{"id":59,"date":"2008-08-11T12:30:56","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T12:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/the-kevin-bacon-game-of-persec.html"},"modified":"2008-08-11T12:30:56","modified_gmt":"2008-08-11T12:30:56","slug":"the-kevin-bacon-game-of-persec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/the-kevin-bacon-game-of-persec.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama and the Kevin Bacon Game of Persecuting Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Obama Campaign, at it’s best, has not been about Obama. <\/span><\/p>\n

It’s been about a mass movement, a coming together of long time
\nactivists and newcomers, who have dared to restore hope to politics, to dream that
\nthere is a place in the arena of politics for the good. That’s what makes
\nthe character assassination and subsequent resignation of Mazen Asbahi from the
\nObama Campaign so hard to take, so bitter.  The lamentation has been heard
\nfrom many of the leading voices in both the Muslim and the Arab community. (See
\n<\/span>here<\/a> and <\/span>here<\/a> and <\/span>here<\/a>.) As it had been reported <\/span>on
\nthis blog<\/a>, Asbahi had been appointed by the Obama
\ncampaign as the designated contact with both the Arab and the Muslim
\npopulations, two distinct yet overlapping communities who have bore the brunt
\nof post-9\/11 xenophobia. It was a long-overdue yet important step to mirror
\nearlier connections and indeed commitments from the Obama campaign to Jewish,
\nCatholic, and evangelical communities.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yet almost as soon as this began, it was over. Asbahi was
\nforced to resign not due to anything he had done, not due to anything he had
\nsaid, but because of an immediate and deliberate attack on him started by
\nrightwing bloggers and picked up by the Wall Street Journal. At the center
\nof their charge, this accusation: for a period of about two weeks Asbahi
\nserved on the board of a charity, Allied Assets Advisors Fund, that also
\nfeatured an imam of a Chicago mosque who was connected to someone who may have
\nbeen connected to someone who might have possibly been connected to… 
\nyou get the picture. <\/span>The
\nlegal cases implicated in the above ended in a mistrial.<\/a> Yet apparently we are no longer in the realm of
\ninnocent until proven guilty. We’re no longer in the realm of fact, certainty,
\nor law. It is the absurdity of playing <\/span>the “Kevin
\nBacon” game<\/a> with the wellbeing and
\nrepresentation of persecuted communities like Arab-Americans and Muslim
\nAmericans.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Any political campaign that would want to find a legitimate
\ncommunity contact person would want to find someone like Asbahi, someone who is
\nrooted in a community, and is well-connected. And by the logic of the
\n“Six Degrees” game made famous through the actor Kevin Bacon, yes,
\nevery Muslim can be tied to another Muslim who can be tied to another Muslim
\nwho can be tied to… someone found not guilty of a crime.  By that logic,
\ncan we also implicate <\/span>Karen
\nHughes, who spoke before ISNA?<\/a> How about <\/span>Condi
\nRice who met with ISNA leadership?<\/a> And how
\nabout John McCain’s connections to John Hagee, of the maniacal “Christians
\nUnited for Israel”,
\nwith its support of right-wing Jewish settlers? Or to Rod Parsley, <\/span>who
\ntalks about eradicating Islam?<\/a> It is not
\nhard to play Kevin Bacon, and end up with not suspected evil, but actual
\nevil. Is this how we want to live?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The goal of the campaigns against Muslims and Arab-Americans is
\nmuch more sinister. It is no less than the disenfranchisement and
\nmarginalization of Muslims and Arab-Americans from the political
\narena. The blog that led the charge against Asbahi also identifies <\/span>other
\npotentially “Islamist” organizations:<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n