It’s not unusual to hear supporters of Barak Obama admit, usually in a low voice, that they are worried. They are worried about his safety. Racism is still alive and well in America, they say, and it’s not hard to imagine some nut job taking a shot at him sooner or later.
I wish I could say that those fears are unfounded, but I can’t. I believe people are generally a lot less closed-minded on matters of race than they were a few decades ago, but I don’t think we will ever completely stamp out bigotry. It’s an unfortunate but undeniable part of human nature.
But according to some observers, racists aren’t the only ones who may have it in for Mr. Obama. (If you’re a Barak fan and you’re also a natural worrier, I suggest you read no further.) He may have some dangerous enemies most of us haven’t even thought about yet – Muslim extremists.
You’ve probably heard that Obama was born to a Muslim father, a man from Kenya who was not really involved in his life. Obama claims that he has never been a Muslim himself, and I’m inclined to take him at his word. However, that may not make much difference to some of the more conservative practitioners of Islam.
According to some interpretations of Islamic doctrine (and you know when it comes to religion there is always more than one point of view) a man who is born to a Muslim father is automatically a Muslim himself. For life. If he chooses not to practice Islam when he is an adult that does not mean he was never a Muslim, it means he is an apostate. And of course the penalty for apostasy is death.
And so we have to face the possibility that our future president could be seen as something much worse than an infidel in the eyes of the eyes of some Muslims. That might not, obviously, be a good thing in terms of Mr. Obama’s personal safety.
It also might not be a good thing in terms of our relations with Muslim countries. It has been assumed in some quarters that replacing the evangelical Christian we currently have in the White House with a liberal Christian with a Muslim-friendly name and family history would automatically ease tensions between the US and the Muslim world. Perhaps not. Perhaps an America led by a man who had abandoned the faith he was born into would inspire even more condemnation than we are already experiencing.
I don’t think anyone can say how these sorts of things will work themselves out with any certainty. Human beings, and the governments they spawn, are quite unpredictable by nature, and much depends on circumstance and the personalities of people as they interact with one another.
The big question is - should we let this sort of thing influence whether or not we vote for Obama? Given all the challenges our country currently faces, can we really afford to elect a president who might spend his time in office dodging bullets and causing even more friction between us and the Islamic world?
I submit that we had better not start thinking like that. Barak Obama has every right to be where he is and to do what he is doing. In America we believe in freedom of religion, and if someone has a problem with that, they are the ones with the problem. They are the ones who need to “change.”
I’m not an Obama supporter and I don’t plan on voting for him in November. But that has nothing to do with fear for his safety or worry over how he might be perceived in the Muslim world. We’re supposed to be electing a leader after all, not a spokes-model or a goodwill ambassador.
Leaders look forward, not back over their shoulders. We should all try and do the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment