He’s damn gifted in the art of taqiyya if he is, but according to a poll conducted by TIME magazine, nearly a quarter of Americans seem to think that he is indeed a follower of Islam, with significantly fewer now believing him a Christian than thought so at the time he reached office. The survey also revealed how 30% of the American public would ban Muslims from running for president or serving at the Supreme Court. Those who do consider Barack Hussein Obama (The Second) to be a Muslim increased by around 6% in less than a week, as a poll carried out by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found, only days earlier, that fewer than one in five thought of him as such. So where did his PR team go wrong?
At an after dinner speech held on Friday to mark the breaking of the Ramadan fast, he openly defended the right to build a highly controversial Islamic centre two blocks away from the site of the former World Trade Centre twin towers, which Islamic extremists (or Zionists, or the CIA, or George Bush and Tony Blair, or the people who killed Princess Diana, or whomever else you want to believe did it) destroyed on September 11th, 2001. Originally to be called Córdoba House after the city of the same name in southern Spain – which, following the Islamic conquest of the region, saw Jews and Christians live happily alongside their Muslim rulers (apparently) – but now named an uninspiring Park51 or more commonly, especially by fear mongers on the right-wing, the Ground Zero Mosque, the proposed community centre would represent moderate Islam and offer prayer services for up to 2,000 Muslims.
On a national level, the majority of Americans, including the hypocrites at the Anti-Defamation League (hat tip to the Iconophile there), are in opposition to the proposal, with many suspicious of its motives, and seeing it as an unnecessary provocation that’s insensitive to the memory of those who died in the attacks. Local opinion, however, differs considerably, with most appearing be in favour of the project.
But how about when it’s the other way around? The American led invasion of Iraq saw no shortage of proselytising missionaries rushing in behind the front lines to do the Lord’s work and convert the Muslim population, all under the guise of humanitarian relief. It seems of little concern to those who, on the premise of its apparent disrespect to the victims of 9/11, are strongly opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque that there’s an army of bible bashers evangelical Christians ”planting” churches in Iraq near sites destroyed by what amounts to little short of terrorist activity perpetrated by their own side.
As Baghdad’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Jean Sleiman, put it, “the US-led toppling of Saddam Hussein, who limited the establishment of new denominations, has altered the religious landscape of predominantly Muslim Iraq. The way the preachers arrived here . . . with soldiers . . . was not a good thing. I think they had the intention that they could convert Muslims, though Christians didn’t do it here for 2,000 years.” And it’s not only in Iraq that right-wing American Christians are waging ‘spiritual warfare’ – evangelicalism is spreading like a biblical plague in the rest of the Middle East, and the missionaries make no secret of it.
Double standards? I’d say so. Not even politics can divide like religion . . . .
Indeed. I find the whole “Obama is a Muslim” schtick utterly depressing. It’s a deliberate attempt to play to that 30% (worryingly high) of Americans who seem to view Muslims as in some way dangerous and subhuman.
I can’t really get away from the feeling that there are lots on the right who can’t stand having a black president who speaks better english than they do. Perhaps that’s only me.
I think that’s certainly at the root of much of it.