It is no surprise the Saudi
propaganda machine has come after US House Representatives Ilhan Omar and
Rashida Tlaib.
27 Jan 2019
"Saudi Arabia Declares
War on America's Muslim Congresswomen," a title ran in Foreign Policy
magazine recently, where we find out: "Gulf Arab monarchies are using
racism, bigotry, and fake news to denounce Washington's newest history-making politicians."
This is serious business.
The two Muslim women at the
centre of attention of the Saudi propaganda machinery are Palestinian American
Rashida Tlaib, the newly elected US representative for Michigan's 13th
congressional district, and Somali American Ilhan Omar, newly elected US representative
for Minnesota's 5th congressional district.
Naturally, many racist
conservatives in the United
States were upset with the election of two Muslim women to the US
Congress, and their run-of-the-mill xenophobia was expected. But the vitriol
Saudi-affiliated media outlets and commentators spewed was indeed
something new.
So, why would the Saudis, or
any other tyranny in the Arab and Muslim world whose very existence is dependent
on the benevolent generosity of the US military, pick up a fight with these two
newly elected members of the US Congress?
Aren't the Saudis "the
Custodians of the Two Noble Sanctuaries", as they call and thus
congratulate themselves? Aren't they supposed to be protectors and supporters
of all Muslims around the world?
According to the
FP, "academics, media outlets, and commentators close to Persian Gulf
governments have repeatedly accused Omar, Rashida Tlaib … and Abdul El-Sayed
(who made a failed bid to become governor of Michigan) of being secret members
of the Muslim Brotherhood who are hostile to the governments of Saudi Arabia
and the UAE."
So, there you have it, the
catchword: the Muslim
Brotherhood.
The bugbear of the Muslim
Brotherhood
The rise of the Muslim
Brotherhood in the US as a scary monster predates the brief fortune of leading
member and deposed Egyptian President Mohamed
Morsi. In the Arab world, however, it was in the aftermath of the Arab Spring that
the ruling regimes of Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
considered it their number one enemy. Because of Hamas (considered
a branch of the organisation), Israel, too,
joined these Arab states in their shared fear and loathing of political Islam. Through
a deliberate and sanctioned ignorance, these governments are reducing the
entire spectrum of resistance to their tyrannies to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Saudi Arabia and
its allies, the UAE and Egypt in particular, have launched a vicious and indeed
deadly campaign against the organisation. But this is not why they have come
after the two US Congresswomen.
Another article published on
the MinnPost explains: "Saudi loyalists aren't wrong that Omar is a
persistent critic of the Saudi regime. Recently, she's condemned the
kingdom over two crises that are drawing international scrutiny to the
secretive regime: the war in Yemen, and the death of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi."
Thus for their outspokenness
and open criticism, Omar and Tlaib are perceived as what Professor Mahmoud
Mamdani of Columbia University calls "bad Muslims" in his
remarkable study and subsequent book. By contrast, good Muslims - the ones
Saudi Arabia et al like - are those silently watching it massacre Yemenis and
cut Khashoggi to pieces while rushing to make ticket reservations for their
Hajj pilgrimage.
Noting these vicious attacks
against these young Muslim lawmakers in the new US Congress, Professor Mohammad
H Fadel of the University of Toronto pointed out a crucial issue: "The shocking
willingness to attack Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans and embrace American
Islamophobia reveal a deeper and more depressing state of affairs between the
Arab world and its expatriates."
But why should Saudis and
their allies be afraid of Muslim Americans? Well, they fear the Khashoggi
effect - too many Muslims exposing and criticising tyranny.
If America could be beautiful
While the Saudis and their
allies are scared witless of just two Muslim women, there are strong
indications that more will be joining Congress in the coming years.
The 116th Congress, of which
Omar and Tlaib are now members, is the most diverse in US history, with a
record number of Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans and the first
Muslim and Native American women to serve.
Before that, the 115th
Congress, and before it, the 114th, were also considered most diverse in US
history.
Increasing diversity of
political representation in the US is a clear trend and Muslim Americans are
very much part of it. Currently, there are some 3.4 million Muslims living in
the US (just over one percent of the US population), but the young generation
among them is emerging as exceptionally engaged in the public and political
arenas.
The majority of Muslim
Americans (76 percent) are first or second-generation immigrants, many
of them (or their parents) hail from lands that suffer under despotic rulers.
The Muslim American youth, being politically active at home, is also very much
vocal about the tyranny in their homelands (just like Omar and Tlaib are, and just
like Khashoggi attempted to be), readily exposing the deep corruption and
the evil banalities of the regimes that rule them.
And this is what is scaring,
not just the Saudi elites, but also the Egyptian, the Emirati, the Iranian, etc
regimes in the Arab and Muslim worlds which detest freedom of expression. They
would very much like these outspoken Muslim Americans back home where they can
arrest, jail, torture, and murder them in peace.
Muslims living in the US are
emerging as a peculiar vintage. Their small number is not a significant portion
of the population but their cumulative resistance to the diabolical Islamophobia that
is coming their way in their adopted country is making them stronger citizens
of a fragile democracy.
This historic opportunity has
turned Muslims living in the US (but also in Canada, Europe, and Australia),
where they face daily racist xenophobia, stronger agents in their respective histories,
and as such, they are serious threats to the countries of their origins and the
pathetic tyrants ruling them.
Today, not just Saudi Arabia,
but equally Iran, Egypt, Turkey, or Pakistan have lost their exclusive claims
on what it means to be a Muslim. Muslims around the globe who are not
living under tyranny have equal, if not larger, claims on their faith. The
theological and political implications of these small demographic changes are
enormous. In this sense, the hatred of the Saudis towards two Muslim American
congresswomen is just the tip of an iceberg.
The Saudi-Zionist alliance
It is not accidental that the
selfsame Muslim women that the Saudis and their allies hate are targeted by the propaganda machinery of major Zionist
outlets, which defame and demonise them because they take principled positions
on Israel, criticising its policies and supporting the Boycott, Divestment
Sanctions (BDS)
movement.
The Saudi-Zionist alliance now
runs deeply into the heart of the Arab and Muslim world. Ruling regimes from
Saudi Arabia to Chad are putting all their eggs in the Zionist
basket, hoping this would ensure their survival. Bad move. The power of the
Zionists over the US politics is seriously challenged, and Muslims are part of
a rising democratic will that will include the democratic aspirations of Muslim
nations in their agendas.
In addition to the
Zionist-instigated Islamophobia in Europe, Australia and North America,
Muslims on these continents face another abusive danger: Racist Islamophobes
abusing legitimate criticism of Arab and Muslim states in their warmongering schemes.
The crucial question of women's rights is
particularly vulnerable to this abuse and is often incorporated in the
aggressive demonisation of not just the ruling regimes (who are responsible for
the violations of these rights) but the entirety of Muslim and Arab cultures.
With Islamophobia from one
side, bourgeois feminism at the service of war machines on the other, and the
Saudi-Zionist alliance aiming to silence and kill voices of Muslim dissent,
Muslim living in the US and elsewhere have their work cut out for them.
There is no underestimating
the institutional and propaganda power of these nefarious forces. One must
celebrate the election of two Muslim women to the US Congress, but one should
not be too sanguine about their overnight success either. That the
Islamophobes, xenophobes, the Saudis and their regional allies are alarmed is a
good sign, but the battles ahead are mighty and mean. After all, for every
Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib in the US Congress there is a platoon of Nancy
Pelosis and Chuck Schumers in the back pockets of regressive, Islamophobic and
Zionist powers.
No comments:
Post a Comment