October 28, 2010
Your president, a Jakarta street kid, who can recite the the Arabic call to prayer with a first-rate accent.
American Sikhs aren’t buying the White House’s explanation that President Barack Obama is skipping a Sikh holy site in India during his upcoming Asia trip because he doesn’t have time.
The New York Times reported last week that Obama will not visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar because he would be required to cover his head when he entered it, and pictures of him could perpetuate the false belief that he is a Muslim.
On Wednesday, the White House confirmed Obama wouldn’t be going. Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters simply that India is a “big country” and that “we can never do as many events as we’d like to do.”
That didn’t go over too well with Sikhs, who have since the Sept. 11 attacks fought the perception in the United States that they are Muslims.
“I’m not really buying it,” Sapreet Kaur, the executive director of the Sikh Coalition, said in a statement. “I think the administration has been struggling with the false accusation that the president is Muslim. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these fears drove the cancellation. The administration is going to have to figure out how to make this up to the Sikh American community and the Sikh community worldwide.”
“If somebody doesn’t want to come, then they should not come for the right reasons and not hide behind these sort of excuses,” said Jasjit Singh, the associate executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “He’s playing the game, and that’s what’s unfortunate.”
NPR fired Juan Williams over his Muslim garb opinion, too bad Obama doesn’t work for them. The Muslim world is much less forgiving so, Barack Obama Will Visit Mosque During Indonesia Trip.
During his early November trip, Obama intends to visit the Istiqlal Mosque — the national mosque of Indonesia and the third largest mosque in the world — located in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Visiting a mosque while touring a Muslim region is standard protocol for the President, according to White House national security aide Ben Rhodes.
“When he visited Muslim-majority countries as president, he has often visited the most prominent mosques,” Rhodes told Politico. ~end
No comments:
Post a Comment