A Bigger Problem
Posted on November 19th, 2007
by Daniel Larison |
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Forget vague rumours about alleged real estate kickbacks. The real rumour problem Obama is having is the (false) claim that he is a Muslim. From the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden’s blog:
Mrs and Mrs Kerns spoke glowingly of Mr Obama’s speeches, his intelligence and his education. They appeared to care not a whit about his colour. But they won’t vote for him. Why? They think he might be a Muslim.
Now this is something I’ve heard all over the country – in Stanhope, Iowa; in Columbia, South Carolina; in Bedford, New Hampshire to name just three places that spring to mind. The Obama campaign realises it’s not going to go away and they’re going to have to deal with it. But once something like this is out there on the internet, it’s not going to be easy to put the genie back in the bottle.
This is what I was talking about last week. For every pundit and journalist who thinks it is wonderful how Obama will supposedly “bridge” the gaps between America and the rest of the world, you probably have a hundred people who not only don’t see him this way but who are dead-set against him because they perceive him to be too close, or even connected to, the Islamic world. (This may be the result of deliberate campaigns to portray him as a Muslim, or simply the result of confusion, ignorance or a deduction from his middle name.) Obama, who is probably the most active candidate on the Democratic side in “outreach” to evangelical Christians, is now in a position where he has to dispel doubts about “his religion” when it isn’t even his religion. As we already know, this false perception of Obama has been promoted and encouraged by chain e-mails describing Obama as a Muslim, and we have seen in poll after poll the only thing a presidential candidate could be that is more unpopular than a Muslim is an atheist. It is the political kiss of death for a presidential candidate, and this idea has apparently gained a surprising currency and wide acceptance.
Then there are posts about Obama that might seem to be helpful and positive for him, stressing his importance for America’s standing in the world, that are actually going to reinforce the false preconceptions many people have about Obama:
Barack Obama represents “the only hope for the US in the Muslim world,” according to Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Because Obama’s father was a Muslim, he “could lead a reconciliation between the Muslim countries and the US.”
Even if that were true (and I don’t agree with this kind of thinking at all), every time someone reminds voters that Obama has Muslim ancestors he is that much less likely to win. It shouldn’t matter what his absentee father’s religion was, and it shouldn’t even matter what his stepfather’s religion was, but it seems as if it does matter.
Filed under: politics
But what about the problem that Obama could easily be construed as an apostate Muslim under most interpretations of Islamic law? I mean, technically speaking, if your father (even absentee) is Muslim, so are you and probably doubly so if your stepfather is too (I don’t know enough about the details of his biography for that.) If Obama were elected and this became popularly known in, say, Pakistan, this would cause all kinds of problems……
I don’t think Obama is an apostate because he was not a Muslim after the age of six, and there’s some sort of grace period for young kids.
But that’s just in terms of literal apostasy; the fact that he is descended from Muslims in the non-West but has become Christian and Western is still not the kind of thing to which I’d expect the Muslim world to thrill.
I agree that he isn’t an apostate and couldn’t *correctly* be considered one since he was never himself a Muslim, but to all those Muslims who take their religion very seriously I think the fact that Obama was familiar with Islam to some degree from an early age and then chose a different religion will not sit terribly well. (We also can’t rule out that the “Obama was a Muslim” meme here could help create an equally ill-informed “Obama is an apostate” meme among Muslims–neither one is true, but both could be circulated as if they were true.)
For many of these pundits, his father’s and grandfather’s religion is evidence of Obama’s diverse background and is therefore wonderful; it is also proof that he can “understand” the Islamic world in a way that others cannot. From the perspective of many Muslims, I would guess that the reaction is quite the opposite: he may never have been a Muslim, but given where he spent some of his earliest years in Indonesia it will seem even more strange that he was not, and it will hardly inspire an outpouring of goodwill to know that someone was familiar with your religion and then chose something else instead in later life. At best, I think he would be received politely or indifferently–until people learn about his views on various Near Eastern questions. Rejecting something that is entirely unknown or largely foreign to your experience can be expected; rejecting something you grew up around, even if only for a few years, takes on a different meaning.
[...] Obviously, I am not an Obama supporter, nor do I think for the most part that an Obama victory in November would be “good for the country” in foreign relations or domestic politics, so I sometimes have to remind myself that the people repeating these stories actually like Obama and are not working overtime to undermine his candidacy. While I have denounced the false claim that Obama is a Muslim, since it is false and clearly intended to do damage to his reputation, I have said on numerous occasions that it is folly for Obama’s elite admirers both here and overseas to keep emphasising just how “globalised” Obama is. The more people you have stressing how “important” and “profound” Obama’s middle name is to Palestinian Muslims and the like, the worse it will be for Obama come November (should he be the nominee). I agree with what Scott wrote in the 1/28 issue: This world-man aura is not without appeal, especially after eight years of a president deaf to what foreigners think and feel. But taken as far as Obama does, it would be an electoral liability. [...]