Naomi Klein, writing in today's Guardian, criticizes Barack Obama for an insufficient response to campaign tactics that suggest he is a Muslim. In an op-ed titled It's No Slur To Be Called a Muslim, she says:
What is disturbing about the campaign's response is that it leaves unchallenged the disgraceful and racist premise behind the entire "Muslim smear": that being Muslim is de facto a source of shame.... Substitute another faith or ethnicity, and you'd expect a very different response....
As the most visible target of this rising racism, Obama has the power to be more than its victim. He can use the attacks to begin the very process of global repair that is the most seductive promise of his campaign. The next time he's asked about his alleged Muslimness, Obama can respond not just by clarifying the facts but by turning the tables. He can state that while a liaison with a pharmaceutical lobbyist may be worthy of scandalised exposure, being a Muslim is not.
.jpg)
Posts
2 comments:
I don't support Obama--but this is not the right political climate in which any presidential candidate should be in passionate defense of Islam.
That religion DOES need "reformation" --to join the 21st century. Granted, there may be reformed and progressive or moderate Muslims who don't believe in having 4 wives, honor killings, suicide bombing,conforming the US institutions to Islamic prayer practices and women's dress codes, killing the infidels, religious repression and denial of free religious speech, especially the effort to prosyletize by Christians,-- or female circumcision or hostility toward Israel --but many of their nations have laws or customs of this nature, so the rest of the free world would be a little leery of a Muslim presidential candidate in the USA --or one who was overly defensive of Islam--because, admit it or not, Muslims have a lot of the above baggage --plus a centuries-old reputation for being overly hostile toward Christians and Jews in their own countries.
Ms. Klien is correct, indeed Obama had the opportunity to heal the global divide, but ducked the responsibility. So did all others across the spectrum, so Obama is not alone, lest we expect perfection from him, when he is but a mere mortal, and still a politician.
The caricature of Muslims, which Ms. Klien writes about, is clear in the response of Barb, who displays the current view of Islam in the US, and perhaps the West as a whole.
For example, FGM (not female circumcision, rather Female Genital Mutilation) is not a Muslim practice, rather a cultural practice that touches several religions and regions. As it is not a Muslim practice, it is not part of any religion in South Asia or Southeast Asia, where most of the world’s Muslims live. That is correct! Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia have together about 800 million Muslims. Ditto for honour killings that is culture specific.
Another myth—four wives—shows that Barb and others like her have not met any Muslims, of which there are plenty in her own space if she cared to look. The reader simply needs to ask, how many wives do Muslim men have, among those whom they know? The answer, unsurprisingly, is one… or none! This is because the religion allows more than one wife, only if they can all be treated equally. This conditionality, pretty much bars all mortal to men to a life of monogamy, or maybe serial monogamy, as Muslim women can divorce their husbands, and take of with their inheritance, given Islam was the first to offer such terms to women.
Muslims are not hostile to Israel as a religion indeed, Islam protects “people of the book”: Jew and Christians. Historically, it was Christians who prosecuted Jews, whether in the Spanish inquisition, Hitler’s Germany or Vichy France. Any Jewish scholar or repute will tell you that, and the tragedy of post-colonial Arab-Israeli relations today due to elements of nationalism (not religion).
Barb’s response is suggestive of conflating Arabs with Muslims. It is indeed an error common to most Westerners.
In reality, while most Arabs are indeed Muslims, most Muslims are not Arab. The Israeli-Arab conflict is one that also has Christian Arabs on the Arab side, naturally, as many Arabs are still Christians. The PFLP leader George Habash, was a Christian, as is the wife of the late Yasser Arafat, it was the PLFP who blew the jets in the early 1970s in the first acts of Arab terrorism.
The wider ignorance about the Islamic world is troubling. However, given that this ignorance also affects the US, it is terrifying. Why? If the US public is unaware of serious realities of importance to them out there, how can it chose a President, who will have the power to destroy the world a hundred times over?
This proclivity towards not knowing things about Islam was shown even by candidate McCain’s ignorance of the realities in Iraq, where he suggested that (Sunni) Al Qaida is being supported by (Shite) Iran. This not just a major gaffe, but an error in factual knowledge of appalling proportions in a man who wants to lead the greatest nation on the world. Would Obama and Clinton know better? I hope so!
Until the leaders of the US--with their desire to lead the world--study and get knowledge of at least the major war theatres of the moment, they will be forever fighting wars that have no reason to wage.
Armed with good knowledge, US President can instead make decisions of the wise. For example, Gen. MacArthur was generous with Japan when it was occupied. The Japanese have repaid that by being the single largest holder of US debt, without a whimper, and it was the Japanese who stopped ‘Black Monday’ way back in 1987, when that situation could easily have ruined the US stock market the risked the entire prosperity curve of the 1980s and 1990s. Another brave and wise decision, was Truman’s opposition to France, England and Israel invading Egypt in 1956—a decision that led to the invaders having to withdraw, and thus allowing friends in the Middle East who admired the US.
There are more recent brave US policies: Senator Lugar’s principled opposition to Apartheid that led to the US being respected in Southern Africa, but one that cost the great Republican a run at the White House, which he surely would have won.
We are now at a crucial cross road. It is one in which the US can continue to imagine that Islam is the enemy, and thus treat it as such, and make it so in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or, Americans can understand that a billion Muslims can be US allies too, if their religion is not treated with such disrespect and ignorance, and the 9/11 criminals are just that, as the British wanted it.
Sadly, with such poor knowledge about Islam and its followers, the choice of US leaders rests with those such as Barb.
Jayantha Jayman
Research Assistant Professor
Binghamton University
Post a Comment