Recently, an Arab friend sent me a note written by Hassan Al-Husseini, a retired Arab-American editor who divides his time between Arlington, Va., and Saudi Arabia, explaining why he was voting for Nader. Al-Husseini expressed deep dismay in Obama’s collapse on Israel/Palestine and made some damaging comments about Obama’s fatherlessness.
I am intimately
familiar with a similar case to Obama’s: a Nigerian high official who
came to the USA in his youth, fathered a child from an American White
teenager, and then abandoned them to go on to other relationships.
Obama’s Kenyan Muslim father did the same with 4 wives and a concubine,
fathering 5 or 6 children, and died a crippled drunk from car
accidents. Some children are often scarred for life by such
irresponsible fathers.
I emailed Al-Husseini. I’d voted for Nader twice in the 90s and 2000, this time I’m an Obama man all the way. I have faith. Al-Husseini said this:
Over the past 20 years, a very close White female American friend’s son
graduated from Harvard with a PhD in ethnic studies. The young man’s
father is now a high Nigerian official who had abandoned his son and
unmarried mother from an early age. The father is a loser, the son a
winner. But the son lacks that father presence. That is what Louis
Farrakhan highlighted in his Million Man March.
Many studies
highlight the unusually high proportion of America’s 2 million
prisoners who are Black males, the result of fatherless families. I
know that we have many problems in Arab and Muslim societies, but the
strict aspects of Islamic values, like the Catholics, have afforded
some protections against some of the worst excesses of human behavior…
Obama
reflects some double personality or schizophrenia in his policies. He
has embedded in his campaign a core of extreme Zionists who want to
make Obama more extreme that Benjamin Netanyahu… Obama can easily tone down his hard-core,
pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian rhetoric. He did not need to issue a
letter to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations supporting Israel’s
starvation of the people of Gaza when they broke through at Rafah to
get food, water, fuel and medicines. He did not need to pander to AIPAC
after he won enough votes to gain the Democratic nomination. He does
not have to denounce his Muslim connections…
Although
I am not a practicing nor a fanatical Muslim, I do see the bashing of
Islam. I have respect for the Nation of Islam of Elijah Muhammad and
Louis Farrakhan. They have succeeded in drawing fallen Blacks from
prisons, drugs, alcohol, smoking and womanizing into hard work, clean
and honest living. I heard the major speeches of Rev. Wright, and he
was somber, serious, coherent, moderate and generally good. I invite
you to google his speeches and the PBS Bill Moyers interview….
I
am a life-long student of the American political system. While I admire
and uphold the ideals in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, in the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we cannot overlook the ethnic
cleansing and genocide committed against Native American Indians, the
enslavement of Africans, the colonisation or domination of parts of
Latin America and Southeast Asia, and finally the abuse of the Arabian
and Iranian Middle East. That is what Rev. Wright said. He also
defended Israel’s right to security, but called for respect for
Palestinian rights.
Myself I think politics is the art of the possible, that’s why I’m for Obama. He’s the best hope still, I say. I’m thrown by Farrakhan’s antisemitism, and his and Elijah Muhammad’s authoritarian streak. Chilling. I told Al-Husseini that Obama’s fatherlessness gives me sympathy for him. His first book is a great one, on this theme. Though it does speak to a “hole in Obama’s soul,” to paraphrase New Age thinking on this score. Al-Husseini responded.
I sympathize with Sen. Barack Obama, whose African father abandoned him
and his mother at a young age to pursue his personal ambitions. It is
clear that Barack overcame his tragic beginnings with the love of his mother and American grandparents. He went on to make great
achievements. He has proven a dedicated husband and loving father
himself. But in this presidential campaign, he is being forced to
abandon many of his Arab-American and Afro-American friends in pursuit
of his own ambitions. His policies of political convenience are
beginning to worry me and others….
After 60 years of the
Arab-Israeli conflict, Barack Obama was the hope of bringing change and
peace to this festering and dangerous area of U.S. foreign policy. His
African and Muslim connections were supposed to add to his
understanding of global human problems. His dedication to the U.S.
Constitution should uphold his commitment to democracy and humanity.
But it seems he is developing a blind spot for bringing Muslims and
Jews together, or healing Arab and Israeli wounds. This inconsistency
does not bode well. He has been adding fuel to the fire.
