"Ich Bin Ein Islamophobe!"
By Asma Hasan
Colorado, US
The few things I did like about Obama's visiting the world last week were far outweighed by my irritation at the anti-Muslim section of his Berlin speech. First, he unnecessarily highlighted the 9/11 attacks. Then, as if that wasn't sufficient coverage of what Muslims have done to hurt the world, he rattled off a whole paragraph listing more nefarious deeds committed by Muslims.
We have that conniving Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear secrets to Iran. Those secrets "could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris!" Astonished, I asked myself, was there a bombing in Paris recently that I missed? Oh wait, he meant that there could be a bombing in Paris because of a Pakistani. I guess it's not outside the realm of possibility, but isn't he being a tad alarmist at the expense of Muslims?
Then Obama decried Afghans who harvest poppy to make heroin. Poor, innocent, first world Germans (who have the luxury of not having to take a drug-trade job) end up being addicted to that heroin. Aaargh, those evil drug-pushing Afghans!
For good measure, Obama closed by referencing African countries with majority Muslim populations that are breeding terror (Somalia) and shocking us with dastardly violence (Sudan).
In the middle of this veiled anti-Muslim rant, Obama threw in a benign criticism of "cars in Boston" and "factories in Bejing" for contributing to climate change. Thank Allah that Obama's speechwriter doesn't realize that Muslims could be driving those cars and running those factories, or else he would have said "Muslims driving polluting cars and running nasty factories...."
The impression I took away: We live in a globalized world, where Muslims can hurt us wherever we are!
Do you think Obama very cleverly dumped on Muslims, or do you think I am possibly developing a complex?
By now, most of us agree that The New Yorker cover, depicting Obama in Muslim garb and his wife, Michelle, as a Black Panther-esque radical, fell far short of the editors' stated goal of satire. According to the editors (and to paraphrase them), they chose to highlight the smears against Obama to show how absurd they are. [The New Yorker, like Glamour, is owned by Conde Nast Publications.]
I don't accept that explanation as I feel that the cartoon could only be the product of Islamophobia, or racism against Muslims and Islam. Obama has many shortcomings — lack of experience, flip-flopping, his association with Reverend Wright, and the list goes on. Yet these supposedly "liberal" journalists only highlighted the Muslim smear over all the others. Obama's campaign is smoking out the ugly truth that many Americans (even the limousine liberals at The New Yorker) can't stand "Mah-z-lems." Obama is not Muslim, but I am. How do I handle this stigma associated with being Muslim (which I have spent my entire adult life trying to dispel)? How can I accept that I live in a country where this type of cartoon is acceptable, for any purpose?
The editor behind the highly offensive Danish cartoons, attacking the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), also cited a pseudo-intellectual motivation. Pretending to have intellect does not wash away the sin. Don't forget that one of the signals of homicidal anti-Semitism prior to the Holocaust was constant cartoons depicting Jews as greedy, dirty, and unattractive. A similar cartoon of Obama, in Jewish garb, would be (correctly) criticized as anti-Semitic.
Furthermore, Islamophobic cartoons create common ground between moderate Muslims like me and conservative and extremist Muslims. While moderate Muslims will not become violent, we will, like conservative and extremist Muslims, have the same aghast and disturbed attitude, and wonder if the West truly does detest us.
I think the world needs a new American president; I don't think the world needs Muslims belittled by an American magazine cover. Do you think I am overreacting, or will you not be voting for Obama or any brown person because you dislike Muslims?
Editor's Note: Reprinted from Glamour.com with permission of the
author. Please read the original blog posting at: www.glamour.com/
news/blogs/glamocracy/asma/index.html
