So What if Obama WAS a Muslim?
Way back when I was in the sixth grade I found myself having to deny the same nasty rumor again and again. The middle school attack machine had begun spreading the mistaken idea that I had a crush on a girl named Meredith, a girl who--for whatever warped sixth grade logic--you did not want to be accused of liking. The truth, of course, was that I did not like Meredith. I barely knew the girl. In fact, I had a crush on a girl named Shay. (Not that I really knew her either, or even had the courage to talk to her). But despite my repeated denials and attempts to correct this mistaken perception, the rumors persisted.
So I grew more adamant in my denials. Not only did I not like her, I had never liked her, would never like her and in fact found the idea that ANY one would like her to be patently absurd. This denial only confirmed the rumor in people's minds, unfortunately. After all, why would I spend so much time denying something that wasn't true?
But then one day a rather wise teacher pulled me aside and taught me a lesson I still have not forgotten. "How do you think SHE feels every time you say that?"
I'd never really thought of that before. I was concerned about my own reputation. I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of my peers. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how foolish it was. So what if I DID like her? Why should that be such a bad thing? She was a nice girl, as far as I knew. Never did anything to me. And here I was denouncing and rejecting her at every available turn, albeit indirectly and without that specific intention.
The political headlines of the past week brought this long forgotten incident back to my mind. At first, I was angry at people like Bill Cunningham and Ann Coulter for consistently referring to my preferred presidential candidate as "Barack HUSSEIN Obama." I was even a little miffed that the Clinton camp had (maybe) released a photo of Obama wearing traditional Kenyan dress from his visit to that country. The not so subtle implication of all of it, of course, is that "Obama is a Muslim!" And those making that implication are counting on the fact that most Americans hold Muslims in about as high of a regard as my sixth grade class held Meredith. And they're hoping to capitalize on a whole bunch of other assumptions that go with it. If Obama is a Muslim, then he's strange and foreign. If Obama is a Muslim, he must sympathize with "the terrorists" and "evildoers." If Obama is a Muslim we might have a traitor in the White House!
So the Obama camp goes on strongly denying any connection between Obama and Islam and slamming those who are implying that he is a Muslim. But I keep hearing a re-phrased version of the question my teacher asked me. How would all this feel if I were a Muslim? And in a related question, doesn't this kind of stern denial, made over and over again, actually give credence to the mistaken stereotyped beliefs that the rumor is supposed to play to?
Wouldn't a better response be, "So what if Obama WAS a Muslim?" I know that's a longer, harder discussion to have with the American people. But even George W. Bush has attempted something like that conversation, at least on the surface. Shouldn't the man who is such a stirring symbol of building bridges and bringing together a multicultural America and world engage in that conversation even more? I don't mean to lay all the blame on Obama and his campaign here. Part of the problem is that he media doesn't do a good job of fighting the kinds of prejudice the insinuations prey on. They basically assume the prejudice is out there but I haven't seen the press saying much about how mistaken it is--the closest they seem to come is saying it's wrong to play on those prejudices for political gain.
I would hope that liberal-minded people would take the time to engage in that conversation, though. Muslims believe in the same God as Jews and Christians, despite the claims of certain people in the Pentagon about their God being bigger. "Allah" is simply Arabic for "God" or more literally "the God." Christians and Jews would recognize much that is in the Qu'ran, including the stories of Moses, Abraham and a virgin birth involving someone named Jesus. The five pillars of Islam include belief in God and Muhammad as his Prophet but perhaps more importantly emphasize the importance of charitable giving to those less fortunate. Highly conservative Christians would also be glad to hear that it emphasizes the importance of prayer--each Muslim is supposed to pray to God no less than five times daily. Islam shares the same prophetic directive to care for widows and orphans and all those who are oppressed.
It is true that there are theological differences among the three monotheistic religions, but the vast majority of Americans have learned to look past the same magnitude of differences among Catholics, Protestants and Jews for the most part. There is no reason to think that we're incapable of the same kind of maturity now. Islam either is now or soon will be the third largest religious group in this country, passing Jews in terms of total population. This reality means that both political parties need to think about including Muslim voices in the present and as they look to the future. I don't see how this is served with constant attempts by either party or any candidate to distance itself or himself from this particular religious tradition.
Islam is also the second largest religious tradition in the world. Yet most Americans know surprisingly little about it. I was shocked when one of my friends asked me after the events of 9/11 if Islam was "the religion where they worship lots of gods." This question came from a friend who is relatively engaged with history, society and politics. I can only imagine the misconceptions most other Americans probably have. And I hope I have been able to do some small part to move past them by offering two "introduction to Islam" discussions at churches I was once a part of and in the classroom now that I'm a teaching assistant in a religious studies department. But it's a discussion that all of us will need to be a bigger part of if we're going to move past the misguided notions that leave even liberal candidates in a position where they feel they have to take every step to distance themselves from even the suggestion they belong to a religion.
And there's no reason to think that most Americans aren't willing or capable to exercise that kind of inclusion when they are given the chance to get to know people of another faith better and learn something about it. After all, it was those conservative Republicans we liberals often blast for their intolerance who were seriously considering backing a Mormon for president. For most of its first century of existence, that religion was labeled as a dangerous, heretical "cult" by many mainstream Christians, not just fundamentalists.
So from now on, if someone asks me if Barack Obama is a Muslim, before I explain that he is not, in fact, a Muslim or that he is a Christian, I'm going to first turn the question around. "Would it matter if he WAS a Muslim?" And if the answer is yes (or even a maybe) I'm going to commit to doing my best to discuss whatever mistaken notions the person might have that lead them to that answer. That's the only way we'll ever move past it.