Calling Obama a Muslim
When I was a child I was told that being a Muslim was determined by having a Muslim father.
This declaration that in Islam religion comes from the paternal line was a response to a question I had asked about marriage. I have noticed that some Muslim men married non-Muslim women, and that was considered OK, but there did not seem to be any Muslim women married to non-Muslim men. When I asked why, I was told it was because if a Muslim woman married a Christian her children would not be Muslim, whereas if a Muslim man married a Christian woman, his children would be Muslims. Therefore it was not permissible for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim.
As I grew older, I saw that this assumption was erroneous. Not only did some Muslim women dare to marry non-Muslims, their children were just as likely to grow up Muslims as the children of mixed couples where it was the father and not the mother who was Muslim. Moreover, I understood that being a Muslim was not a category like skin color or family name, but a question of faith. Having a Muslim father — or mother — increases exponentially the likelihood that you will grow up to be a Muslim since it will both expose you to the religion and educate you in its teachings, but it is not the sole way to be a Muslim, as the millions of Muslim converts will testify.
However, when we see polls that state that soon one in five people in Europe will be Muslim, what they are essentially saying is that one in five will be categorized as Muslim because of their family tree. It’s not a false assumption ; it’s just an incomplete way of classifiying Muslims.
What I find most interesting though, is that by that definition, US President Barack Obama is a Muslim.
And so we come to the latest poll by the Pew Research Center which found that 18 percent Americans polled thought that Obama was secretely a Muslim. I should not need to state the following sentence but I will: Obama is a Christian. He is not and never has been a Muslim.
The latest poll results are worrying for two reasons. The first is that labelling Obama a Muslim is an accusation to descredit him. The second is that the percentage who thinks he is a Muslim has increased from 11 percent to 18 percent in the space of 18 months showing that the misinformation campaign is succeeding.
Why is being a Muslim seen as somehow shameful, a dark frightening truth that should be hidden? To be fair, it is not. It would only be the case if you could extrapolate the negative connotations associated with branding Obama a Muslim to the actual bona fide Muslim American population, and that can only be partially the case. If Obama was a Muslim masquerading as a Christian in order to get elected (and it’s hilarious even to suggest this), the main crime would be the masquerade. There is also the secondary and probably correct assumption that Americans would not vote into office a Muslim president. Is that in itself insulting to Muslims? I don’t think so. So long as being a Muslim does not prevent American citizens from putting themselves forward as candidates, then there is no discrimination. That the American public prefers on the whole to vote for someone representative of the majority faith is pretty much par for the road and reflects the reality on the ground not just in the US but in most — though not all — modern democracies.
More worrying in this latest poll is the association of Muslim with negative evaluations of Obama’s job performance and of Christian with positive evaluations. In other words, disapproval of Obama’s performance as president leads people to be more willing to believe he is a Muslim, whilst approval correctly labels him a Christian. This poll points yet again to existing and pervasive unease toward the Muslim population.
The increase in the willingness to disbelieve that Obama is a Christian is a political problem for the president. He may end up having to pander to that constituency by raising his Christian profile and distancing himself from what could be perceived as too much sympathy for Muslims, such as his supportive comments regarding the proposed mosque near Ground Zero.
Furthermore, the feeling of alienation toward Muslims was further confirmed by a Time magazine poll taken after his comments on the mosque, which not only found that 24 percent of respondents thought that Obama was a Muslim, but also found that 25 percent of respondents thought that most Muslims in the US are not patriotic Americans. Moreover more than a third, 32 percent, thought that a Muslim should not be allowed to run for president! And 28 percent thought that a Muslim should not have a serve on the US Supreme Court. Muslims, it seems, have yet to be accepted as equal American citizens in the eyes of a significant proportion of the American population.
Pity American Muslims, no matter what they do they just can’t seem to shake off the unwelcome label. Yes, terrorists did blow up the Twin Towers in 2001 and yes, it was an unforgivable atrocity, but the average American Muslim had nothing to do with it. Will this message ever be understood?
(ik511@hotmail.com)
Comments
ANDREW IN NY
Aug 21, 2010 00:53
Report abuseBasically, American's don't have a negative view of Muslims because of Sept 11th, the negative view comes from the Muslim inability to get past there own problems.
Americans are big on black and white issue's, on taking responsibility for there own problems. They see Muslims as people who do not want to do this. While a Muslim would condem terrorism to a Christian, they do not see that same Muslim standing up to a Iman or fellow Muslim.
Americans see hypocrisy in the view of Muslims that "some terrorism" is ok. Like against Israel, or the US in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It's this inability to draw a line in the sand that makes American's mistrust the agenda of the religion.
If you meet a Muslim one on one he's the greatest guy, but you get the feeling that with other Muslims he is talking about Jews, about American imperialism, about how great it would be to convert everyone.
I am not saying it's right, but if Muslims want to change it, they need to stop the double standards. Stop showing racist tv shows, stop certain hateful Iman's from preaching murder, etc.
You need to take responsibility in your own backyard, close down hateful mosques, remove racist tv shows. You guys like to talk about how we American's killed native american's, or had slaves, or the KKK. Well, we did and WE DID something about it. We took responsibility for our own actions.
CAUTIOUS
Aug 21, 2010 20:43
Report abuseThe USA has a President who has a Muslim name, father is Muslim, and 24% of the American public (according to the author) think he is a Muslim.
The President was voted into office by a significant majority of the American public. He is an unabashed promoter of Muslim rights and has never said an ill word about the religion - and still remains popular in the USA.
Yet - you can't go a day without reading some article talking about America hating Muslims.
No offense intended - but I think it's time for some Muslims to take a step back and look at the forest. Time to quit searching for dead/diseased trees and start to pull back and look at the big picture.
RW
Aug 21, 2010 20:43
Report abuseI see hypocrisy in his comments e.g.
No:1(Basically, American's don't have a negative view of Muslims because of Sept 11th, the negative view comes from the Muslim inability to get past there own problems).
No:2(Americans see hypocrisy in the view of Muslims that "some terrorism" is ok. Like against Israel, or the US in Iraq or Afghanistan. )
MIKE MCD
Aug 21, 2010 20:45
Report abuseMULLER
Aug 21, 2010 20:51
Report abuse