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We are the action we’ve been waiting for

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Jun 05, 2009

With Rep. Keith Ellison, first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress. (Courtesy: Rick Jauert)

Here’s the man whom President Obama praised in his Cairo speech. Representative Keith Ellison took his unofficial oath of office by placing a hand on the Quran owned by Thomas Jefferson.

The inscription Keith penned on our photo above: “Be brave, bold, fearless and ever faithful.”  In a sense, that’s the deeper message of Obama’s Cairo speech.  But this message has been lost in the avalanche of commentary about the speech — commentary that emphasizes the need for action.

Truth is, those who say they’re “waiting for” action are missing Obama’s point: In challenging the stale dichotomies of either/or, he’s arguing that action is everybody’s responsibility.  Action isn’t strictly the duty of the U.S. It’s a task for us — all of us: Arabs, Jews, Americans, Muslims, Christians, Palestinians, politicians, Israelis and yes, even atheists.

As a presidential candidate, Obama hinted at this theme when he famously announced that “we are the change we’ve been waiting for.”  Apply that principle to what needs to happen after Cairo: We are the action we’ve been waiting for.

How can we act, according to Obama? By loosening our grip on comforting tribal narratives and working for a more universal vision. Which means personal introspection, communal self-criticism and painful questions about our cultural myths will be necessary for Obama’s agenda to be realized.   That’s a lot more to reform than U.S. foreign policy.

As a graduate of history, I’m only too aware that such reform takes time.  America itself was founded as a theocracy whose clerics could be murderously dogmatic.  The country needed several generations to figure out a workable separation of church and state.  Still, that effort required voices of moral courage who would doubt the perfection of Christianity precisely to ensure the free and voluntary practice of faith.

One of those voices belonged to Thomas Jefferson . He’s the founding father on whose copy of the Quran Rep. Keith Ellison swore his symbolic oath.  In an act of moral courage, Jefferson advised his nephew:

“[S]hake off all the fears of servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear…

I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it.  Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven…”

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggesting that Obama should have preached rationality over religiosity in Cairo.  I do, however, believe that he should have quoted one more verse from the Quran — “God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves” (13:11).

Bottom line: If we are the change we’ve been waiting for, then we’re waiting only for ourselves.