Why Obama Shies Away from Muslim Americans?
By Riaz Haq
CA
www.riazhaq.com

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, a life-long Republican who served George W. Bush in his first term and argued for Iraq war at the UN, endorsed Senator Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. While the endorsement was not unexpected, what caught my attention was the statement that Secretary Powell made about Barack Obama's faith.

By asking "So what if he is Muslim?", General Powell has gone where no US politician , including Obama, has ever dared to go before. Here's the relevant part of the transcript of Powell's statement.

“I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, ‘He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.’ This is not the way we should be doing it in America. I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards -- Purple Heart, Bronze Star -- showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions…”

I admire General Powell for his clear statement followed by a reprimand of some of his party colleagues regarding the questions and rumors about Obama's faith. In particular, I appreciate the argument General Powell makes about the Muslim Americans, willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for their nation, be given the same rights as Americans of any other faith. I wish his views were commonly shared and embraced by fellow Americans. And I also wish that Obama would say something along the lines of what Powell did in his endorsement. But, unfortunately, the fact is that Obama himself and his campaign have practically treated the Muslim label as if it were an epithet.

Following the strong Colin Powell statement in support of Muslim Americans rights and patriotism on NBC's Meet the Press, NY Times Columnist Maureen Dowd has criticized the Obama campaign for shying away from Americans of Muslim faith. Here's what she wrote in her Oct 22, 2008 column titled "Moved by a Crescent":

“Even the Obama campaign has shied away from Muslims. The candidate has gone to synagogues but no mosques, and the campaign was embarrassed when it turned out that two young women in headscarves had not been allowed to stand behind Obama during a speech in Detroit because aides did not want them in the TV shot .”

Ms. Dowd followed up with General Powell and reports as follows:

“Powell got a note from Feroze Khan (father of Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan) this week thanking him for telling the world that Muslim-Americans are as good as any others. But he also received more e-mails insisting that Obama is a Muslim and one calling him ‘unconstitutional and unbiblical’ for daring to support a socialist. He got a mass e-mail from a man wanting to spread the word that Obama was reading a book about the end of America written by a fellow Muslim.

"Holy cow!" Powell thought. Upon checking Amazon.com, he saw that it was a reference to Fareed Zakaria, a Muslim who writes a Newsweek column and hosts a CNN foreign affairs show. His latest book is "The Post-American World."

While I wish that Obama would say something along the lines of what Powell did in his endorsement, the fact is that Obama himself and his campaign have practically treated the Muslim label as if it were an epithet.

The Obama campaign has been trying to deliberately distance their man from Muslim-Americans. What happened a few weeks ago when the campaign quickly dumped Chicago attorney Mazen Asbahi as director of Muslim Outreach raises serious questions about how genuine Obama's "change" message is. Asbahi and James Zogby, president of Arab-American Institute, are not radicals by any stretch, and yet they are targeted because of who they are: Muslim-American and Arab-American. It's a big mistake to push away the moderates in this battle against the extremists within Islam. Extremists on both sides of any battle draw strength from each other by pointing to the excesses of the opposite side. Attacking and marginalizing the Muslim moderates only helps the extremes in the West and the Islamic world and perpetuates the ongoing man-made "clash of civilizations".

In response to the expected assault by the pro-war right wing pundits and commentators, the weakness shown by the Obama campaign represents a huge obstacle in the way of the "dialog of civilizations" needed to bring real "change" from the madness that has characterized the last seven years of the Bush administration. How will President Obama pursue this all-important dialog if he caves in so quickly to the purveyors of hate in America?

Unless Mr. Obama and his campaign answer the fundamental questions raised here, it will be hard for most rational and thinking people to believe that Obama's talk of "change" is sincere. Instead, all of his carefully crafted "change" messages will appear to be merely politically convenient slogans to win the upcoming elections. To demonstrate that he is genuine, Obama must stop being an overly cautious captive of his political handlers and show moral fortitude to bring about real "change" in America and the world.

To make amends for his shabby treatment of Muslim Americans, I suggest to Mr. Obama to meet with Mr. Feroze Khan and thank him for his son's sacrifice. It will be a strong gesture to America and the world that Obama is serious about "change" in America.

 

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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