With the US Presidential poll weeks away, American Muslims are today faced with a dilemma somewhat similar to the predicament of Indian Muslims. For most Indian Muslims until now voting for their “khula dushman” (open enemy) — the communal BJP – has not been an option. The question that has nagged very many Muslims is about what to do with their chupa dushman (hidden enemy) – the self-professedly secular Congress. But 10 years of Hindutva’s undiluted hate politics – mob lynching, bulldozer raj, websites ‘auctioning’ Muslim women, unchallenged public calls for go-to-Pakistan, economic boycott, even genocide – forced Indian Muslims to put aside their reservations and vote overwhelmingly for the Congress (‘lesser evil’) in the general elections held in June this year.
For American Muslims the choice today is between the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris and the Republican, Donald Trump: both ‘khula dushmans’ of Muslims. There is, of course, a difference between the Indian and American Muslim contexts. The Indian Muslim response has been based on their own bitter experience as citizens of India. On the other hand, uppermost in the mind of many American Muslims today is not so much their personal experience as citizens of USA, but the hypocrisy and the blatant complicity of the Biden administration in the year-long ongoing Israeli genocide of fellow-Muslims in Palestine and now Lebanon too.
The Democratic Presidential aspirant, Harris unreservedly defends the Biden administration’s unstinted support to the immoral, illegal, outrageous massacre of Palestinian men, women and children. She has even asserted that the biggest enemy of the US is not Russia or China but Iran. Several steps ahead of her, Trump is goading mass murderer Netanyahu to “finish the job” in Gaza and Lebanon and even launch a full-scale war against Iran.
So who should or will American Muslims vote for come November 5? Democrat Harris, Republican Trump, a third candidate with no chance of winning, or simply stay home on V-day?
Several influential voices among American Muslims are urging the community to go for Trump in order to teach Harris and the Democratic Party a lesson. Included among them, is a group of Imams in the US who an open letter quote the Quran while asking Muslims to shun Harris. A non-American analyst, Sami Hamdani has declared it is the “religious duty” of American Muslims to deny Harris their vote even if means victory for Trump.
The most brazen appeal to religion however has been made by the Green Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the coming polls, Buch Ware. Ware, a Muslim, has tweeted this dire warning: “The ‘Muslims’ that have come out in support of Harris, have inscribed their names on the tablets of eternity alongside that of Nimrod, Pharaoh, Caesar and Yazid. Every soul slain in Gaza has a claim against them on Judgement day. They better dress light – been hearing Hell is hot.”
The ‘Muslims’ in quotes clearly implies that Muslims who support Harris are nothing but fake Muslims who must await their fate come the Day of Judgement. Presumably Allah’s angels are keeping a close watch right now of what American Muslims are thinking and will record their deed on November 5.
Fortunately, there are saner voices too. The most compelling among them is that of the well-known journalist Mehdi Hasan. He ran his weekly ‘Mehdi Hasan Show’ on the American TV channel MSNBC until November 2023 when it was abruptly discontinued for his bosses could not stomach his bold coverage and commentary on the American complicity in the Palestinian genocide. He has since launched his own channel, Zeteo.
In a 9-minute long episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vOzUmqv-s)
, Hasan challenges those who are asking fellow-Muslims to abandon Harris. He clarifies that as a journalist it is neither his job nor intention to canvass support for Harris. He is only asking Muslims not to succumb to pressure from fellow-Muslims, and think clearly of what is at stake in the coming elections before casting their votes. He questions the wisdom behind the three main propositions and assumptions of the no-to-Harris camp.
Proposition One: Weaponising of faith, introducing religion in essentially secular political disputes. “The increasing invocation of the Quran to tell people to vote the right way, (is) emotionally blackmailing them into not voting for the Democrats and the accompanying insinuation that you are not a good Muslim, or not a Muslim at all, if you think of voting the candidate who is the lesser of two evils”. Hasan rightly asks: who can claim knowledge of what is in another person’s heart, who has the right to judge another person’s faith? While he does not mention it, there is also this to consider: Will such weaponisation of Islam hinder or help Islamophobia not only in the US but globally?
Proposition Two: Humbling of Harris will compel the Democrats to introspect and American Muslims will emerge a force to reckon with. Hasan questions the sheer naiveté and ignorance of how American politics works. He points to the 2000 US polls when American Muslims voted en masse for George W Bush. What happened next was the invasion of Iraq and the killing of half-a-million Iraqi Muslims. He next refers to the 2020 elections when having seen four years of Trump, Muslims voted for Biden. This, of course, has not come in the way of Biden’s unstinted support to Netanyahu.
Proposition Three: Underestimating the implications of Trump’s victory. Hasan asks: If Biden is complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine and Lebanon, what about Trump’s complicity with the Saudis in the genocide of Yemeni Muslims during his first term as president?
In his new book, War, the Watergate reporter Bob Woodward maintains that Trump is far worse than Nixon and, ‘the most reckless and impulsive president in American history.’
American Muslims who have endured four years of Trump earlier will survive one more term of his presidency, argues the non-American Samdani. That begs the question: should American Muslims be thinking only as members of a particular faith community? Should they not also be thinking as American Citizens, ponder over what another four years of the pro-genocide, pro-Netanyahu, racist, anti-Muslim, sexual abuse and felony convict, increasingly unhinged Trump mean would mean for all Americans and the rest of the world?