Inside the glass house

NEW YORK - When the former Mayor of New York city, Rudy Guiliani, cleaned up the once notorious Times Square of sleazy porno shops, X-rated movie theatres and trashy streetwalkers, he shot up in popularity polls as a gutsy crime fighter.

Currently a Republican presidential aspirant, Guiliani was hailed as a conquering hero for getting rid of smut from city streets. Bent on making New York a family-friendly city, he even threatened to deal with extra-terrestrials -- if they had the misfortune of landing their space ships in his political backyard.
Asked at a town hall meeting how he will deal with the bad guys from outer space, he said: "Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens."

But ironically when the governments of two Muslim countries, Iran and Indonesia, crack down on pornography and sleaze -- never mind the aliens from outer space -- the leaders of these two countries are dismissed as crackpot fundamentalists purely for doing what Guiliani was doing -- driving the pornographers out of town.

Clearly, there is a double standard in using two different yardsticks to measure the same actions -- one by a US politician and another by so-called Islamic fundamentalists. Meanwhile, the anti-Muslim sentiments triggered in the aftermath of the terror attacks on New York city in September 2001 have refused to die down.

As the United States heads for a presidential election in November this year, most candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties are refusing to openly court Muslim voters in the country -- primarily because Muslims are still perceived, by some Americans, as being "terrorists" or "terrorist sympathizers".

Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), says "it should be clear to any candidate that American Muslims are a key group of voters who defy simplistic labelling and maintain an independent streak that should be taken into account by all those running for public office."

The only presidential candidate who appeals to most Muslims, who are primarily African-Americans, is Senator Barack Obama who is vying with Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama's father was a Kenyan, his mother a white American, and his stepfather an Indonesian. A rare mix of three different cultures in an American politician.

Last year, there were attempts to discredit Obama with charges that his early education was in an Indonesian madarasa -- an Islamic religious school. But a TV crew that went searching for political dirt came up negative.

The speculation was fuelled further when it was discovered that Obama's middle name is distinctly Muslim: Hussein. When a news reporter called Obama's office to check on the story, one of his aides said: "Yes, his middle name is Hussein," and jokingly added: "Like the Iraqi dictator" (Saddam Hussein).

As the presidential race continues to escalate in the US, there is also an outrageous whispering campaign that Obama will declare that he is really a Muslim -- once he is elected president. A Muslim at the White House?

In an equally subtle slip of the tongue, some American politicians have referred to Barack Obama as Barack Osama (as in bin Laden). And then apologised for the (deliberate?) slip up. In a dog-eat-dog race, political mudslinging is an all-too-common tactic. And the US is no exception.

Senator John McCain, the Republican front runner in the presidential elections, was not very receptive to the idea of a Muslim American president. Asked about the possibility of a Muslim running for president one day, he said: "Since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that's a decision the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith."

The misconceptions and misunderstandings of Islam in the Western world are primarily responsible for the growing anti-Muslim sentiments in the West. A survey of more than 28,000 respondents in 27 countries revealed last year that a violent clash between Islam and the West is not inevitable.

The survey, conducted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the University of Maryland's Programme of International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), and Globescan, found an average of 56 percent of respondents agreeing with the proposition that "it is possible to find common ground" between members of the two faiths, Christians and Muslims.

"Most people around the world clearly reject the idea that Islam and the West are caught in an inevitable clash of civilisations," PIPA director Steven Kull concluded.

A Muslim as US President?