A Fifth Of All Americans Believe Obama Is A Muslim

[poliphilo]

50 years ago the sort of people who instinctively hate Barack Obama would have called him a commie. Now the enemy de jour is Islam, so he must be a Muslim. Apparently a fifth of all Americans believe this. He's brown, his middle name is Hussein, he doesn't namecheck Jesus as his personal Lord and Saviour every other sentence so he must be one of them. QED.

And somehow they're missing the obvious fact about him, that's he's the sort of pragmatic political person to whom any kind of ideology is beside the point. He's complex, he spends his life dealing with complex problems- and he knows the simplicities of the Bible and the Koran won't get him very far in framing solutions. If you could get him on the sofa in a moment of absolute candour he would probably tell you that he has far too much on his plate to give much thought to religion.

But ideological people- I was one once so I know- find it very hard to believe that their enemies aren't as ideological as they are .Life is a game of chess and we've chosen white, so that guy over there must be black, right?  Tell them the game isn't being played on a board, but in many dimensions, and they blink back in confusion.

It could be that the great struggle going on in the world today isn't a struggle between ideologies- left right, east West, Christian Muslim-  but between the ideologues- those who live in a dualistic world of right and wrong- and those who see life as full of complexity and ambiguity. It's a war between crazy conviction on the one hand and clearsightedness on the other. I'd like to say clearsightedness will eventually triumph, as- over the very long term- in spite of many setbacks-  it always has-  but I find I simply don't have the confidence.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that a lot of ordinary Americans can't figure out who (or what) he is, and saying that he's a Muslim or not born here is one way of expressing that sense that he's Not One Of Us.

As I think you know, I was creeped out by the first chapter of his book, The Audacity of Hope, when I read it in spring 2008. (It was disturbing enough that I had to put the book face-down so I wouldn't see his picture.) I haven't seen anything to reassure me since then. I am sure he's an American citizen, and I doubt he has any deeply held convictions, religious or otherwise. I think he's been interviewing for his next job (U.N. Poobah) ever since the election.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seemed a lot clearer what he stood for when he was running for office than it does now. He's the most elusive President you've had in a good long while.

I thought he was bright, but putting a date on the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the stupidest thing. As a liberal I'm disappointed at his failure to carry through on his promises to do liberal things- like shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

It's not just Americans who are puzzled.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The only truly honest thing he said during the campaign was that he was a blank slate onto which people could project their hopes and dreams.

Trouble is, no one believed him when he said he was a blank slate. Everyone was so caught up in the sparklies of Hope and Change.

My one consolation is that in a few years he'll be working at the U.N. and largely out of our hair.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But will his successor do any better?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Actually, things may get better here in a hurry after November. Annoying as our president is to me, it's really the Congress that has been making big economic mischief since 2006, and we're about to vote some of those bums out in November.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I expect all these things seem do-able before the American equivalent of Sir Humphrey gets to you and says "that would be very courageous, Mr President".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I gather, from things I've read, that an American president has less power to get things done than a British prime minister.