‘Secret Muslims,’ Open Bigotry Islamophobia in the 2008 presidential campaign
But with few exceptions, media have not reacted nearly as forcefully to the bigotry behind the rumor campaign on their own turf as they did when the tactic was tried in Poland. Instead, journalists often accepted the idea that there was something suspicious or bad about being Muslim by referring to the canard as a “smear” (New York Times, 1/17/08; ABC News, 12/5/07), an “unsubstantiated charge” (Washington Post, 6/28/08) or an example of “nasty and false attacks” (New York Times, 1/17/08).
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Just a month later, a website (Muslim Brotherhood Watch, 7/31/08, 8/1/08) alleged that Obama’s Muslim outreach coordinator Mazen Asbahi’s past involvement with the Ann Arbor Muslim Students Association, and his serving on the board of an Islamic trust—a role he had held for a few weeks eight years earlier—constituted ties to the U.S.
Muslim Brotherhood. Shortly after this online “exposé,” the Wall Street Journal (8/6/08) pointed out that an imam who was a past member of the Islamic trust board had been charged with (but never convicted of) fundraising for Hamas. Asbahi had resigned from the board after hearing of the charges against his fellow board member, yet this tenuous association was enough to prompt Asbahi to resign from the Obama campaign in anticipation of the distraction the media coverage would create.
Much has been made in the media about the unknown origins of some of the anti-Muslim rumors about Obama. The Washington Post (6/28/08), for instance, published a lengthy investigation of these email rumors under the headline “An Attack That Came Out of the Ether,” and CNN’s Joe Johns (CNN Newsroom, 7/15/08) has described the rumors that Obama is a Muslim as originating from “the dark side of the Internet.”
Islamophobia in the current election cycle may have started in “the ether,” but the record shows it has run into too little resistance from media and political elites, who have done too little to reject it, and in some cases served to advance it.
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Just a month later, a website (Muslim Brotherhood Watch, 7/31/08, 8/1/08) alleged that Obama’s Muslim outreach coordinator Mazen Asbahi’s past involvement with the Ann Arbor Muslim Students Association, and his serving on the board of an Islamic trust—a role he had held for a few weeks eight years earlier—constituted ties to the U.S.
Muslim Brotherhood. Shortly after this online “exposé,” the Wall Street Journal (8/6/08) pointed out that an imam who was a past member of the Islamic trust board had been charged with (but never convicted of) fundraising for Hamas. Asbahi had resigned from the board after hearing of the charges against his fellow board member, yet this tenuous association was enough to prompt Asbahi to resign from the Obama campaign in anticipation of the distraction the media coverage would create.
Much has been made in the media about the unknown origins of some of the anti-Muslim rumors about Obama. The Washington Post (6/28/08), for instance, published a lengthy investigation of these email rumors under the headline “An Attack That Came Out of the Ether,” and CNN’s Joe Johns (CNN Newsroom, 7/15/08) has described the rumors that Obama is a Muslim as originating from “the dark side of the Internet.”
Islamophobia in the current election cycle may have started in “the ether,” but the record shows it has run into too little resistance from media and political elites, who have done too little to reject it, and in some cases served to advance it.
posted by temporal at 11/13/2008
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