My, Aren't You Impatient! (Why I'm Not Worried About the GOP's Wins)

Once upon a time there was a house. It wasn't in awful shape, but it wasn't brand new. A man moved into this house and declared he was going to fix it. And then one day a neighbor blew up a part of it. It was pretty awful. But then the owner decided to go after a completely different neighbor. And then he ignored the house so he can go after the neighbor while not going after him at all. He did not maintain the paint, the pipes, etc. For eight years he did this, finally moving out.

And then a new guy moved in to the now dilapidated house, fully knowing the task ahead of him. He agreed to pay for the repairs--all of them. He had to try and be friends with the neighbors who didn't do anything but had come under fire from the previous owner. And after two years, though there was progress, it just didn't seem like it was enough--the house still looked in desperate need of fixing up.

Yesterday, the GOP took hold of the House in Congress. And the Democrats just barely kept control of the Senate. Across the country, people like Rick Perry and Rand Paul won over voters by simply playing up the fact that Obama hasn't done anything for this country and America still looks like it's in desperate need of some fixing up.

It's been two years since Obama took office. In those two years, he has stopped a recession (something that preceded his taking office by EIGHTEEN MONTHS--i.e. during Bush's reign). He has passed a health care bill despite the GOP's attempts to block it and now young adults can be covered by their parents' insurance until they're 26, there's a 100% coverage of preventive care, there's no more lifetime caps on reimbursements, and insurance companies must cover pre-existing conditions.

But beyond this incredibly huge achievement with the health care bill (something that has been pushed over and over since President Truman), Obama acted quite decisively and stopped the country from going into economic depression, after inheriting a mess from Bush. I know some of you have a lot to say about the decision to bail out those companies--but did you know all those loans were paid back in FULL with INTEREST? And economists agree it did not hurt the economy, albeit it had a mediocre effect. So argue all you wish about the problems with his stimulus law or the administration of TARP, but the actions taken were professionally handled, apparently necessary and, so far, more constructive than destructive. 

Mr. Obama has also helped engineer a big push for clean energy, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to reduce sex discrimination, tighter tobacco regulations aimed at the 1,000 Americans under age 18 who become smokers each day, and tighter financial regulation including reform of credit card rules.

But above ALL the above Mr. Obama has been stellar in one area crucial to our country’s future: education. Democrats historically have been AWOL on school reform because they are beholden to teacher unions, but Mr. Obama has reframed the debate and made it safe to talk about teaching standards and “bad teachers.” Until Obama, Democrats barely acknowledged that it was possible for a teacher to be bad. He used stimulus money to keep teachers from being laid off and to nudge states to reform education so as to benefit children for years to come. His “Race to the Top” focused states on education reform as never before.

And that's had more impact on education than years of Bush pushing "No Child Left Behind."

So why has his approval rating dropped? And why has the Tea Party, a political movement aimed at taking down the current government, gained 4 in 10 Americans' support? And how and WHY did the Democrats lose the House?

It's simple.

1. We don't hear about any of Obama's accomplishments in the media. The people who oppose him and all his actions keep the negative issues in the news--along with some ridiculous misconceptions (please, guys, look up the word "socialism" and don't use ANYTHING taxes pay for if you don't want taxes). And his supporters end up spending all their time defending those arguments and not highlighting everything he is doing right. Whether he's Muslim or not (and the fact that his father is Kenyan) only matters if you're ignorant. Period.

2.  And secondly, it's always easier to say you can do it better or that your way is going to work.

It's like when you're watching Jeopardy and get every answer right but the person on TV can't seem to get any--and you feel smart sitting at home and consider trying out for the show. Or when you're watching someone do something and get it wrong over and over and in the back of your head you're frustrated and thinking, "Just let me try. I can do it better."

The GOP and their subspecies the Tea Party think they can do it better. They can make the employment rate soar (something that Obama has helped steadily rise since 2008), they can be more productive, and they can do all this with little to no government intrusion.

And I, along with many Democrats saddened by yesterday's losses are saying simply, "Go. For. It."

Let's see what you can do differently in two years. And if you are successful in keeping that fear and hate for the Obama administration alive and you push him out of office, let's see what your people can accomplish in the next six years.

I'm not arguing that Obama is the best president this nation's ever seen. Or that I am completely satisfied with him. He hasn't kept his campaign promise on gay rights or done anything major in environmental law. But I can't ignore what he HAS done.

Being President of the Unites States by itself is a pretty hard job. But when you come into it after eight years of Bush's crazy reign with an economy in recession, a war, and a very disenchanted group of citizens, the job is a hundred times worse. Add a Congress that blocks every bill you want to pass, very blatant racism, and your religion always being up for debate and the job seems impossible.

As Mike Halpernin in Time Magazine said a few months ago, "Unlike Bill Clinton, especially early in his presidency, Obama has largely maintained control of his public image, preserved the majesty of the office (a job that has become harder than ever because of the toxic freak-show nature of our politico-media culture) and maintained good relations, in public and private, with the armed services brass, the intelligence community and law enforcement." 

So go for it, GOP.

We dare you.

Thank You, Pastor Terry Jones.

You heard me right. This is from a recent email I recieved.

Thank you, Pastor Terry Jones

For your service to Islam.
_______________________________

1. Thanks for making Quran a bestseller. More copies Qurans and were sold on Amazon, local and online Islamic stores, thus providing humanity an opportunity to read and ponder over God's guidance for humanity.

2. Thanks for the business. More people bought Islamic literature, along with the Quran, generating extra revenue for the Islamic stores.

3. More individuals visited the mosques to attend Muslim open houses and Islam presentations, thus receiving the wonderful message of Islam.

4. More individuals called on the GainPeace's outreach hotline800-662-ISLAM and inquired about the faith of Islam, giving Muslims an opportunity to explain Islam to our fellow citizens. You generated more publicity for Islam, then all our past outreach campaigns combined.

5. More people Googled the words 'Islam' and 'Quran'.The more that you spoke about Islam and the Quran, more people came to Muslim websites to learn about the truth of Islam.

6. Libraries were busy loaning out copies of the Quran. Yes, libraries across the USA, Canada and Europe were busy lend out copies of the Quran to its patrons.

7. Thanks for saving the Muslims advertisement dollars. The free publicity to the words 'Quran' and 'Islam', that you gave, Muslims could have spent millions of dollars but couldn't have generated the same publicity and attention of the media, and thanks to you, the word of God (the Quran) became a household word.

8. Thanks for waking up the Muslims. Muslim all across the world are now more passionate about the wonderful and peaceful faith of Islam and are eager to share it with their neighbors, colleagues, friends and humanity.

9. Thanks for encouraging more people to embrace Islam. We had more people calling, learning and embracing Islam in the past few weeks, then we ever had since the last 40 years.

10. Thanks for uniting the people of conscience, the Muslim, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, and the atheist, on the common platform of goodness, love and tolerance and against hatred, bias and bigotry.

Pastor Terry Jones, we pray that you actually read the Quran with an open mind and heart and ponder over its message of the oneness of God. If you love Jesus, follow the religion of Jesus, the religion of Jesus was Islam, submission to the The Creator. May God, enlighten you to the truth of Islam and that you start worshiping the One Creator as was preached and practiced by Prophets Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon them.

Dr. Sabeel Ahmed
Director
The GainPeace Project, USA

Muslim, American, and Silent

Years ago, when the sun came up on Eid (the end of Ramadan), my sister and I used to get up, shower, put on our new clothes that my parents had saved up for and bought and that we had carefully laid out the night before. My mother used to make a breakfast spread full of delicious fritters and milky, caramelled sweets. We had tea and exchanged presents. This was our tradition, what my parents had carried over from Bangladesh. We couldn't afford much in our shoebox apartment in Queens, New York. But this was absolutely the best part of the year for us. We didn't get Christmas or Easter like all our classmates did. We didn't even get the whole week off for Eid--but we DID get to skip school and get to continue the day going from house to house, eating, hugging, exchanging presents.

"This is your culture as well as it is your religion," my parents told me over the years. I didn't get what that meant then but at twenty-six I’m beginning to understand. My family isn't very religious, thrusting Allah and his words into my sister's and my every day life. But we embraced the Muslim culture. that meant I didn't need to have the answers as much as I needed to enjoy and practice the little traditions--the fried pakoras and samosas, sweet date fruits, new salwar kameezes to wear, accepting money from uncles and aunts, and of course, the endless hugging and "Eid Mubaraks." These are living, breathing practices, changing with time and as new members from other countries and religions were welcomed in. We are all spiritual, respecting how each of us in the family approach Islam. There are about a hundred of us now in Houston, ranging from newborns to senior citizens. And every year we do what we always do--cook all day, gather in different houses for different meals, and just have a damn good time.

"This is your culture as well as your religion."

That is the phrase I have carried with me since, believing in the spiritual connections between me and a higher power rather than the five pillars most Muslims believe in. I’ve accepted that I am a Muslim in a very loose sense, a Bangladeshi in the racial sense, and American in every aspect of the word. So I have never understood how just being Muslim--a small part of who I am--put me in the same box as those "other" Muslims--the ones who hate Christianity and Americans, hate this country, disrespect anyone--including me and my family--who does. We do not even call them Muslims. We refer to them as "oy gula"--"those others."

When a very conservative, Republican, and Christian co-worker of mine recently asked me why "my people" tend to be terrorists, I tried explaining to her the different aspects of Islam, the different cultures, the different people that are put under that umbrella. When she still insisted that all Muslims needed to take responsibility for that small group of extremists, I finally told her, "No, you’re right because you should admit Christianity breeds pedophiles." Her stammered and shocked response was that she was Christian, but not Catholic--which is a small part of Christianity--and those were a small group of individual priests and they were extreme--and then she stopped mid-sentence and I let the argument rest.

A few weeks ago when we first heard of the "Ground Zero mosque" in the news my family did not discuss it. We were silent on the topic. We claim being Muslim, yes, but we also have become Muslim Americans. And when an angry (white and presumably “Christian”) man on the news shouted, "This is OUR Ground Zero!" I remember thinking to myself, "It's my Ground Zero too." but I couldn't say that out loud--I felt like I wasn't allowed to. We all felt like we weren't allowed to. And then of course it came out that it was not a mosque but a community center. And it was not at ground zero but several blocks away. And the imam in charge of it was a Sufi, a spiritual, less strict version of Islam. "'Real Islam,' he has been quoted saying (and by this he meant Sufism), 'is about experience, not Shariah (law). It is about a heart-and-soul connection between the individual believer and God—the sort of love that sets your whole being into dance." (CNN.com ) The men and people who support the terrorism of 9/11, I can tell you right now, would NOT agree with him.

He too, like my family and me and probably about 99% of the other Muslims living here in America, believe there is us, the Muslims who came here for a better life freely, with dreams and toddlers and our lives in suitcases, and then there are the "others." and we don't accept the others, we don't claim them as our own. But here we are, fighting tea baggers and pastors who tell us that we are "others" too. We apparently don't belong on the side with the non-Muslim Americans.

Then came the Bangladeshi cab driver (something my own father was at one point) who was stabbed for saying he’s Muslim and it was like we were under war just for being, for existing as we always have—and how does one fight that?

When the planes crashed on 9/11, every Muslim American I knew was just as devastated and frozen in fear early that morning. But that was before we knew that the culprits were people who claimed to be Muslim like us. We were on the same outraged, angry, scared side as every other American glued to tv's at the beginning. We were just as in shock as everyone else, crying, waiting, shaking our heads. It wasn't until the names of the terrorists surfaced and the reports of al-Qaeda involvement came out that we were silenced. All of a sudden, the country we had made our own, the country we brought our traditions into freely and without fear, was a place of hate and criticism. All of a sudden, our anger at the twin towers falling, at the murders of all those people, was no longer valid. Our houses were getting egged, people looked at us in disgust at grocery stores, and our children couldn't even go to school.

It has been nine whole years and yet we're still not allowed to be American because we're Muslim. In fact, the ideology that if you're Muslim, you cannot also be American has been a fight our own (rather Christian) president has been faced with. (discovery.com) I stop myself from saying, "So what if he is Muslim?" all the time because the part of me that is still hurting from 9/11 realize that there are several hurt Americans who cannot and will not distinguish the "others" from the rest of us. Take that pastor down in Florida. This past week General Petraeus warned that if Pastor Terry Jones from Gainesville, FL burned those Qurans, there would be backlash across the ocean on our troops. A CNN poll showed that over 80% of Americans agree. And yet Pastor Jones insists it's to show radical Muslims "that we will not bow our knees to them." (cnn.com)

Really? Is that the message burning those Qurans is going to send? REALLY?

The Quran isn't the enemy, Mr. Jones. No one is blaming the Bible for your stupidity. Burning those Qurans will be like making fun of a bully's mother, a bully who has weapons and was already circling the playground waiting to beat the crap out of you. It’s simply NOT a good idea. And the bully's peaceful siblings may not condone the bully's actions but will still hurt when you insult their mother too. And that's not a good idea either.

"I don't pick up the Quran everyday and I can't recite it to you line by line," an aging relative told me the other day, "but someone burning it--no, no. that would hurt my HEART. It would hurt all of our hearts."

Tonight, Friday, September 10, 2010, my family and I--all 40-something cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles and family friends--will put on our new clothes, eat amazing meals, and hug each other, thankful we're together, that we have homes and love and jobs and health. But underneath it there might be a tiny bit of fear and the feeling that we are doing something wrong. This growing Islamiphobia in this country is going to dampen what has always been a wonderful celebration of faith, of culture, of who we are. But then again, maybe it won't. Maybe for one day at least we'll forget the intolerance and the hate we keep hearing about and just be--just be Muslim, American, and not silent about any of it.

And on September 11th, just like any other American, we will remember what those "others" did, how they caused us to be part of a fight we never agreed to. We will pray too for the lost lives and families left behind. But we may do this silently. Whether those Qurans burn or not, whether Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf gets to build his community center or not, we as Muslim Americans are already heartbroken. And we are, quite frankly, tired of fighting a fight we never signed up for.