The United States of America was, as congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted, “founded on the ideas of justice, of liberty, of the pursuit of happiness.” A right to speak truth to power and hold opinions that would threaten the hegemonic ideology. A defence of rigorous intellectual debate. But there is a concerted and dangerous effort, steeped in barely-veiled bigotry, to curtail Omar’s right to speak. Power prefers silence, and will do anything to achieve it.
A firestorm has erupted in American politics brought about by how, largely, two women of colour have challenged the consensus opinion in Congress. Ilhan Omar and fellow newly-elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have breathed a lease of radical energy into the Democrats, and along with Bernie Sanders, made the case for American socialism within a party that preferred the caution of guarded liberalism. Since their arrival into Congress, American conservatives have failed in their inability to handle the two women, flailing maniacally about anything they can find. With Ocasio-Cortez, it has been near impossible. Their targeting of Omar however, has been far more sinister, incitement without the words.
It started with a headline in the New York Post that essentially accused Ilhan Omar of making light of 9/11, with a picture of the burning towers. Then Donald Trump tweeted a video that wove together a clip of Omar’s comments and snippets of the terrorist attack itself. Those unaware of the context would see this as yet another low moment for Omar. She has been persistently targeted by the American conservatives for her interrogation of the country’s tightly-knitted relationship with Israel (albeit she had dressed it in clumsy language that leaned into anti-Semitic tropes).
Here then, was surely yet another moment of someone insulting America’s collective conscience and feelings, someone who couldn’t be American genuinely, because she was a black Muslim refugee, a woman with a loud opinion. Without context, she appears like a caricature of the far-left. But context shapes everything. It illuminates the uninformed as to the background around Omar’s comments on 9/11, when she said “some people did something”, and also why there is such a sustained focus on a black Muslim congresswoman.
To be clear, Omar was not making light of it – she was protesting about the collective blame that became attached to Muslims following 9/11’s attack. This is not a dismissal of the terrorist atrocity but an objection to how a country discarded liberal values and opted for a politically thuggish approach that ended up targeting innocent Muslims. This is not the view of an apologist for terrorist. It’s the rational view all should be taking.
But since then there has been a coalition of white supremacists, Republican politicians, conservative media commentators and the president himself, attacking Omar and, in effect, weaponising 9/11 to attack Omar. They know she has been subjected to intense criticism recently. They are also aware that someone did plan to kill her. They are content to escalate the risk of violence against a sitting congresswoman, to further incite hate and anger in a country where it’s absurdly easy to arm yourselves. Trump’s video was beyond terrible, twisting her words and making her out to be some kind of enemy.
Omar has some concerning positions on Israel that have warranted criticism. She herself has admitted to needing to be more educated on anti-Semitism. But there’s a deliberate ploy here to depict this as a case of specific anger towards Israel, the idea that the country gets singled out in a way that other countries don’t. Had this been the case then it would be anti-Semitic except Omar has regularly criticised Saudi Arabia (who are vehemently opposed to her) and Egypt too, two Muslim states. This latter point is important, because Omar’s identity has led to her being viewed as an Islamist. This is the classic anti-Muslim trope designed to censor Muslim opinion by painting them as initiating a soft power cultural takeover by entering the political system. Spinning this aggressively are often far-right projects like the Middle East Forum (who I’ve researched comprehensively as a researcher at Tell MAMA). Omar’s ideology is not centred on Islamism but traditional leftism. She doesn’t come from the school of conservative theocrats, but rather Jeremy Corbyn. Is he an Islamist? No, of course not. So why is she being portrayed as one? Does it have anything to do with her being a Muslim? Of course it does.
The response from many Democrats has been severely disappointing, summed up by Nancy Pelosi’s failure to even mention Ilhan Omar in her tweet. Defiance against Donald Trump’s racism means little if you cannot protect a Muslim congresswoman. This applies to all who would wade in on the affair only to apply lukewarm condemnation of Trump and affirm the importance of respecting the victims of 9/11, as if Omar had in any way minimised their deaths beforehand. Those who led the way in their powerfully honest condemnations of Trump were, unsurprisingly, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It did however highlight how Trump has tapped into social media and used it as a means of activating the emotions of his support.
Trump’s Twitter feed is the gospel for white supremacists now and he uses it to fuel the extreme elements of his hate-laden support base. Already it has been established that there are individuals who had planned to kill Omar. The current witch-hunt has placed her at extreme risk. It would not be exaggerating the situation to believe that someone may try to harm her, radicalised and riled by the idea of a Muslim in Congress undermining America.
The message here is clear: she is a black Muslim woman with a moral compass that is directly antithetical to that of Trump and his most ardent supporters. That cannot be.