They’ve gone dark: Afghans who helped the U.S. military, trained as American-style journalists and rode the wave of women heading to higher education are destroying the diplomas, transcripts and résumés that prove how they built civil society in the country that the U.S. has left behind.
Opinion: Obama must move beyond platitudes in addressing Muslims
By Matthew Kimani
GSS Correspondent
STOCKTON, California — Seven years into his presidency, President Barack Obama’s visit Feb. 3 to the Islamic Society of Baltimore was a much needed gesture of friendship and solidarity with American Muslims.
Since 9/11, Muslim Americans have suffered through frightening and ever-increasing levels of vitriol and xenophobia.
They have been publicly assaulted and threatened; just last May, the Baltimore mosque where Obama spoke itself received two threating phone calls from people who reportedly wanted to “spill Muslim blood.”
They and their children have been subject to public ridicule, as in the case of 10-year-old Lulu Abdulfatah last December, whose teacher at Ronald Reagan Elementary School in Kingsburg, California, called her “scarf girl” because she wears a hijab.
Some, notably Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, have recently called for barring Muslims from entry into the United States:
.@realDonaldTrump calls for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering” the U.S. after #SanBernadino. pic.twitter.com/opc01qTlvv
— Washington Week (@washingtonweek) December 7, 2015
In order to reaffirm that Muslims have, always had, and always will have a place in American society, Obama put a great deal of emphasis on the historical, religious, and cultural bonds between Muslims and Americans of other faiths.
He noted that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both had copies of the Quran and that Muslims were at the heart of Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a precursor to the Bill of Rights; that Muslims worked for Henry Ford on the assembly line and helped build Chicago’s skyscrapers; and that Muslims are firefighters, police officers, and serve in the armed forces and U.S. intelligence agencies.
Obama also argued that Muslim Americans are proud and loyal American citizens, because of their tireless commitment to serving their communities, the U.S. government, and other Americans. He attempted to put a human face on an otherwise faceless and vaguely threatening Other, and did so admirably.
Unfortunately, Obama’s discussion of Islam and terrorism was not nearly as impressive. He largely repeated the meaningless half-truths and talking points that have become standard fare in modern liberal discourse.
For instance, Obama stated that the first word revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Jibril, or Gabriel, was iqra’ (qara’a) which he went on to translate as “seek knowledge” and “question assumptions.” Iqra’ was indeed the first word revealed to the Prophet, but according to A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic by Hans Wehr, it means to read, recite, or peruse, and in the chapter and verse in question, Surah al-’Alaq, it means recite.
But that’s not the main issue. The real problem is that Obama used iqra’ and other trite, meaningless phrases as a substitute for concrete analysis of the nature of Islam and what relationship, if any, exists between it and terrorism. The meaning of the word Islam, the greetings Muslims use, and the order of the original revelation are all interesting bits of trivia, but they do not tell us anything substantive about Islam itself, and certainly cannot be used to form conclusions about it.
Obama then claimed that Islam is a religion of peace that is misinterpreted by terrorists and so-called extremists like ISIS and al-Qaida. Although the groups he named are indeed terrorist and extremist, it should be obvious to all observers that he did not mean to say that only they are terrorists and extremists.
Unfortunately, Obama has frequently called groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and occupied Palestine terrorist and extremist, and it’s quite likely that he had them in mind as well. The problem is that some of those groups are dedicated not to spreading fear or Islam, but to liberating occupied national territory. For instance, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, states in his book, “Hizbullah: The Story from Within,” that the group “believes in the duty of completely liberating all occupied Palestinian and other Arab lands.”
Regardless of how one feels about the occupations of Iraq and Lebanon by the United States and Israel respectively, the fact remains that both constituted acts of aggression and were perceived as such by the victims.
Fighting occupation, regardless of the backwardness and ineffectuality of the tactics used, is not terrorism. It’s resistance. An unfortunate corollary of Obama’s words is that Muslims must reject Islam, for if Muslims must reject the right to defend their land, as he strongly implied, they must also reject the words of the Quran, the Sunnah, and Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shi’a Imam and one of the Blessed Companions of the Prophet Muhammad.
Obama’s speech was, then, a calculated attempt to prevent the rising current of Islamophobia from leading to estrangement and radicalization. However, while Obama is to be commended for reaching out directly to the Muslim community, it may take another seven years for him to get the message right.
Featured photo: President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visit the main prayer hall during a tour of the Istiqlal Mosque with Grand Imam Ali Mustafa Yaqub in Jakarta, Indonesia, Nov. 10, 2010. White House photo by Pete Souza/U.S. government work.
Matthew Kimani is a student at Amos Alonzo Stagg High School in Stockton, California. Opinion columns published on GSS represent the views of the author only and not Global Student Square. Contact Matthew at mandkimani@gmail.com.
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