Hishmeh: The not-so-brighter side of the coin
Republicans continue to entertain bigotry in the race to America s presidential candidacy
Source: gulfnews.com
It has been sickening to watch the wave of Islamophobia that engulfed the United States in the past few days after it was launched by a seemingly prominent Republican presidential candidate, a doctor, who declared unabashedly that he was against having an American Muslim elected to the presidency.
Speaking on Meet the Press, a popular American television programme, Dr Ben Carson underlined his belief that Islam was incompatible with the US constitution and that a Muslim should never be elected as president of the US. “I sat in disbelief, because an educated person just expressed a wholly erroneous narrative about me and the millions of Muslims living in this country,” wrote Harris Zaafar, author of Demystifying Islam: Tackling the Tough Questions and a national spokesman for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.
He added that Carson was not speaking of radicals or extremists but of “ordinary American Muslims”. He then called on Carson to “re-connect with this vision of our Founding Fathers to create a just and united society of diverse backgrounds”, adding that “this is why I will not attack Carson for the uninformed nature of his comments. Rather, I invite him to a dialogue to learn more about Islam and American Muslims so that he can reconsider his views, which are currently based on hearsay and not facts”.
Another American Muslim leader, Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has 32 branches in the country, said in an interview that he could not imagine that a person who sought to assume the highest office was unaware of the country’s “fundamental constitutional principle”, namely Article VI, which declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”.
What has been equally appalling is the reaction of Republican presidential frontrunner, billionaire Donald Trump. During a recent event, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) reported that one of Trump’s supporters called US President Barack Obama a Muslim and stated that Muslims were a problem in the country. He then asked Trump: “When can we get rid of them?”
“Rather than rebuking his supporter for promoting hatred,” an ADC press release said, “Mr Trump gave credence to the man’s bigoted comments by stating, ‘We’re going to be looking at that and many other things’.”
The other side of the coin is more heart-warming. A 14-year-old Arab-American student wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade invention. What happened next in Irving, Texas, reported the Washington Post, “led to national outrage and attention”.
Ahmad Mohammad, a Sudanese by origin, walked into his school with his hastily assembled invention: A digital clock. Hours later, the ninth-grader was escorted out of school by police after teachers mistook the device for a bomb. Consequently, he was suspended from school for three days.
The incident triggered allegations of racism and made a Texas school district the target of outrage that began online and quickly spilled into the most powerful offices in America. “Cool clock, Ahmad,” Obama tweeted. “Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
Ahmad is due to go to the White House next month and he still hopes the police will return his clock shortly.
George Hishmeh, Gulf News
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Daily Star.