I have never met Donald Trump, and until today, I never had the pleasure of meeting Imam Mika’il Stewart Saddiq. Biologically, I resemble Trump more than I do the Imam.
Like the President, I am of Western European, white,Anglo-Saxon and mainly Protestant stock. But I would hope people would think I had more in common with the Imam.
That’s because he and I share a vision of this country entirely alien to Trump. I know that, because I read these words that Iman Saddiq wrote two years ago, on the 15th anniversary of the September11 attacks: “What is important … is that Americans of all faith traditions leverage the spirit of reverence for life,transformation and triumph that we all share.
“I believe there is a legion of Americans that refuse to forfeit our coveted liberty to terrorists, or to those bigots taken over by fear. “ And he added, “in an election year where opportunists attempt to exploit our insecurities and give credence to hate, it is critical that we remember who we are and what we’ve learned over the past fifteen years.”
Well, that election turned out badly for tolerance. But it may have been a blessing in that it has forced millions of us to face the old labor union question, which side are you on?
What this President believes is not always ideologically clear. The man who dominates the news cycle is not a political philosopher. He doesn’t read, or have a coherent world view, though his own has been shaped by watching those who do have an ideology display it on Fox News.But what we are experiencing with him is what Sigmund Freud might have called the dark side of the American id – our worst impulses, encouraged daily by an amoral man whose own worst impulses are always on display. We are invited to blame outsiders and those who don’t look like us for all our woes. We are being told we should wall ourselves off, literally with a wall and financially through a system of tariffs.The world is, we should believe, a bleak and evil place.
Well, that’s not the America I grew up in. I remember John F. Kennedy at the Berlin Wall, saying “freedom has its difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in.” Kennedy would have understood that we can’t allow everyone in the world to come here, but he would have found the concept of building a wall to keep people out a symbolic stain on everything America stands for. He thought our duty was to do everything we could to help allow other countries to share in the freedom and prosperity we have.
He believed, as a lot of us did then, that we should “pledge our best efforts to help them to help themselves” not because our enemies were doing the same thing, “but because it is right.”
JFK, like all of us and like our nation, had his own flaws and weaknesses, but he thought we should try to rise above our failings.He also knew that seeking tolerance and understanding would, in the long run,make our own country safer and more prosperous.
We are living in a darker time now. But all is not dark. As we learned earlier today, the University of Detroit Mercy is reaching out to those communities around it, seeking to build a partnership to lift them up. The Michigan Muslim Community Council is reaching out as well.
Let’s hope for more sunshine soon everywhere, literally and otherwise.
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