With Islamophobia running at an all time high during this election cycle, President Obamas symbolic visit to an American mosque and his remarks about American Muslims are certainly timely, Barry Grossman said in an interview on Thursday.
During his first visit to a US mosque as president on Wednesday, Obama called on Americans to embrace their common humanity and to reject the inexcusable anti-Islam rhetoric emanating from some Republican presidential candidates.
We have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias and targets people because of religion. Weve got to make sure that hate crimes are punished and that the civil rights of all Americans are upheld, Obama said at the Islamic Society of Baltimore in Windsor Mill, Maryland.
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Obama greets attendees in an overflow room after speaking at the Islamic Society of Baltimore. (AFP photo)[/caption]Grossman said that while Obamas speech was commendable, but this cynical exercise highlights more of what is wrong with Americas official attitude towards Islam than what is right.
He said Obamas move was a political stunt designed to counter the Republican rhetoric during this election season. His gesture was politically motivated rather than a genuine effort to show leadership and encourage tolerance.
Republican candidates, with billionaire Donald Trump in the vanguard, have helped fuel unprecedented levels of anti-Muslim sentiments in the US by their inflammatory remarks on the campaign trail, following terrorist bombings by Daesh (ISIL) affiliates and sympathizers in Paris and San Bernardo, California.
Having denounced the political rhetoric of people like Trump that manipulate prejudices and target people because of religion, [Obama] even went so far as to say that America must make sure that hate crimes are punished and that the civil rights of all Americans are upheld, Grossman said.
Well, he has had almost 8 years to do just that, and unfortunately, his record of defending civil liberties and prosecuting hate crimes is woeful across the board, let alone when such violations target Muslims, he continued.
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Donald Trump shows off a Time magazine with a cover story titled, "How Trump Won," during a campaign event at Hampshire Hills Athletic Club on February 2, 2016 in Milford, Iowa. (AFP photo)[/caption][caption id="" align="alignnone" width="550"]
US police escorted Rose Hamid from Donald Trumps campaign event in January after she stood up in silent protest during the Republican candidates speech. Hamid, a flight attendant, later told CNN that she attended the rally to let Trump supporters see what a Muslim looks like.[/caption]Grossman further criticized Obama for what he said was promoting the contrived official narrative, which asserts the so-called Islamic terrorism continues to pose a significant threat to Americans.
In reality, astonishingly few crimes of mass violence have been carried out in the USA by individuals who nominally identify as being Muslim, he noted.
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Muslim girls hold US flags while waiting for Obama after he spoke at the Islamic Society of Baltimore. (AFP photo)[/caption]Grossman cited statistics that indicate Americans are more likely to die by having vending machines fall on them (13 each year), or from injuries sustained from falling out of bed (an average of 450 each year), than they are to die from acts of terror carried out by Muslims.
The problems faced by Muslims in the Atlantic World come as much from the establishments obscene overstatement of the terrorist threat as they do from ordinary, garden-variety bigotry, the analyst argued.
Frankly, if I was forced to choose, I would say that the official narrative even in its most politically correct form is far more damaging to Muslims and the community at large than the bigotry and prejudice Obama claims to condemn, he stressed.
Obama took office in January 2009, promising to reach out to Muslims around the world and reset a relationship damaged by the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Obama delivered a high-profile speech about Muslims, named a new beginning, from the Cairo University in Egypt, on June 4, 2009.[/caption]The reality is that Americas war on terror has relatively little to do with terrorism or national security and everything to do with Americas recognition that its culture and the corporatist ideology it imposes on the rest of the world is fundamentally at odds with the social and political imperatives which define even so-called moderate Islam, Grossman noted.
In effect, Obamas message, well-intended as it may have been, is that Muslims who assimilate and embrace the US establishments political agenda are welcome in the US and, by implication, the rest are on their own, he concluded.
By Press TV
