Zakaria starts his Sunday morning program, GPS- Global Public Square, one of the finest interview venues of the mass media, with a short monologue that he calls, “My Take.” This link provides both the video and the transcript, (which was included in his weekly Time Magazine column) which is worthy of serious examination. He begins with:
I think of myself first and foremost as an American. I’m proud of that identity because as an immigrant, it came to me through deep conviction and hard work, not the accident of birth. I also think of myself as a husband, father, guy from India, journalist, New Yorker and (on my good days) an intellectual. But in today’s political climate, I must embrace another identity. I am a Muslim.
He pauses for a second to let those words sink in, then continues with language that I see negates the clear identification of his religion,
I am not a practicing Muslim. The last time I was in a mosque, except as a tourist, was decades ago. My wife is Christian, and we have not raised our children as Muslims. My views on faith are complicated — somewhere between deism and agnosticism. I am completely secular in my outlook. But as I watch the way in which Republican candidates are dividing Americans, I realize that it’s important to acknowledge the religion into which I was born.
This monologue sheds light on an important issue, which is how does, not only the individual, but the outside world view one who is “of a given religion.” As a child on my first day in kindergarten, the first question kids asked was, “what are you?” with the expected answer in our neighborhood something like, Catholic, Italian or Jew (we were only five years old and didn’t do subtleties.) But, that meant something to us then, Just as now as adults we quickly learn whether a stranger is liberal, conservative or variations thereof.
What does it mean to be a Muslim who never practices the religion, or goes to its house of worship, and defines himself as “completely secular.” I’m a Jew in a way similar to Zakaria being a Muslim. (With other differences, such as a slightly lower number of readers of my work.) What struck me in Zakaria’s monologue was where his statement would have been valid -- which was under the Nuremburg Laws of 1933. Then, one’s religion was defined by blood, not belief. The one religion focused on then happened to be Judaism, but the principle was the same. Only in that era, would my belief, practices, ideology not in any way change the reality that in that society, I was a Jew.
Zakaria goes on in his monologue to castigate Trump for his bigotry against Muslims, yet, I believe he has actually exacerbated the efflorescence of the deep national pathologies associated with this individual. Zakaria is a Muslim only, as he says, defined as the religion he was born into. Since common parlance, like when I was a child, only allows one religion per person, other than as part of a broader point that he was making, he is not a Muslim, but more accurately from his own words an agnostic or a deist.
Castigating Donald Trump is actually missing the greater point of his candidacy, which was stated brilliantly by Matt Taibi in Rolling Stone, in his article with the sub-title, “We can't change the channel on the culture he's exposed.” The channel Taibi is referring to are the deep, unconscious, habits and ways of thinking of our culture, (the list is too long, so read the article.)
It seems that the population of this country has made a choice, either kill the messenger or cheer him on; with every attack against Trump further instilling admiration among his acolytes for this iconoclast. In some ways, Zakaria stating “I’m a Muslim” and then pausing a beat to let it sink in, Is allowing the fleeting image of prostrating himself and repeating “Allah Akbar.” His message is this is something he defends, yet, in reality, he has chosen to reject it; and given his intellect, not for trivial reasons. I would guess it was similar to my own rejection of Judaism, and all other structured religions, as they all require a suspension of critical faculties in deference to one who is “higher,” be it in wisdom or closer to God Almighty.
Fareed Zakaria is no more a Muslim than Barack Obama is a man who subscribes to any set of religious tenets, be it Christian or, as he is still accused of, Islam. Bernie Sanders is in the same bind, accepting the Nuremburg code, where, a secularist such as he, is seen as being in the same category as Vice Presidential candidate, Joe Lieberman who is a practicing Jew. I believe our President is closer to how Zakaria describes his beliefs, but being in the world of electoral politics he has no choice but to simply say, “I am a Christian.” But, those who do wear the hijab or prostrate themselves in prayer are doing this out of choice or inertia. If I were to go to Synagogue every Saturday or wear a Yarmulke, it would be a statement of who I am — for better or for worse.
Actually, a nasty practice of many religions is punishment for those who publicly reject these practices, the act of “apostasy.” So open denial of their ostensible religion by either Obama or Zakaria would have consequences. For Obama, it would have been his never having entered political life; for Zakaria, depending on the nature of his rejection it could very well be a Fatwah that could have had more deadly results. The attacks on associates of Salmon Rushdie are not bigoted propaganda, but reality.
Fareed Zakara’s “My Take” statement as a whole is certainly meant as opposition to bigotry, but his words, his assertion, even as a rhetorical device, that his religion is what he was born into, is not to be ignored. He could have substituted, “I am an agnostic. Yet, a part of me will always be Muslim, the religion of my forebears.” Such a statement may have just provided the needed first blow to crack the rigidity, the lethal simplicity, of religious identity being in the blood — it is this that perpetuates religious bigotry, with its outbursts of genocide that have plagued humanity throughout history.