Heath's Random Thoughts

The Muslim Perspective On the Elections

Ever since 9/11 and the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a lot of rhetoric about the Muslim faith and a lot of people making correlations between being Muslim and a terrorist. This has taken a center stage in the recent elections as rumors and emails have floated around implying or out-right claiming that Barack Obama is a closet Muslim and supports terrorists. First of all, I find it small minded to even draw this sort of correlation and many of the people I see do it are supposed upstanding Christians. I guess it is all too easy to forget about the extreme elements of our own faith when we want to point to someone else's beliefs and lump them all in with a minority of attention getter's. I could go on and on about the hypocrisy of many Christians and how somewhere down the line they forgot the message of Christ as being one of Love and Tolerance, but that will have to be another blog post. Instead I wanted to point out an article I came across on CNN that highlights how many Muslim-Americans have been viewing the recent elections. It highlights both Democratic and Republican backing Muslims and how they are disappointed with how the Muslim faith has been reduced to a mere talking point and the bulk of those points seem to be only concerned with lumping their faith with terrorism. The people highlighted are Americans too with many of the same concerns about national security, education, health care, etc that everyone else has.


It talks about how one Muslim-American received an email (I received it too) falsely stating that Obama was Muslim and was an attempt to tie him to terrorism to swing support to his opponent John McCain. The woman was quoted as saying:

"We're America, the melting pot, the land of diversity, and that Americans would be buying into that psychology [of the e-mails] was upsetting," said the New Jersey-born Muslim, whose parents are from India. "The e-mail offended my American ideals."

So when did America no longer become the melting pot, that we were taught in history class? The diversity that makes up this country is the very reason we have been so successful both socially but economically as well. I know there are some arguments out there that this is supposed to be a "Christian" country and our laws should be Christian laws. If this were the case then we would be in trouble, because the very nature of the belief breeds segregation and intolerance to other peoples' beliefs. This country was founded on the basis of freedom of religion and to take a singular view would destroy the Democracy that the rest of the world looks to us to uphold.

With this being said I have seen a lot of progress with our citizens to tackle this topic and really take stock of what our country has become and what it could be. And by forcing people to look at something that they have only whispered about in their own living rooms. You will see some who are not comfortable with this level of openness and exploration and will not only fear it themselves but will work to make others fear it as well. Maybe its an uncomfortable process we will have to go through as a nation to evolve and grow to be the world leader that others want the US to be and if so, then so be it. There are many that feel we should close off our borders to the world and just worry about ourselves, and doing so would just create more problems. We may have our differences around the world but that is only because we have lost our way as an example of what a successful democracy can be, and the rest of the world wants us to step back up and be a leader that all can admire. Sometimes that takes sacrifice and taking risks and being open when its easier and more comfortable to retreat into our own borders. The world isn't going away and the sooner our citizens realize that the easier it will be to deal with the problems that are affecting us around the world, not just militarily but most importantly diplomatically. Building strong relationships will serve us better than forcing people to our point of view. We need to be willing to work hand-in-hand with our neighbors of differing faiths to tackle the problems of the world and I truly believe that true American values and the staples our great country was founded on has positioned us to take a lead role to accomplish this. And to me this is what being patriotic means. We can be that shining city on a hill that President Reagan envisioned, but we can't do through fear, force, intollerance, suspension of civil liberties, and close mindedness.

Labels: elections, politics, religion

posted by Heath @ 2:29 PM