[LINK] "The Curious Islamophobic Politics of Dem Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard"
Alternet's Zaid Jilani describes how Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic congressperson from Hawaii who came out in support of Sanders, is also intimately tied up with the Hindutva movement.
“Meet the Democrat Who’s Not Afraid to Criticize President Obama on ISIS,” intones a recent ABC News headline. The story describes remarks by Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D), who has for the past month been all over the media slamming Obama's refusal to directly associate ISIS and other terrorists with the Islamic faith.
She's particularly a favorite of right-wing media. Appearing with Fox's Neil Cavuto last week, she lashed out at the White House for holding an extremism summit with Muslim Americans, saying it's a “diversion from what our real focus needs to be. And that focus is on that Islamic extremist threat.” She criticized Obama for saying that “poverty, lack of access to jobs, lack of access to education” is contributing to radicalization. “They are not fueled by materialistic motivation, it's actually a theological, this radical Islamic ideology,” she said, throwing red meat to Fox viewers.
To the media, Gabbard is a curious spectacle. She's a Hawaii Democrat, coming from one of the nation's most progressive and dovish chapters of the Democratic Party, but she's also an Iraq war veteran, and she's consistently tried to outflank President Obama and the rest of her party to the right on foreign affairs. Last month she openly mocked Secretary of State John Kerry during an appearance on CNN, saying that he thinks, "if we give them [Islamic extremists] $10,000 and give them a nice place to live that somehow they're not going to be engaged in this fighting."
To Gabbard, the fact that Syria and Iraq have been through years of brutal civil war, wrecked economies and massive displacement is irrelevant; the only reason they have an extremism problem is because of Islamic theology.
But the case of Tulsi Gabbard becomes less curious and more expected once you look at her links to a different set of ethnic and religious hardliners: the Hindu nationalist Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Since her election to Congress, Gabbard has tied herself closely to this party, which has a history of condoning hatred and violence against India's Muslim minority. Many of her stateside donors and supporters are also big supporters of this movement, which disdains secularism and promotes religious sectarianism.
“Meet the Democrat Who’s Not Afraid to Criticize President Obama on ISIS,” intones a recent ABC News headline. The story describes remarks by Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D), who has for the past month been all over the media slamming Obama's refusal to directly associate ISIS and other terrorists with the Islamic faith.
She's particularly a favorite of right-wing media. Appearing with Fox's Neil Cavuto last week, she lashed out at the White House for holding an extremism summit with Muslim Americans, saying it's a “diversion from what our real focus needs to be. And that focus is on that Islamic extremist threat.” She criticized Obama for saying that “poverty, lack of access to jobs, lack of access to education” is contributing to radicalization. “They are not fueled by materialistic motivation, it's actually a theological, this radical Islamic ideology,” she said, throwing red meat to Fox viewers.
To the media, Gabbard is a curious spectacle. She's a Hawaii Democrat, coming from one of the nation's most progressive and dovish chapters of the Democratic Party, but she's also an Iraq war veteran, and she's consistently tried to outflank President Obama and the rest of her party to the right on foreign affairs. Last month she openly mocked Secretary of State John Kerry during an appearance on CNN, saying that he thinks, "if we give them [Islamic extremists] $10,000 and give them a nice place to live that somehow they're not going to be engaged in this fighting."
To Gabbard, the fact that Syria and Iraq have been through years of brutal civil war, wrecked economies and massive displacement is irrelevant; the only reason they have an extremism problem is because of Islamic theology.
But the case of Tulsi Gabbard becomes less curious and more expected once you look at her links to a different set of ethnic and religious hardliners: the Hindu nationalist Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Since her election to Congress, Gabbard has tied herself closely to this party, which has a history of condoning hatred and violence against India's Muslim minority. Many of her stateside donors and supporters are also big supporters of this movement, which disdains secularism and promotes religious sectarianism.