As President Barack Obama paused – while denouncing last week the notion of an American burning the Qur’an – to praise former President George W. Bush for his defense of Islam during the aftermath of 9/11, I wondered if he knew that was neither by accident, nor without an important unseen lesson.
While there are the historic images of Bush appearing at a mosque shortly after that tragic day, there are no recorded images of what has to be one of the strangest ironies in American history – a meeting that Bush had scheduled at the White House with a group of national Muslim leaders for that very day, September 11. The meeting was being convened, following several postponements, in follow-up to the Muslim community’s 2000 election support of Bush over Gore by virtue of a coalition of Muslim-American groups organizing for the first time in a presidential race a “Muslim bloc vote.”
As some of those Muslims leaders gathered that morning over breakfast at the Washington Hotel – directly across the street from the White House – to prepare for their 3 p.m. meeting with President Bush, images of an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center appeared on the hotel TV screens.
Needless to say, the meeting did not occur, as Bush, who was in Florida that morning, spent the afternoon hovering in the sky over a nation in fear, which had suddenly and unexpectedly entered a new era. The meeting did occur about two weeks later, though, and what was told to Bush then is what President Obama needs to be mindful of now.
Somewhere in the archives should be the main advice given by that group of 16 Muslim leaders (including myself) who met with Bush in the Roosevelt Room of the White House: that he should be careful to not let the nation make the mistake of associating Islam with terrorism. Judging by his words, Bush accepted the advice, saying often in his speeches that Islam was a religion of peace.
But the actions of his Justice Department spoke a different language, as every Muslim American, every Muslim-American political and social organization, every Muslim-American charitable group, and every mosque in America became a suspect in the so-called “War on Terror.”
The hastily passed legislation known as the “Patriot Act” proved nothing less than a license for the government to trump the constitutional rights of selected citizens because of their religion and ethnicity. Thus, FBI “roundups” of Muslims and Middle Easterners occurred; hyped and trumped up terrorism cases were prosecuted; Muslims from other countries were classified as unwelcome; and Muslim-American citizens, dating back for generations, were made to feel oppressed in their own country.
Because President Obama seems keen on “teachable moments,” this should be a teachable moment: to not just condemn the lunacy of desecrating a faith’s scripture, but to teach the American people about the Qur’an, to enhance our intelligence in and about the globally thinking world in which we are inescapably ensnared.
It should also be a teachable moment that Islam is inviolably an intrinsic and inextricable part of this political and social dynamic we call a nation – which means that we have moved beyond just symbolic gestures of Islam being tolerated in this country.
The president needs to teach, in words and deeds, the knowledge that Islam has been – at least since African Muslims were brought ashore in chains, on up through Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, to the seven million Muslim citizens today – a vital and positive part of American history and culture.
And also teach that if we are wise as a nation that is now beset with social, economic and other illnesses, then we will not burn the Qur’an, but instead read and understand its explicit and repeated message: that it is meant not just for Muslims, but for “all of mankind,” as a “guide” and a “cure.”
Eric E. Vickers is a board member of the American Muslim Alliance.
