Under-played, Under-represented & Under-served
By Mowahid Hussain Shah

 

During a bleak winter came the news that Pfizer-BioNTech had developed the much-awaited Covid vaccine, with UK taking the lead to approve and launch it. Trump reportedly was livid at his own guys for being overtaken by a Covid panacea which was not credited to the US and, specifically, to his presidency – the breakthrough of which, had it come in the US a few weeks earlier, potentially could have saved his presidency.

News of the vaccine approval by UK emerged on December 2. Among scientific advances, it has been “hailed in some quarters as the most significant since Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928.” (Daily Telegraph, December 5, 2020.) Yet, this feat was under-played in US mainstream media except for Richard Engel of NBC Evening News, who gave credit to its inventor, Urug Sahin, who was 4 when his father, a Turkish Muslim laborer, immigrated to Germany. Dr Sahin developed this vaccine along with his fellow scientist wife, Dr Ozlem Tureci, also of Turkish ancestry.

On November 11, 2019, Dr Sahin was awarded the Mustafa Prize by Iran. In 2018, at a Berlin conference, Dr Sahin had confidently projected that his company would be able to develop a vaccine to counter a global pandemic. At that time, his research efforts were focused mostly on cancer. Scientists now suggest that his Covid breakthrough could accelerate the fight against other diseases, including cancer.

Theodore Roosevelt, 26 th US President (1901-1909), observed in 1924: “The determining factor is the man behind the gun.” Yet, this potentially game-transforming step, which gives hope to the threatened common humanity, brought visible discomfort in US circles habituated to see themselves always as first to cross the finish line.

Already, the feat of the Turko-German couple has been compared to the October 4, 1957 launching of the Soviet Sputnik satellite. This was followed by the first arrival of a spacecraft on the Moon surface by the USSR’s Luna 2, on September 13, 1959. Shocked Americans, fearful of being left behind in the space race, responded by accelerating US efforts to land the first man on the moon, which was achieved on July 20, 1969.

America’s lead infectious disease doctor is Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Instead of hailing the vaccine, he scoffed at it, insinuating that the UK, in announcing its launch, had rushed it and cut corners: "They kind of ran around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile." Britain’s Daily Telegraph of December 5 characterized Dr Fauci’s “ill-thought-out remarks” and “meltdown” as “disgraceful.” He later had to apologize. Instead of following the science – Biden’s favorite mantra – what was palpable here was the very basic and primitive emotion of jealousy, which Shakespeare in Othello had characterized as that “green-eyed monster.”

It is noteworthy that when a negative act is done by a Muslim perpetrator, Western media leaves no stone unturned to amplify his identity, collectively castigate the whole community and weaponize it to denigrate Islam as a whole. This time, when salvation to humanity came through the hands of a Muslim, there was little focus in the US on the inventor. It is evidence that, when Muslims are not in control of their own narrative, that empty space is occupied by vested interests hostile to their collective wellbeing.

In the 21 st century, overshadowed by the spectre of 9/11 and its aftermath, what is often overlooked is the fact that 3 pivotal personalities who broke barriers all had Muslim fathers – Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple; Obama; and now Sahin. International media, which has been historically eager to defame Muslims, has been considerably less enthusiastic to hail the achievements of Muslim pioneers.

Partially, it has been the fault of Western Muslims for not prioritizing what is most important. Today they are under-served and, hence, ignorable in the West. Their slim presence as thought leaders is directly attributable to their paucity in the thinking professions of law, media, academia, and even cinema. Relying on hired guns and borrowed weapons is not a battle-winning strategy. The debt that Western civilization owes to Muslim scientific contributions is incalculable, as spelled out by Prince Charles in his landmark address on “Islam and the West” at Oxford on October 27, 1993.

Muslim under-representation in arenas that matter bears a cost, whose price is now being paid by its youth. Why? Because their elders were severely under-prepared for the challenges of making their mark in the West.