Muslims as well. The work culture that developed in America after freedom was completely merit-based. The formula of this culture was ‘compete or perish’. Those who settle in America from outside must know that this principle is considered a sacred creed. Muslim immigrants should also know that they are not an exception to this rule. They must necessarily stand up to this competition: they cannot prevent themselves from paying this price. No hue or cry can help them in this matter. If Muslims, not only in America, but also in every country of the world, qualify on merit they will be surely successful in achieving what they set out for.