While most blacks regarded George W. Bush with skepticism as a presidential candidate in 2000, as the US prepares to launch a military strike on Afghanistan, African American leaders, like most Americans, have rallied to support the Commander-in-Chief.

In the 2000 election, Bush's rival, Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, won 90 percent of the black vote to Bush's 8 percent, and black suspicion of Bush only grew after reports of voter irregularities and allegations of black voter disenfranchisement in Florida. In the opening months of his presidency Bush tried to counter widespread African American mistrust by making minority political appointments and backing policies most African Americans support, such as educational reform. But these overtures did little to win over most blacks.

And when the Bush Administration decided to pull out of the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in August, the move solidified the suspicion among black leaders that Bush was not serious about issues of concern to African Americans.

"Black leadership was geared up to make a stand against Bush after the UN conference on race," said Dr. Robert Smith, a political scientist at San Francisco State and the author of "We Have No Leaders," which discusses black leadership in the US.

But all that changed as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the wake of the deaths of more than 6,000 people, and at a time of fear and insecurity, black political leadership has been largely supportive of President Bush.

Following the President's national address two weeks ago, a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll reported that 90 percent of Americans approved of President Bush, the highest presidential job approval rating ever measured by Gallup. While specific statistical black support for President Bush and his performance is not known, black leaders have expressed their support for Bush or have muted their previous criticism of him. Within Congress, only US Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, voted against granting President Bush the authority to strike back at the alleged perpetrators of the terrorist attack.

"I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States," said Lee from the House floor. "This resolution will pass, although we all know that the President can wage a war even without it."

But Lee's colleagues Maxine Waters, Juanita Millender-McDonald, Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Bobby Rush, all of whom normally vote with her on defense and military issues, disagreed with Lee's position and chose to support the president. "Black leadership has been with Bush, because this was an attack on us [America]," explains Smith. First of all, there were a lot of blacks killed in the terrorist attacks. Many also feel that the persons involved in the attacks have to be punished for this.

The unified, and unifying, sense of outrage has led Congressional leaders who are usually the president's fiercest critics to speak favorably on his resolute handling of the crisis.

"The president has done an adequate job in terms of leadership," said Millender-McDonald, adding that she would give Bush a 75 to 85 percent approval rating for his handling of the crisis. She said his sternness in the face of adversity has calmed the nation, and she praised the way in which he has stressed the theme of national togetherness.

In a similar reversal, black civic and religious leaders have also expressed support and encouragement for Bush. At the NAACP convention in July, Julian Bond, the Chairman of the NAACP, was highly critical of the Bush administration, saying that Bush's top judicial nominees hailed from the "Taliban wing" of the Republican Party, whose "devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."

But since September 11, Bond has changed his tune.

"We praise President George W. Bush for his visit to Washington's Islamic Center and his forthright stand against hate crimes and racial and ethnic profiling," Bond said. Even Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, known for his relentless criticism of US governments and American foreign policy, struck a supportive note in his remarks on the attacks and the Bush administration's response. Speaking at a September 16 press conference at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Minister Farrakhan noted that an America once sorely divided after the 2000 election had been united by the unprecedented tragedy.

"The Congress has been deeply divided, and no amount of political skill or political money could unite America behind its President, but tragedy did," said Minister Farrakhan, who spoke while flanked by American flags. "No amount of political skill could unite the Democrats and the Republicans, but tragedy did. No amount of preaching by all of us who preach could make the many diverse elements of society come together as brothers and sisters in a unified expression, but tragedy did."

And while the NOI rhetoric has not historically embraced a sense of American patriotism, Farrakhan seemed proud to claim and defend his US citizenship and heritage. "I was born in this country in New York City, he said. And though the pain that black people have suffered in America has caused me to be angry with the country of my birth, however, in my maturation, I know that with all of America's problems, she's the greatest nation on this earth. And in spite of America's problems, America has the potential to become the greatest nation ever."

Farrakhan said he supports President Bush's effort to bring to justice the individuals or governments responsible for the attacks. "We stand with President Bush, the government and the people of the United States in their desire to hunt down those responsible for this heinous crime against humanity," he said.

Similarly, immediately after the attacks, the Rev. Jesse Jackson quieted his criticism of Bush.

Political analysts like Smith believe that most black leaders and citizens will remain behind Bush as long as he is focused on apprehending and punishing the perpetrators of the terrorist acts.

Bush has a free hand to retaliate any way he wants to, in regards to bin Laden and Afghanistan, said Smith. But, he added, this could change if such retaliation develops into extended military action in other regions of the Middle East. If he goes beyond that, in terms of attacking Syria or Iraq, then I think you will see some objections from black leadership, added Smith.

Date: 29 March 2006

It has been five years since 9-11, and the results have been as much as some feared, but there has also been good. We have witnessed a dramatic increase in anti-Muslim sentiment on the part of some Westerners, and a corresponding anti-Western, anti-American hardening of attitudes among many Muslims.

One of the most severe critics of Islam that I have seen is Serge Trifkovic, a Serbian Christian who fears and hates Islam from its beginning to today. Some of his criticism is probably based on legitimate issues, and others of his attacks have at least a partial basis in fact. However, his slant and bias is such that he seems blind to every positive attribute of Islam, and obsessed with every negative flaw, no matter how minor, and no matter how much every other religion may also be guilty of the same flaw.

I do not mean to gloss over any matter needing correcting. But I do think some of Trifkovic criticisms need to be answered, or at least put into balance. Take a look at what he says:

"It was a rude awakening for the Muslim world, after the phenomenal success of the earlier centuries, to find itself by the early twentieth century on what looked like the losing side of history. It was even more difficult to explain the decline, bearing in mind the Kuranic promise that the Umma consisted of the best of all people. The many weaknesses produced the sense that something had gone terribly wrong, but it did not result in creative self-examination. The question never was 'What have we done?' but always 'What have they done to us?' [resulting in blame of western imperialism, Jews, etc]" [Page 185]

What was the phenomenal success of earlier centuries? Trifkovic quotes John Docker, who specifically references the Judeo-Islamic culture of pre-1492 Moorish Spain, which permitted and relished a plurality, a convivencia, of religions and cultures. There was an inclusiveness, a cosmopolitanism. [Page 182]

While pretending to deny that there was ever a Golden Age of Islam, Trifkovic even tries to call such a Golden Age "mythical," he nevertheless concedes that "There have been times ... when some Muslim lands were fit for a cultivated man to live in. Baghdad under Harun al-Rashid, ... or Cordova very briefly under Abd ar-Rahman in the tenth century, come to mind." Trifkovic seems unable to deny the achievement of the second dynasty of the caliphate, that of the Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads and ascended to the caliphate in AD 750. Sharing the spotlight for this exceptional period, Trifkovic mentions by name the three Persians al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna. [193] And in Spain, Averroes, as well as the Jew Maimonides, and Ibn Khaldun. "A Christian, Constantine 'the African' and a native of Carthage, translated medical works from Arab into Latin, thus introducing Greek Medicine to the West." (He translated Hippocrates and Galen)

He seems almost to want to praise Farabi (the author of The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City).

Trifkovic refuses to give Islam any credit for the insights of Sufism, in fact, he calls Sufi mysticism to be quite un-Islamic. "Sufism was a mystical rebellion against the spiritual rigidity of Islam." It "sought to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of Allah...... It is akin to mystical sects everywhere." [Page 194]

Trifkovic conveniently ignores the fact that Sufis themselves most certainly regarded themselves as fully Muslim, fully true to Islam.

But much of Trifkovic' book is absorbed with the innumerable atrocities of Islam, its oppressions of women, its enslavement of black Africans, its Christian-slaying and Jew-hating, the Caliph Umar's burning of the Alexandria library, the barbarity of today's Wahhabism or Shi'ite radicalism.

Top Saudi cleric calls for bridges, dialog
Most American Muslims denounce extremism
Discrimination and prejudice hurting US muslims
Benazir Bhutto and others speak out: the REAL Islam
"A Princess Diana" for our generation: Rania of Jordan
Islamic traditionalism gets a bad rap, here's two sides
Africa at the Crossroads : the martyr Sadat, hero for peace
Christian and Muslim dialogue over Bible being encouraged
American Christian calls for compassion, forgiveness, peace

---

The Qu'ran does not hate Jesus
~ the man in white ~
To the contrary, Islam has always had the highest respect for the man Jesus, Isa al Masih -- the man in white. If anything,
the witness of Islam stands as a gentle rebuke to the complacency, even the spiritual smugness of the Christian faith through history.

Who is --- the man in white?
~ Isa al Masih ~