I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the
party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that
Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a
Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if
he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The
answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some
seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?
Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a
Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be
doing it in America.
I feel strongly about this particular point because
of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo
essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the
headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the
writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze
Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was
20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a
Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of
the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an
American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11,
and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we
have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as
nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within
the party, we have these kinds of expressions.
-Colin Powell, 2008
That might have been the only truly moving moment of the mess that was the 2008 presidential campaign and that's why Colin Powell is a good and great man, perhaps too good and great to have become president. The second paragraph is worth remembering today, nearly two years later.
This summer, as most summers are, has been ridiculous in the stories that we've been forced to focus on. I like to refer to summer news cycles as Shark Week, because news networks always fall back on story about someone getting eaten by a shark when there's nothing else out there. But this summer was different. There's an atmosphere out there that's going well beyond the usual dumb, it's bordering on dangerous. And not in the way that you might think.
In a large percentage of the coverage in the news and on blogs about Cordoba House and the Koran burning pastor in Florida, the rhetoric is getting to be dangerous in a lot of different ways. Muslims are being propagandized as a menace in the same that Jews were in the 1930s. I'm not suggesting that the results are going to be similar, but the messaging is approaching that. And I can't see how that helps or enlightens anyone.
As you know, I'm not especially fond of religion and think that we'd all be better off without it. There are few things that I find as amusing as an observant follower of one religion making fun of or attacking another faith. Since neither belief is predicated on any empirical evidence whatsoever, it strikes me as a case of duelling superstitions.
I'm not going to fall into liberal arguments about how "our strength is our unity" or "our diversity is the most powerful thing about our society." What I'm going to say is that there are millions of Muslims in North America and ask, "whose side do you want them on?" Do you want them to be our friends and neighbours, or do you actually want them to be with the extremists?
Fanatics, like criminals, aren't born, they're made. It seems to me that the growing rhetorical attacks are going to marginalize and radicalize people that wouldn't otherwise be radicalized. At some point, people are going to feel isolated, unwelcome, feared and hated enough that they're going to respond, perhaps not violently, but respond they will. At some point, they might not feel that they have anything to lose by supporting the other side, either tacitly or actively.
North America hasn't had the problems with terrorism that Europe has because precisely because we don't have a tradition of ghettoizing anyone. That's changing, if not in fact, then by attitudes.
Worse, those attitudes are being whipped up by cheap politics. It's almost impossible to ignore that this is an election season, and the people who constantly bring up things like Park 51 are politicians that want something; whether it's your vote, your money, or your fury. Campaigning against people different than the majority is one of the oldest traditions in politics. For the most part, it's pure hucksterism, which you'll be expected to forget the day after the election. And most of us will forget it.
But some won't. Some people are going to remember being scapegoated for no other reason than because it's an even-numbered year. And where the hatred is genuine, it'll be remembered all the more deeply.
If you truly believe that we're fighting a "War Against Islam", geography and demographics suggest the suicidal futility of that better than I can. Muslims are more than a third of the world's population, and they're everywhere from Indonesia to the desk next to yours at work. The mightiest military the world has ever know has been stretched to the breaking point by operations in just two countries with a combined population of only 50 million. The West, on the other hand, is a shrinking percentage of the world's total population and it's rapidly going bankrupt. How do we win? What's our military and political strategy?
A War Against Islam is a war that cannot be won and therefore shouldn't be fought.
If you're at work, look at the desk next to yours and ask yourself if you want the person sitting behind it fighting with you or against you. Think about the Muslims in the American and coalition armies in Afghanistan as I write this, and ask yourself who they're fighting for.
Think about Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, who was killed in Iraq on August 7, 2007. Who was he fighting for and what did he die for?
Was it for this? Was it for Shark Week?
This summer, as most summers are, has been ridiculous in the stories that we've been forced to focus on. I like to refer to summer news cycles as Shark Week, because news networks always fall back on story about someone getting eaten by a shark when there's nothing else out there. But this summer was different. There's an atmosphere out there that's going well beyond the usual dumb, it's bordering on dangerous. And not in the way that you might think.
In a large percentage of the coverage in the news and on blogs about Cordoba House and the Koran burning pastor in Florida, the rhetoric is getting to be dangerous in a lot of different ways. Muslims are being propagandized as a menace in the same that Jews were in the 1930s. I'm not suggesting that the results are going to be similar, but the messaging is approaching that. And I can't see how that helps or enlightens anyone.
As you know, I'm not especially fond of religion and think that we'd all be better off without it. There are few things that I find as amusing as an observant follower of one religion making fun of or attacking another faith. Since neither belief is predicated on any empirical evidence whatsoever, it strikes me as a case of duelling superstitions.
I'm not going to fall into liberal arguments about how "our strength is our unity" or "our diversity is the most powerful thing about our society." What I'm going to say is that there are millions of Muslims in North America and ask, "whose side do you want them on?" Do you want them to be our friends and neighbours, or do you actually want them to be with the extremists?
Fanatics, like criminals, aren't born, they're made. It seems to me that the growing rhetorical attacks are going to marginalize and radicalize people that wouldn't otherwise be radicalized. At some point, people are going to feel isolated, unwelcome, feared and hated enough that they're going to respond, perhaps not violently, but respond they will. At some point, they might not feel that they have anything to lose by supporting the other side, either tacitly or actively.
North America hasn't had the problems with terrorism that Europe has because precisely because we don't have a tradition of ghettoizing anyone. That's changing, if not in fact, then by attitudes.
Worse, those attitudes are being whipped up by cheap politics. It's almost impossible to ignore that this is an election season, and the people who constantly bring up things like Park 51 are politicians that want something; whether it's your vote, your money, or your fury. Campaigning against people different than the majority is one of the oldest traditions in politics. For the most part, it's pure hucksterism, which you'll be expected to forget the day after the election. And most of us will forget it.
But some won't. Some people are going to remember being scapegoated for no other reason than because it's an even-numbered year. And where the hatred is genuine, it'll be remembered all the more deeply.
If you truly believe that we're fighting a "War Against Islam", geography and demographics suggest the suicidal futility of that better than I can. Muslims are more than a third of the world's population, and they're everywhere from Indonesia to the desk next to yours at work. The mightiest military the world has ever know has been stretched to the breaking point by operations in just two countries with a combined population of only 50 million. The West, on the other hand, is a shrinking percentage of the world's total population and it's rapidly going bankrupt. How do we win? What's our military and political strategy?
A War Against Islam is a war that cannot be won and therefore shouldn't be fought.
If you're at work, look at the desk next to yours and ask yourself if you want the person sitting behind it fighting with you or against you. Think about the Muslims in the American and coalition armies in Afghanistan as I write this, and ask yourself who they're fighting for.
Think about Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, who was killed in Iraq on August 7, 2007. Who was he fighting for and what did he die for?
Was it for this? Was it for Shark Week?
Special thanks to Mediaite for the picture and the Powell quote.
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