by Wafa Sultan
I love America as few people do, and my love for it makes me feel concern for it. I do not want any danger to threaten the safety or beauty of this country that rescued me from my fears and fed me when I was hungry.
In the course of my life here I have witnessed five presidential election campaigns. I watched the first four on television without experiencing any profound sense of involvement. Until this most recent election I regarded American politics as a luxury that did not concern me: What I had already achieved was enough to satisfy me emotionally, physically, and intellectually, and anything beyond that was much more than I required. All aspects of my life seemed to me so like a dream that I almost had to pinch myself to reassure myself that this actually was real life.
I came to believe that the might of America was much greater than whatever president—Democratic or Republican—happened to be in power. America is a regime, a legal code and a moral authority—a vast entity that no one can harm. I believed that any person who attains the rank of presidential candidate had to be great, regardless of party affiliation, and that he or she would genuinely be capable of leading this great nation.
Although candidates’ policies might differ, I felt an odd sense of reassurance that each of them would do his or her best for this country and that it was impossible that America would produce a person who, after reaching such high office, could prove unworthy of it. Because of this, I never took the trouble to inquire which candidate was the more worthy of victory; for me it was a mere toss-up, and a matter of indifference if the result were heads or tails.
For me America was—and still is—leaving home at five a.m. and making my way to Starbucks for my morning cup of coffee without fear that someone might see me and accuse me of immoral behavior.
America for me means saying “good morning” to my neighbor and chatting to him for a few moments without being accused of having spent the night with him.
America for me means that my daughter can come home and tell me that she’s had lunch with her boyfriend without being beaten for having impugned the family honor.
America means I can wear what I like, eat what I like, and go where I like without anyone’s interfering in my decisions.
America means I can buy new shoes before my toes begin to peep out of the old ones and that I can buy new clothes without having to deprive my infant son of milk for a week.
America means calling a government office and hearing a polite voice say: “Good morning, this is Jessica, how can I help you?”
America means I can go into a public washroom, find it equipped with running water, soap, and paper towels, and not have to wade through another person’s waste.
America means getting smiled at by a stranger just because our glances have met.
America means spending the day with my family in a beautiful public park without getting eaten alive by flies or being surrounded by piles of garbage at every turn.
America means that the stranger who bumps into me accidentally says, “I’m sorry, I do apologize!”
America means I can enter a place of worship and listen to the sermon without hearing other religious denominations being vilified.
America means someone can knock at my door and I can decide whether or not to open it without having to fear for my life.
America means I can lodge a complaint against the policeman with whom I have had a difference of opinion, in broken English mixed with Arabic, and—possibly—win my case.
America means I can speak Arabic-inflected English and people who hear me will tell me, “You do speak English well!” without the slightest hint of mockery or scorn.
America is the hearing aid my son received in the first week after his arrival in the United States, restoring his hearing after nine years of deafness in Syria.
America means that I live in a street with people of nine different nationalities and that, when American Independence Day brings us together in the public area in front of our homes, each of us brings along his or her national dish for the others to taste.
America means I can live my life and no one will judge me because of my color, gender, race, religion, political opinions, or country of origin; instead I am evaluated on my work and my personality.
America, to put it very briefly indeed, is my freedom.
People have asked me in the past, and many more will ask me after they read this book: “Why don’t you see America’s bad points?” Perhaps I am blind, but I can see no bad points in America. In order to understand my perspective, of course, you would have to be a woman who has lived in Syria or another Muslim country for thirty years! This is why I never take the plunge into politics and why, up until now, the election of a president seemed to me a mere intellectual luxury for which I feel no pressing need. When it comes to presidential elections, my conviction remains what it was: Anyone in America who manages to become a presidential candidate is a true American and America has nothing to fear from a true American. The events of September 11, 2001, however, have colored my thoughts on this, somewhat, and influenced my way of thinking. It made me wonder how well America understands Islam and the possible consequences of misunderstanding it.
The events surrounding this most recent election have increased my misgivings, and my anxieties for this country that I love with all my heart have grown proportionately. Foremost among these was President Obama’s Muslim background. Everyone knows that he was born of a Muslim father, spent part of his early life in a Muslim country, and attended a Muslim school. This was not what concerned me: President Obama’s assurances that he is a Christian were enough to allay any doubts I might have had, together with my conviction that any American capable of being a presidential candidate is an American worthy of my trust—and this conviction of mine remains valid today.
Obama’s curse, for me, is his middle name: Hussein. Why? Islamists who grasp the true nature of Islam and believe absolutely that they have a divine mission to take over the whole world one day regard Obama as a heaven-sent sign that they are no more than a stone’s throw away from realizing the dream they live for. They are engaged in a constant search for anything that seems to them divinely inspired, and read what they seek into things that would perhaps not appear significant to an American.
Once, when I was browsing through a Web site in Arabic, I came across a news item announcing that the American actress Halle Berry had had a daughter on whom she had bestowed the Arabic name of Nahla (“bee”). Then I read readers’ comments on this piece of news. Believe it or not, a considerable number of readers were jubilant, as they regarded the event as a sign from God that Islam had begun to advance into America, because the word nahla is mentioned in the Koran. The Islamists are not particularly interested in whether Obama is a Muslim or not: The fact that the American president bears a Muslim name like Hussein is enough to convince them that Islam is marching into America and has already infiltrated the White House.
Every day my inbox was flooded with dozens of e-mails full of rumors about Obama that reflect some Americans’ fears regarding the Democratic candidate’s Muslim background. I read most of them, and I won’t disguise the fact that they alarmed me; however, they never succeeded in changing my convictions. I had no fears at all for America, during the campaign, about the prospects for an Obama victory. I had every confidence in him during the election and I still do. My fear for America was that a victory for Obama could breathe fresh life into Islamic terrorism because of what his middle name might suggest to those watching in Islamic countries. Still, I was sanguine until the day when I watched an interview with former Secretary of State Colin Powell on NBC’s Meet the Press.
For me this interview was a turning point. I was shocked by a remark made by Mr. Powell that had nothing to do with the subject at hand. Mr. Powell expressed his displeasure at the McCain campaign’s accusations that Obama was a Muslim, and retorted, “And what if he were? What would be wrong with that?” At that moment I felt as if the room were spinning around and I held on
to my chair, afraid I might fall. This remark poured salt on my wounds and posed a question: If Colin Powell doesn’t know what it means for the American presidential candidate to be a Muslim, then who does? The man who had once held the post of American secretary of state couldn’t see what was wrong with America’s choosing a Muslim president, even though it is the country that has suffered most from Muslim terrorism and paid the highest price because of it. Until that moment I had considered Mr. Powell one of the giants of American politics. To me he was as majestic as the American eagle. But in that moment, sadly, I saw the eagle topple from its lofty peak and tumble down in front of me like a little bird. And with it tumbled many of my convictions.
I know that Mr. Powell, who lives by the American moral code on which he was nurtured, refuses to judge people on the basis of their religious affiliation, and that is his right. But he does not have the right to be ignorant or to disregard the fact that Islam is not just a religion: It is a political doctrine that imposes itself by force, and we have to subject to microscopic scrutiny any Muslim in America who ascends to the heights of this sensitive and supremely important post.
I would not want anyone to regard what I am saying as anti-Muslim prejudice. Muslims, like anyone other national group, can be either good or bad, and the best among them do not act in accordance with the teachings of their religion, either because they are not familiar with them, or because they have deliberately progressed beyond them; but to understand what it would mean for a Muslim to become President of the United States, one must search through Islamic history—the history of the Arabs, which is my own history—for a Muslim leader and look at his actions.
The first and most obvious Muslim leader we meet in our search is Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. Had Mr. Powell read the life of Muhammad, as it is recounted in the Arabic sources and as I learned it in my schooldays, he would fall down in a dead faint. In third grade at primary school I read with pride in our religious primer how Muhammad had beheaded eight hundred Jews from the Bani Quraiza tribe in one night, then taken their wives and children hostage, and spent that same night with the Jewish woman Safia, whose husband, father, and brother he had just killed. This is only a drop in the ocean of what was written about the crimes of Muhammad in the Arabic sources, but, unfortunately, Mr. Powell—it seems—has never troubled to familiarize himself with the most malicious enemy ever to have confronted him or threatened his safety. Once Americans understand that the Koran insists that Muhammad is the ideal that every Muslim male should imitate, they will realize that a Muslim candidate for the American presidency is a very serious matter.
If America had used a small and insignificant proportion of what it has spent on the war against terrorism to fund the translation of so far largely untranslated Islamic dogma and history from Arabic sources, it would have saved itself billions of dollars—let alone a great deal of wasted time and spilled blood. America will never win the war until Americans read about Islam from Arab sources, word for word, without distortion or falsification. Reading this material will enable them to draw their own personal conclusions and help them to understand what kind of enemy they are facing. If Colin Powell becomes one of the people who reads these translated sources and sees the hate and violence they contain, he will bite his lips and say to himself: “I was ignorant of the true nature of my enemy, and this was my worst failing.”
After the events of September 11th, I watched a press conference with an American general whose name I can no longer recall. In the course of the conference, he declared that he had read the Koran twice, and one of the reporters asked him, “What conclusion did you reach after you had read it?” He bowed his head for a moment before replying, “We have to defend ourselves.” At this point I have to ask, “Mr. Powell why won’t you stand up and defend us and the country you love?”
President Obama has declared that he is not a Muslim and I believe him; but if he were a Muslim, things would be different. I and every other loyal American would have to adopt a different attitude. Islamic teachings include the notion of taqia (literally, “caution, prudence”), which allows a Muslim to conceal his true feelings and cherished beliefs when he feels that non-Muslims around him have the upper hand, while at the same time working secretly to achieve his great objective, so that he can attack them when the time is ripe. Naturally, not all Muslims believe in this principle or act in accordance with it, but the painful truth is that the West has to defend itself and try to subject every Muslim to microscopic scrutiny, especially those who are candidates for the leadership of the most powerful country in the world.
No one can be a true Muslim and a true American simultaneously. Islam is both a religion and a state, and to be a true Muslim you must believe in Islam as both religion and state. A true Muslim does not acknowledge the U.S. Constitution, and his willingness to live under that constitution is, as far as he is concerned, nothing more than an unavoidable step on the way to that constitution’s replacement by Islamic Sharia law.
The Koran says: “Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends. They are friends with one another. Whoever of you seeks their friendship shall become one of their number. Allah does not guide the wrongdoers” (5:51). Would a Muslim candidate for the American presidency be able to put his trust in Jews and Christians if he believes they are not fit to be his friends and protectors? This is a question I leave to Colin Powell to answer, and when I get the right answer from him I will be reassured that America is in safe hands.
On November 4, 2008, after a very difficult labor, the American people elected Mr. Barack Obama as their president. That very same day my daughter Farah suffered a very difficult labor, too, and, after exercising my right to vote, I rushed to the hospital to be with her. In the labor ward I was cut off from the outside world for the entire day, and the night that followed seemed very long. I sat beside my daughter’s bed holding her hand, trying to alleviate her labor pains.
On the morning of the following day, November 5, my first granddaughter, Jazlyn, was born, and her cries mingled with the voice of Mr. Obama issuing from the television set in my daughter’s room. In the excitement of the moment, the words of the news commentators: “This could happen only in America” lingered in my mind throughout the president’s acceptance speech. It’s true. Only in America could a member of a minority be elected by a majority.
And only in America could a girl be born of mixed races, then acquire a new citizenship totally unconnected with her origins. America is the land of dreams—and what’s more, it is the only country where every dream can come true.
I can almost hear the voices of American television announcers forty years from now telling the world: “Wafa Sultan’s granddaughter Jazlyn has been elected president of the United States.”
Who knows? One can dream, can’t one?
And perhaps in that selfsame year muezzins will announce from the minarets of Syria: “Wafa Sultan’s efforts have been crowned with success, and a new god has been born: a God who loves.”
Until then, I hope and I pray and I fight and, yes, I dream a little.
