Can Muslims trust Obama?
Question:
I really enjoyed the lecture. I was wondering, your five-dimensional model of identity, there are two things that we didn’t mention; he seems very comfortable in his skin and the second is that his wife is black and I wonder whether you think that both of those help his sense of identity. And the second thing is, what do you say to the argument that the best way for Muslims to help Obama become President is to not mention that Muslims want Obama as President?
Answer:
I think I answered the first part – he chose to be African American in the political reality in Chicago. And to attach himself to the African American civil rights legacy when really it’s probably more associated with his union organising legacy than it is in his African American roots. And I think related to the second part of the question, Muslims have reached a new level of political maturity. That it’s not a beauty contest. It’s not kissing babies and shaking hands. It’s about what are our core issues? And whatever aren’t the core fundamental issues for us, let’s put them aside and deal with the real pressing issues of the nation.
To have a President that says ‘I’m not for the war, never for the war, I want to get out of the war,’ or a President that says ‘I voted for the war but I really wasn’t down with the war, when it was popular I was behind the Chief,’ but now it’s a political liability to have said that, ‘I said that but I didn’t really mean that.’ If I had to choose between those two, I’d choose the guy who said ‘I voted, I knew what I was voting for, she knew what she was voting for, but it wasn’t politically expedient to do it then, so she didn’t do it then.’ I would rather vote for that guy who might lead the nation. The polls said that 60% of Americans said that they wanted to get out of the war, and I think he’s going to deliver on that promise and do his best to extricate us from the war.
By the way I believe that these core values have moved the American electorate to a new level which means that it’s not really about Hilary, not really about Obama, and it’s not really about yo mama [Audience laugh], right; those things don’t matter to us – what matters is can we get some people who might be on record, might be able to pull us back. I want you to understand that the attitude of homeland security now comes straight from the White House; fear mongering, fear mongering your neighbour. You don’t have that here right, it’s on the bus and stuff like that – ‘watch and look for dangerous activity’ – it’s paralysing us. We need someone who’s going to come in and say ‘look man, we have more pressing issues than where Osama bin Laden is.’ One of our congresswomen said, ‘we are more likely to die from not having health insurance in the United States, than we are to die from a terrorist.’
So setting priorities is right, while we still deal with the issues that there are bad people out there. By the way, most people who have been killed in the past few years have been high school students going to school and killing their teachers and their class mates. So if you want to talk about the tenor of fear and violence that’s creating in America, there’s a Cancer in America that’s destroying us and we need a new attitude and I believe this is the best way to get it and if it was somebody else who was saying this, whether they had an Islamic background, legacy or whatever, we’d be with them.
Question:
I have a very straightforward question...
[Imam Johari]:
Oh no, they’re the ones that take all night...very straight forward is it? [Audience laugh]
Question:
Who are you going to vote for in the coming election, and how does that affect your impartiality?
Answer:
Those two things go together. Who am I going to vote for and how does that make me impartial? I’m not impartial...I already told you! I am biased, I have a political opinion, and even though we have a secret ballot in America, I’m going to tell you that the bumper sticker on my car says ‘Obama ‘08’ . [Audience laugh] Even though, as an Imam of a Masjid, I don’t stand up on the Mimbar and say ‘Obama...etc’ I just say ‘Change...vote for change’ [Audience laugh throughout] ‘but brothers and sisters you just vote.’ But my bumper sticker – I’m allowed to do that – says ‘Obama 08’- fine. There’s a certain kind of change that I want to see happen, and that’s my right. I’m telling you now, that even though it’s my right to keep my ballot a secret, in November I’m going to vote for...shhh...
Question:
First of all, I’d like to disagree with you on why he’s allowed to insist that he’s not a Muslim. I think that it’s because ‘Muslim and Islam’ have been made to seem bad things in the United States and I think it would be political suicide to say ‘I have the utmost respect and love for Islam...etc’ it would be political suicide. Now, I’m an Obama supporter, an Obama donator, but I will absolutely hold him to account for his actions after he gets in office. And for what he says and how he is going on with this perpetuating ‘Muslim as a bad thing and Muslim as a bad name’. How do you think we can hold him to account in a diplomatic way after he’s been elected and say ‘I’m glad you’re in office, but you didn’t really help the perception of Muslims and Islam beforehand.’
Answer:
I can read from an article in which he said, ‘I have the utmost respect...’ so once you go on record, you can’t be told you didn’t say it. Your enemies go to the article and they promote ‘ah, he said he has the utmost respect’ I don’t want to get stuck on the small details; if the man went on record and said that he has the utmost respect for Islam, then he said it. That’s enough for me; I don’t want to make the political litmus test. Muslims are radioactive, face it, right?
I told some Muslims, you know, we should invite some of our political enemies to our rallies and meetings so that they can be taught and so we can say we love them, and let them say ‘no no no.’ And by the way, this really did happen. One candidate in northern Virginia came to the mosque and he was attacked my some conservatives, saying ‘why did you go to the mosque?’ and he said ‘no, I’m not with them at all-believe me-I’m not.’ It was political suicide for her, but we helped him. We put the tar on him, opened up a pillow case and waited for a wind to start blowing and feathered him right there. So I think the question of political accountability will be there for whoever wins.
I think this man is going to need all the help he can get. And we’re going to help him as much as we can. He’s probably had to read up on Islam so that if somebody asks him he can say ‘no I don’t believe in this, no I don’t believe in that.’ The discourse; now I apologise for saying this and I apologise for being long-winded, if we were trying to move the discourse about Muslims in politics to the next level, our thought would be to run a full-fledged Muslim candidate for President. In which all the questions would not be about the economy, not about jobs, healthcare – it would be about Islam.
Now you have a candidate whose middle name is Hussein, who when asked these questions, says ‘I am not a Muslim’ with regard to education, with regard to healthcare, so somebody said ‘he’s secretly a Muslim, but he’s a damned good politician.’ And so the discourse – he’s black – but ‘I’m not really a black candidate, I’m from Africa but my mother’s white’ and we get, ‘oh, ok, so let’s talk about the issues facing the nation.’ So we can find a better nexus to open the discourse and then deflect all of the issues because ‘I’m not the thing that you want to label me as.’
W’Allahi, Allah is so wise to have sent in the middle of this conflict, someone who can acknowledge Islam and say I’m not a part of it but opens the discourse. It will lower the fear level. He went to a madressa – he sure is smart. He’s the first ever Negro to ever be on the Harvard Law Review right? He’s a smart guy. And there’s an ayat in the Qur’ān that says Allah created us into tribes and nations li ta’ārifū – to know each other. He goes into a State where he is not known and racism and Islamophobia is all hyped up, and he goes through the neighbourhood, meets people, starts talking, kisses babies – AND – he was 12 points behind and now he’s 12 points ahead. By knowing him, it changes people’s attitudes in a nascent way he’s improving the perception the Muslims have because they’re thinking he might secretly be Muslim [Audience laugh] because it’s still in the back of their heads and they’re thinking, we sure do like him, he’s so likeable, and Hilary is so cold and impersonal and etc etc. Subhān Allah, it couldn’t have been done in a better way.
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