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"Certainly Muslim Americans see the success of Barack Obama's campaign as a vote for hope," said Younis. (Google) |
CAIRO — Smear campaigns that Barack Obama was a Muslim in disguise have energized Muslim voters across the United States to vote overwhelmingly to the Democratic presidential candidate, experts have agreed.
"It was perfectly all right to call him Muslim, to call him Arab, because that was a smear that we haven't said as a nation: 'That's not OK,' " Jen'nan Ghazal Read, an associate professor of sociology at Duke University, told the Chicago Tribune on Friday, November 7.
"Maybe [Obama's election] will bring that to the fore. It's not OK to say Muslims are not American. They are as American as anyone else."
Obama was elected America's first black president on Tuesday after crushing his Republican rival John McCain.
According to a survey by American Muslim Task Force for Civil Rights and Elections, nearly 90 percent of American Muslims voted for Obama while only 2 percent cast ballot to McCain.
Preliminary Gallup polls reflect similar numbers.
Obama's middle name, Hussein, and a picture of him in a traditional Somali garb during a visit to his father's homeland Kenya in 2006 stoke the "Obama is a Muslim" flames.
For weeks, he had to put up with news reports and rival remarks of being a Muslim in disguise.
Former secretary of State Colin Powell has criticized Republican smear campaigns against Obama, saying it was OK if Obama was Muslim.
Obama is the son of a Muslim-turned-atheist Kenyan father and a white American mother that did not practice religion.
Born in Hawaii, he lived from ages 6 to 10 in Indonesia with his mother and Muslim stepfather.
High Hopes
Experts say the strong Muslim vote for Obama reflects that the US Muslims share the same desire of the wider community to see changes after eight years under the Republican rule.
"This vote was a vote pursuant to an American identity," said Ahmed Younis of Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
"Pursuant to an experience in America that has significant concern for an economy that's failing, concern for a health-care system that does not seem to meet the needs of the people. Bread-and-butter issues that Americans vote upon, the American Muslim community does as well."
A financial crisis swept the US and the world in September after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank, and the financial woes of a number of Wall Street giants. It has knocked down markets worldwide.
Younis said Obama's election gives high hopes of changes in the US policies after eight years under George W. Bush's go-alone policies.
"Amongst Muslims globally, there is high support for freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in the constitutions of their countries," he said.
"Certainly Muslim Americans see the success of Barack Obama's campaign as a vote for hope . . . If we are able to yield that to the people of the world, we've done something amazing."
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