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Why Liberals Fear Islam
\nThe Only Good Muslim is the Anti-Muslim
\nBy M. JUNAID LEVESQUE-ALAM<\/p>\n
For some, Barack Obama\u2019s stature as a man of the left has fallen precipitously, like late autumn leaves shed by branches bowing to the will of winter.<\/p>\n
Disappointment has often been self-inflicted. Supporters have dipped their pens deeply into the inkwell of Obama\u2019s inspiring story and written their own lines on Afghanistan, oil drilling, or the death penalty – only to see these wishful words unceremoniously erased by presidential politics or the senator\u2019s own views.<\/p>\n
But for American Muslims and progressive allies, both eager to see an end to the vilification of Arabs and Muslims in the United States, Obama\u2019s mantra of hope and change barely set in before it expired.<\/p>\n
First we witnessed the embarrassing spectacle of micro-level ethnic cleansing when two Arab women with headscarves were whisked offstage ahead of a campaign photo-op in Detroit. Then we heard Obama call false claims about his purportedly Muslim identity \u201csmears\u201d \u2013 as if he was accused not of belonging to an Abrahamic faith observed by more than 1.2 billion people, but of slinking out of Congress to visit a brothel. Soon after we saw the senator genuflect before AIPAC and call for a permanently Israeli Jerusalem – a vision the Jewish state has assiduously tried to realize by macro-level ethnic cleansing, purging its Arab residents.<\/p>\n
A more recent political maneuver also turned out to be a purge: the Obama campaign\u2019s Muslim outreach coordinator, Mazen Asbahi, \u201cresigned\u201d this month after a brief stint of several days. The event went almost unnoticed.<\/p>\n
But two sharply different responses to this episode – and the standing afforded to the authors of these responses – reveal that the senator is not alone in failing to stanch America\u2019s anti-Islamic miasma. Rather, the shortcoming is a collective one, shared by many liberals whose prejudice against Muslims and Arab-Americans is surpassed only by an apparent disinterest in correcting it.<\/p>\n
One response to the resignation came from James Zogby. An Arab-American Christian, Zogby\u2019s credentials as a man rooted in his community are matchless. He helped found the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He led non-sectarian campaigns to assist war victims in Palestine and Lebanon. And he serves as president of the Arab American Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.<\/p>\n
Yet despite 30 years of community advocacy and experience, his views on Arab and Muslim issues appear in just two popular non-ethnic publications. One is The Huffington Post. The other is in Egypt.<\/p>\n
Commenting on Asbahi\u2019s short tenure, Zogby writes, \u201cIn the brief time he held his position we spoke almost daily. He learned so much and did so much to make Arab Americans and American Muslims feel included in the campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen,\u201d Zogby observes, \u201cit happened.\u201d One of the many websites \u201cmonitoring\u201d Muslims in America discovered that eight years ago Asbahi served on a board which included a controversial imam. Asbahi resigned from the board after two weeks.<\/p>\n
Like vultures eyeing a wounded gazelle, the usual assortment of right-wing bloggers descended on Asbahi. They vilified him as a closet fundamentalist for once belonging to the Muslim Student Association, a well-established mainstream group with branches on dozens of college campuses across the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n
Not to be outdone, the Wall Street Journal threatened to amplify the echo chamber, the walls of which reverberate with the hysterics of its associates in the right-wing \u201cblogosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Faced with mounting pressure and bereft of support from any quarter, Asbahi and the campaign \u201cagreed\u201d he would relinquish his post.<\/p>\n
This sequence of events comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with neoconservative methods. It is but a reenactment of previous attacks: the mendacious 2005 campaign to oust Columbia University professors who used Israel\u2019s own archives to dismantle pleasant fictions about its history; the dissemination of e-mails containing crude anti-Semitic nonsense sent out in professors\u2019 names to destroy their credibility; and the ongoing efforts to publicly intimidate universities into denying academics employment or tenure.<\/p>\n
But amid the past few years of attacks, outrages, and, yes, smears, hurled at Muslims and Arabs in this country, one Muslim figure stands curiously unsullied: Irshad Manji. She, too, wrote about Asbahi\u2019s dismissal, though we would do well to acquaint ourselves with the author first.<\/p>\n
Unlike most of her coreligionists, Manji has been lavished with attention and awards by mainstream and liberal America. She garnered Oprah Winfrey\u2019s first \u201cChutzpah\u201d award, Ms. Magazine\u2019s \u201cFeminist for the 21st Century\u201d seal of approval, New York University\u2019s Wagner School \u201cMoral Courage Project,\u201d a column in The Huffington Post, production of a PBS documentary, and the list goes on.<\/p>\n
In an era when Muslims find themselves boxed in by political attacks here and military assaults abroad, one wonders: what is Manji\u2019s secret to success?<\/p>\n
She wrote a book – and not just any book. Titled The Trouble With Islam Today, hers won applause not only from liberals but other, more interesting quarters. The Wall Street Journal praised it as \u201crefreshingly provocative\u201d and \u201cdeserv[ing] of the attention it is receiving.\u201d Daniel Pipes declared, \u201cManji – a practicing Muslim – brings real insight to her subject.\u201d Phyillis Chesler beamed, \u201cManji has written a bold, sane, passionate, compelling book.\u201d And Alan Dershowitz announced, \u201cManji is a fresh, new and intriguing voice of Islamic reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fine example of damning with loud praise.<\/p>\n
What could a Muslim have written that would delight supporters of bombing and torturing Muslims? What sweet words could have moved Daniel Pipes – who specializes in hyping anti-Islamic hysteria on Fox News and elsewhere – to welcome into his generous bosom the ideas of a \u201cpracticing Muslim?\u201d What might motivate Alan Dershowitz, better known for backing the torture of Muslims than for reading their books, to plug Manji\u2019s effort?<\/p>\n
The answer lies in the content. The Trouble With Islam Today is an unhinged polemic that derides Muslims and demeans their faith. Examining a few of the book\u2019s points should reveal what has caught the fancy of neoconservatives and liberals alike.<\/p>\n
The author devotes two pages to comparing Osama bin Laden to Prophet Muhammad. \u201cIs it mere happenstance,\u201d Manji rhetorically asks, \u201cthat bin Laden spends so much time in caves, like the meditating [Prophet] did?\u201d With penetrating and piercing logic – in the sense that one must penetrate one\u2019s skull and pierce the cortex to succumb to it – she goes on in this vein, declaring \u201ccamel saddles\u201d and \u201conline transactions\u201d twin evils. The \u201cparallels\u201d between Osama, the man who blesses the murder of innocent people, and Muhammad, the man who forgave the murderers of his closest companions, \u201ccontinue to proliferate,\u201d Manji insists, much to the delight of the Muslim-haters behind the curtains.<\/p>\n
A good portion of the book is also dedicated to attacking the Quran (and the Quran alone), which the intrepid author does without any background in religious studies or a single footnote. But no matter. This book, Manji intones, is \u201cprofoundly at war with itself.\u201d Religious texts should apparently read like do-it-yourself plumbing guides, bereft of subtlety or layers of meaning, particularly if you are trying to flush the whole thing down the toilet to boost your celebrity status among Islamophobes.<\/p>\n
Manji\u2019s fans must especially enjoy her excoriation of Muslims as fake victims. Muslims wallow in their \u201cscreaming self-pity,\u201d she snickers, as though one ought to see the fuselage of cruise missiles as half-full rather than half-empty as they fly en route to the nearest wedding celebration or apartment building.<\/p>\n
Manji\u2019s attacks on Muslims appear almost kind next to the beating she doles out to logic itself. She surmises that since Muslims have been more harmed by Muslims than non-Muslims (based on what data or criteria, we dare not guess), there is little reason to complain about atrocities authored under the \u201cwar on terror.\u201d She does not add whether she also ordered families of Sept. 11th victims to get over themselves when the casualties were surpassed by that year\u2019s domestic homicides – a case of \u201cAmericans having been more harmed by Americans than non-Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, Manji enjoys ridiculing dispossessed Palestinians. Ignoring over two decades of work by Jewish scholars and human rights groups on Israeli ethnic cleansing and massacres, she neatly eliminates the Palestinians altogether by dubbing them Jordanians and hails Israel for its \u201ccompassion.\u201d It must have been precisely this \u201ccompassion\u201d that moved 23 ANC veterans, several of them Jewish, to compare the Israeli occupation with South African apartheid during a recent visit.<\/p>\n
Now well-acquainted with America\u2019s favorite Muslim, let us turn to her article on the departure of Obama\u2019s former coordinator, Mazen Asbahi.<\/p>\n
In a Huffington Post piece, she demonstrates no concern about the vilification enabled Asbahi\u2019s dismissal. Indeed, she fails to mention it even once. Is this because Manji is too busy contributing to the problem to pause and reflect? Or is it because this would upset her core base – the neoconservatives who mount these smear campaigns?<\/p>\n
Whatever the case, Manji performs her predictable pre-programmed attack routine, observing contemptuously, \u201c\u2026Mazen Asbahi has just resigned. I can’t say I’m disheartened. He’d been embraced by groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Society of North America, renowned for their conservative politics and \u2018moderate\u2019 double-speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writing a piece occasioned by attacks on one Muslim, Manji manages to magnify the insult by attacking thousands of other Muslims.<\/p>\n
According to her politics, anyone who does not dance to the detonation of cluster bombs is already suspect. So her invective aimed at groups representing thousands of American Muslims, which she never bothers to back up with arguments, is understandable.<\/p>\n
Not yet satisfied with herself, she goes on to pant about \u201cmost\u201d American Muslims being stuck in a 7th century – or perhaps 10th century, depending on her mood – \u201ctime warp.\u201d Serving as 21st century America\u2019s doctors, teachers, engineers, shopkeepers, and plant workers, Muslims have been too busy to notice this worrisome defect.
\nConcluding with a few shopworn words about \u201cmoral courage\u201d and \u201crevolutionary ethos,\u201d Manji polishes off her attacks on the community by invoking vague platitudes about Muslim \u201creform.\u201d
\nThis is Manji\u2019s sole gimmick: disingenuous calls for Muslims to move forward belied by support for those pulling America backward.<\/p>\n
What does the liberal adulation of a professional Islamophobe – one openly adored by neoconservatives, no less – say about the state of American liberalism? Will liberals come to respect and support genuine Muslim and Arab voices, like Zogby and countless unrecognized figures? Or will they continue to lazily rely on self-professed stand-ins like Irshad Manji?<\/p>\n
If liberalism persists on its present path, it will not only alienate a targeted community in America but pave the way for further persecution.<\/p>\n
Perfectly illustrating this point is The New York Times\u2019 fawning characterization of Manji as \u201cOsama bin Laden\u2019s worst nightmare.\u201d This is very far from the truth.<\/p>\n
For years, many Muslim and non-Muslim voices have said bin Laden\u2019s ideology is a freak phenomenon, fashioned in the ghoulish laboratory of Cold War politics and fed on a steady diet of American \u2013Israeli assaults in the Middle East. At odds with more than 1,300 years of Muslim thought and history, these voices have insisted, bin Laden is a perversion of genuine Islam.<\/p>\n
But Manji argues the opposite: bin Laden is a genuine product of Islam, which is itself perverted. Osama, we will recall, is for Manji the new Muhammad.<\/p>\n
In showering attention and accolades on Manji, many liberals thus validate and promote the idea that extremist Islam is Islam itself. Could bin Laden dream of a greater gift? Could the neoconservatives?<\/p>\n
Perhaps liberals find Manji\u2019s message appealing because ascribing extremism to some innate feature of Islam \u201cdisappears\u201d from view the consequences of American foreign policy. Invasion and occupation disappear. Torture and abuse disappear. Corpses of slaughtered civilians and carrions of neutralized nations disappear.<\/p>\n
The desire to own a clear conscience, even one obtained through the muddiest logic, should never be underestimated.<\/p>\n
There may be other answers: a fear of questioning the dominant narrative; of criticizing Israel; of discovering Islamic perspectives; of engaging the Other, who is often harangued but rarely heard.<\/p>\n
Whatever the reason, American liberals would do well to stop glorifying anti-Muslim celebrities and start building relationships with honest Arab and Muslim voices.<\/p>\n
We are waiting.<\/p>\n
M. Junaid Levesque-Alam<\/strong> blogs about America and Islam at Crossing the Crescent (http:\/\/www.crossingthecrescent.com<\/a>) and writes about American Muslim identity for WireTap magazine. Co-founder of Left Hook, a youth journal that ran from Nov. 2003 to March 2006, he works as a communications coordinator for an anti-domestic violence agency in the NYC area. He can be reached at: junaidalam1 AT gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First we witnessed the embarrassing spectacle of micro-level ethnic cleansing when two Arab women with headscarves were whisked offstage ahead of a campaign photo-op in Detroit. Then we heard Obama call false claims about his purportedly Muslim identity \u201csmears\u201d \u2013 as if he was accused not of belonging to an Abrahamic faith observed by more than 1.2 billion people, but of slinking out of Congress to visit a brothel. Continue reading ![\"Barrack](\"http:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/060922_barackobama_xtrawide.thumbnail.jpg\")
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