The most striking part of Colin Powell's interview with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press Sunday was not his endorsement of Barack Obama but rather his disapprobation of the political tactics of the Republican party in trying to associate Obama with the specter of the 9/11 terrorists.
I have long admired Colin Powell, but I have never admired him more than on this past Sunday when he stated that he was troubled by the “approaches” of the McCain campaign and the efforts of the Republican party to taint Senator Obama with the insinuation that he is a secret Muslim and therefore potentially a terrorist sympathizer.
In Powell's words, the party has created an atmosphere in which:
It is permitted to be said such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.
But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America.
Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?
Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
Yet it is not just the more recent threat of Islamic terrorism that Republicans are seeking to evoke in this smear campaign, but also the older, deep-seated association of “radical” black movements and figures from the 60's like Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and The Nation of Islam.
If Republicans can create enough links between “black,” “Muslim,” “radical,” “socialist,” and “terrorist,” in the minds of voters, already nervous about Barack Hussein Obama's uncommon name and mixed race origins, they believe they can frighten them into voting for John McCain or at least into staying away from the polls.
What Colin Powell states powerfully is the fundamental American belief, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that Americans should have the right of free association, and that no one should be tainted or smeared because of their association with an individual or group that happens to be unpopular.
Sadly, in contemporary America, where the drumbeat against the threat of terrorism has generated suspicion of anyone who appears to be of Middle Eastern origin, as a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama has not dared to enter a mosque and has met leading Islamic figures privately rather than openly.
This has left many Arab-Americans feeling rejected by both parties, even as many also feel the need to forge a common voice in the American democratic polity.
“'What's upsetting to me is you're completely discounted by both parties,' said Ahmad Ezzeddine, an associate vice president at Wayne State University” according to a recent Boston Globe article. “Ezzeddine, who immigrated to the US from Lebanon 20 years ago, said he voted twice for President Bush, but now feels politically orphaned, adding, 'There's no attempt to reach out. Obama wants us, but is so afraid because he doesn't want to be labeled, and the Republicans . . .'” (Michael Paulson, “Arab Americans Yearning,” Boston Globe, October 21, 2008, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/10/21/arab_americans_yearning/?page=1).
Since the Powell endorsement, Republican campaigners have simplified the guilty by association tactics even further by talking about the “pro-America” parts of the country and in the case of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, a call not only to investigate the “anti-American” aspects of Barack Obama but of the entire Congress.
Now by extension we can accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim, radical, socialist, terrorist, anti-American. The perfect bogey-man, made-up and marketed on every TV channel just in time for Halloween.
But it's not just the guilt by association tactics that should concern every American but the associations that are being tainted with guilt. It is no crime to be of Arab descent in this country, and no Arab American should be suspected of any criminal activity simply because that individual is of Arabic descent. Arab Americans are a diverse group in themselves, comprising both Christians and Muslims, and representing a wide geographic distribution from the horn of Africa to the Arabian peninsula.
After November 4th, these ugly campaign tactics will likely cease, but the rhetoric that sees every person who looks Middle Eastern as a Muslim and that suspects every Muslim of terrorist sympathies will continue to infect our public discourse until more of leaders find the courage of a Colin Powell to say: “Let every Muslim American child and every Arab American child dream that he or she can be be President of the United States, and let us make certain that those dreams can become a reality by overcoming our fear.”
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