{"id":123,"date":"2008-09-05T14:19:53","date_gmt":"2008-09-05T14:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/looking-at-the-rnc-through-mus.html"},"modified":"2008-09-05T14:19:53","modified_gmt":"2008-09-05T14:19:53","slug":"looking-at-the-rnc-through-mus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/looking-at-the-rnc-through-mus.html","title":{"rendered":"Looking at the RNC through Muslim eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"
If you listened closely during the various speeches at the RNC convention, you’ll notice that the times when the crowd was most animated was when Republican rage was focused on what Sen. John McCain calls<\/a> the “trancendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terorrism”. \u00a0Various speakers through the convention returned to this theme, which consistently galvanized the crowd. \u00a0“John McCain hit the nail on the head,” thundered<\/a> former Gov. Mitt Romney. “Radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it.” \u00a0 Rejecting calls to avoid using the term “Islamic terrorism” for fear of fomenting hostility towards Muslims, former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani was defiant<\/a>. \u00a0“Please tell me who they are insulting when they say Islamic terrorism,” he said. “They are insulting terrorists.”<\/div>\n
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(Note to Mr. Giuliani: \u00a0Terrorists who are Muslim love being called “Islamic”. \u00a0It gives them legitimacy. \u00a0“Terrorist” they don’t like so much, because they think they are freedom fighters. \u00a0You’d think this would be obvious.)<\/div>\n
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I don’t have a problem with fighting radicals who manipulate Islam for violent ends. \u00a0What I do have a problem with is that these Republican leaders, and the crowd they lather up, have such a vague defintion of “radical Islam” that it demonizes millions of law-abiding Muslim Americans in the eyes of their fellow citizens, few of whom could tell the difference between a radical Muslim and a peaceful one. \u00a0<\/div>\n
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I have a Muslim friend who has been a Republican for 30 years (surprisingly enough, there are an embattled few Muslim Republicans) who emailed the McCain campaign to get some clarification on exactly what they define as “radical Islam”. \u00a0To sum up the long answer that came back: there are up to 100 million radical Islamists in the world who are determined to kill us, and the US needs to resolutely defeat them. \u00a0No word on how to tell the radicals from the moderates, or if there is any solution other than a military one. \u00a0Just a recipe for open-ended war against an undefined enemy.<\/div>\n
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You might think, “Well, this is all for the cameras, and they’re just venting.” \u00a0But the crowd at the RNC (unfortunately) holds a significant amount of political power in this country. \u00a0Reinforcing the theme of Islam being the enemy will seep in at the convention and emerge later in the form of discriminatory surveillance, lopsided laws that treat Muslims as guilty until proven innocent, and and increased desire to bomb the hell out of any Muslim country that doesn’t toe the US line.<\/div>\n
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To tell you the truth, I don’t feel personally threatened. \u00a0In my experience, this country has far more reasonable people in it than the crowd chanting “USA! USA!” with anger in their eyes during Romney’s speech. \u00a0In the wake of 9\/11, far more Americans offered comfort to the Muslims I know than offered insults. \u00a0(No prize for guessing the political orientation of those two groups of people.) \u00a0But I am upset that politicians feel they need to resort to declarations of war to get themselves elected, and saddened that they are oblivious to the very real damage the cause to decent American citizens who work hard, pay their taxes, and don’t deserve to be lumped into the same category as those who perpetrated 9\/11.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you listened closely during the various speeches at the RNC convention, you’ll notice that the times when the crowd was most animated was when Republican rage was focused on what Sen. John McCain calls the “trancendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terorrism”. \u00a0Various speakers through the convention returned to this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-muslims","category-religion-in-the-public-square","category-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"\nLooking at the RNC through Muslim eyes - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/looking-at-the-rnc-through-mus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking at the RNC through Muslim eyes - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you listened closely during the various speeches at the RNC convention, you’ll notice that the times when the crowd was most animated was when Republican rage was focused on what Sen. 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Named one of ten \"Muslim visionaries\" by Islamica Magazine, Shahed's work and writings have been featured in magazines (Newsweek), newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune), radio shows (BBC News, National Public Radio, and major websites (BeliefNet.com). Television appearances include \"Nightline with Ted Koppel\", CNN Headline News, the \"Today Show\", and \"Hannity & Colmes\". Shahed is the founder of Halalfire Media, a network of Islamic-themed websites with nearly 6 million visitors annually. Along with altmuslim.com, signature properties include zabihah.com, salatomatic.com, halalapalooza.com, and unitedmuslims.org. He has also served as a board member for the United Muslims of America, the Muslim Public Service Network, and the Muslim Youth Camp of California. He is a general partner in Zakat Community Ventures, a startup \"venture philanthropy\" fund dedicated to promoting Islamic charitable values.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/samanullah"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}