The Long Journey of Islamophobia in America
By Naisy Sarduy
For several decades, Americans have come to know Islam and Muslims through the images and pictures of crisis and conflict covered in the media. Earlier generations formed their opinions of the Muslim world through images of the Arab oil embargo and Palestinian terrorism, or perhaps by Orientalist images of camels and harems. I am part of a generation that came of age in the 1980s, and therefore my earliest memories of international political events were the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the subsequent American hostage crisis in Iran which lasted 444 days, and the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. This was my introduction to the world of Islam. Schools did not teach Geography or World History during my time, movies only served to reinforce my prejudices, and with the exception of a co-worker of my father’s, whom I met on one occasion as a child, I had no other encounter with anyone of the Muslim faith. By the time I entered college, I was predisposed to being suspicious of Muslims and to attributing to them the worst possible intentions.
Two decades ago, “Islamophobia,” reflected a form of contempt and condescension, a thumbing of the nose at a civilization that appeared backwards on women’s issues and “disproportionately” violent. It was not as much an expression of fear. The Muslim world was a strange monolith with little in the way of shared values with the West. “Islamophobia” was mostly a preoccupation with a distant other, associated with events that took place in faraway lands, but not an immediate threat.
This was long before September 11, 2001. The United States was still engaged in an ideological confrontation with the Soviet Union. The Cold War vastly overshadowed whatever “trouble spots” there were in the Middle East. The Middle East, in fact, was largely seen through the lens of a Cold War chess game. And as part of this “chess game,” the U.S. funded and otherwise supported a group of “good” Muslim warriors or Mujahidin in its fight to defeat the USSR and its Communist allies in Afghanistan.
Then the Cold War came to an end. This end was encapsulated in, and symbolized, by the Soviet Union’s acquiescence to the US-led coalition that forced Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait. The first post-Cold War conflict involving the United States was fought in the Middle East. In the midst of the United States’ triumphalist moment in history, Samuel Huntington warned in his 1993 article “The Clash of Civilizations” --a term first coined by Bernard Lewis in a 1990 article addressing “The Roots of Muslim Rage”-- that the next threat to the United States would be civilizational in scope, highlighting specifically the dangers posed by a possible Sino-Islamic alliance. Much of the 1990s foreign policy discourse came to be dominated by arguments and counterarguments over the potential “Islamic threat.”
The first World Trade Center attacks took place in 1993, and there were also the attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, on the USS Cole and on the U.S. military complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Nothing compared in scale, however, to the September 11, 2001 attacks which killed nearly 3000 people. September 11th transformed the qualitative nature of Islamophobia in America from one which echoed disdain and a sense of superiority to one reflecting an ominous dread of physical and existential harm. The troubles “over there” had followed us home and the emerging version of Islamophobia was one that combined contempt for a distant “Other” with a more pressing fear.
“Islam” became all about “jihad,” and “jihad” was reduced to mean an aggressive and hostile world takeover. “Islam” was menacing and expansionist, and intolerant of “our way of life.” The old battle with Communism was replaced with a fixation on Islam. The radical acts of the few were conflated with the diverse religious beliefs of the many. And in the 2008 Presidential elections when false allegations were raised about the religious beliefs of Senator Barack Obama, “Muslim” became an overt accusation synonymous with the destruction of America.
In early 2007, mass email messages claiming that Barack Obama was a Muslim sworn to office on the Qur’an began to circulate. The emails were sent out with the sinister intent of correlating Islam with radicalism, and concluded that the Senator was a Manchurian candidate set up by Muslims to destroy America “from the inside out.” In February 2008, pictures of Obama taken during a 2006 trip to Kenya, featuring the Senator dressed in Somali Elder garb, turban and all, appeared on the conservative website ‘The Drudge Report’. The Obama campaign believed that the photo had come from staffers at the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that that campaign was also behind the January 2008 robocalls to potential democratic primary voters, which repeatedly referred to Senator Obama as Barack “Hussein” Obama. On more than one occasion featured speakers at McCain or Palin rallies referred to Senator McCain’s opponent as “Barack Hussein Obama” eliciting loud jeers from the crowds. These emails, images and statements, combined with comments on conservative blogs and discussions on talk radio and cable news were meant to invite fear and loathing, to evoke images of foreignness and danger, and to question the candidate’s loyalty to his country; a sort McCarthyism for “alleged” Muslims.
Though Senator Hillary Clinton cautiously stated that to her knowledge Barack Obama was not a Muslim, and Senator John McCain publicly disapproved of the charge, it was clear that the “suspicion” was prejudicial to Obama’s electability. Aware of the fear that the notions of “Islam” and “Muslims” conjure up in the minds of large sectors of the American electorate, volunteers at a televised Barack Obama rally removed female Muslim supporters who were wearing hijab (Islamic dress code) from the area immediately behind the candidate’s podium where most cameras would be focused. The campaign later apologized and to his credit, Senator Obama did on more than one occasion state that the use of Islam to raise questions and suspicions about his loyalty to America was an insult to American Muslims across this country. Still, shortly before the elections, about 13% of Americans believed that Obama was a Muslim, and another 16% were not sure. 1
Islamophobia is a serious issue facing the Muslim population of this country. As General Colin Powell remarked in his memorable endorsement of Barack Obama, Islamophobia exists among senior members of the Republican Party. It exists in our military. It exists in some churches where ministers preach to their congregations that Islam is an “evil” and “false” religion. It exists on talk radio and in the blogosphere. It exists in the prevailing silence of the mainstream media. And it exists in schools and workplaces across America.
But, other minority communities in America have gone through similar experiences before. Every ethnic community, the Germans, the Italians, the Poles, the Chinese and more recently, the Hispanics, have encountered different degrees of distrust and rejection. The Native American and African American communities certainly went through much worse, as did Japanese Americans during World War II. The Jewish American community overcame the prejudices against it and became one of the most respected communities in America. And, while the recent presidential elections revealed the depths of Islamophobia in this country and the toxic use and manipulation of the fears of the American electorate, on the other hand, the election of America’s 44th President is a testament of America’s ability to move beyond prejudice and discrimination.
President Obama’s central message has been one of hope and inclusion, and one which elevates the American Promise to form “a more perfect union.” America is a quickly moving and diverse society, with vast resources and a buoyant and free civil society. “Islamophobia” is not impossible to overcome. When faced with adversity, there is much temptation for Muslims in America to shrink back into the safety cocoon of an isolated community. However it is much better for the Muslim community to engage and be proactive in eradicating misunderstandings, and in defining what is acceptable and not acceptable in Islam, and what Islam shares with other great religious traditions.
Many Americans do not know that Islam is part of the Abrahamic tradition, meaning that it is a monotheistic faith which traces its origins to Prophet Abraham, as is the case with Judaism and Christianity. Similarly, many Americans do not know that several of the stories referenced in the Bible are also told in the Qur’an, and that the five most beloved and respected Prophets of Islam are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad; that while it is unacceptable for Muslims to malign the Prophet Mohammed, it is equally sacrilegious to disrespect Jesus, or Moses, or other Biblical Prophets. Many Americans do not know that Mary is revered in the Qur’an as the virgin mother of Jesus, that the Qur’an devotes an entire chapter to her and contains a beautiful and heart warming depiction of the miracle of the birth of Jesus, that Muslims are also awaiting his second coming along with the Mahdi. There is more as well, not only in our religious beliefs, but in our values, that pull us together rather than tear us apart.
American Muslims have a responsibility to speak loudly and clearly about what is not permissible in Islam, to state unequivocally that it is forbidden in Islam to take an innocent life even in war, and to kill animals and destroy the environment and livelihood of a people even in self defense. Muslims must oppose the high-jacking of the definition of Jihad (struggle) in Islam as “Holy War” and a license for terrorism. They must elevate and emphasize the true meaning of Jihad as a struggle against the impurity of the self. It is incumbent on American Muslims to clarify that Jihad in the Islamic tradition and more specifically in the Shi’i tradition, even when it refers to military struggle, is a purely defensive war, very similar to, and in fact more restrictive than the “Just War” theories of the Christian tradition. In Shi’ism in particular, no offensive war can be waged in the absence of the Prophet or his twelve progenies, namely the Ma’sumin (Immaculate Imams).
Muslims like Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Aethists, etc. can erroneously perform actions in the name of their religion that are forbidden by their respective beliefs, and that are ethically and morally reprehensible in all societies. If some Christian fundamentalists have committed crimes and launched crusades against Muslims, or persecuted and murdered Jews during the Inquisition, or burned women at the stake in New England, or blown up abortion clinics, it is not all Christians nor Christianity that are to blame. We should reject those so-called Muslims who twist and manipulate the peaceful and universal message of Islam in order to commit atrocities.
In a note of optimism, it is important to recall that despite the prevalence of “Islamophobia” in this recent election cycle, one of the most respected of American leaders, General Colin Powell, provided a moving and rare defense of American Muslims while rejecting the politics of division and fear. General Powell stated unequivocally that the correct response to the question of whether or not Obama was a Muslim was to state the fact that he is a Christian, but more importantly to ask “So what if he was?” He succinctly made the argument that to discriminate based on race, ethnicity or religion is fundamentally un-American. He chastised those who would do so, or who would allow it, for sending the wrong message to American born Muslim children that they should never aspire to the highest office in the nation.
Endnotes
1. Kristof, Nicholas, “The Push to ‘Otherize’ Obama,” The New York Times, September 20, 2008.