My Personal Encounter with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s Islamophobia at Standing Rock
Despite many courageous actions as well as compelling policies and perspectives held by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), as an American Muslim I feel compelled to share deep concerns regarding her recently announced candidacy for President of the United States. Although I agree with some of her policies and concerns with others, my true concern regarding her candidacy stems from meeting her in person on one of the most profound and memorable days of my life at Standing Rock Reservation.
December 4th, 2016 was a historic day in the history of the United States because the Obama administration blocked an easement to build the Dakota Access Pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners. It was the first time the United States government had ever sided with Native people with regards to land rights and access. Serendipitously, I happened to be at Standing Rock on that historic day. In the days leading up to this historic day, Rep. Gabbard announced that she would be joining a group of Veterans to stand with the people of Standing Rock in opposition to the building of the pipeline. She made a profound and courageous stand alongside her fellow veterans.
Earlier that day, prior to the historic announcement, I flew into Fargo, ND and then drove 3.5 hours to see my friends at Standing Rock. My personal history at Standing Rock extended 10 years prior upon being invited to visit, meet and engage elders, youth and other members of the community. I had been living and working in the region as a Diversity and Inclusion educator at a small, private liberal arts college near Fargo and was honored with many opportunities to engage the Standing Rock community. In the process, I learned about the power of the people and challenges they face. After moving away from the region, my visits became more limited, but I remained profoundly impacted by the experiences and thankful for my ongoing relationships. Given this history, you can imagine how moved I was by the emergence of the #NoDAPL movement.
Despite my support for #NoDAPL, I had not been able to return to Standing Rock prior to Dec. 4th. Thirty minutes prior to my arrival at Standing Rock, my friends called to tell me that the Obama Administration had blocked the easement. I was no longer joining a protest, I would be arriving to a celebration. Rather than going to the camps, I was told that I should go straight to a friend’s home in Cannonball, ND. Upon entering their home that I had visited many times prior, it was clear that their house had been transformed into a base of operations, accommodations and organizing for many key people involved with the #NoDAPL movement.
Among the people in the house was actress Shailene Woodley, who was among the more high-profile people in the movement. There were also several friends and activists including author and journalist Naomi Klein. The house was full of loving celebration, hugs and exuberance for their historic accomplishments. We also closely watched CNN’s live coverage taking place just a few minutes away from us. Over the next few hours, I got to know Naomi Klein as she feverishly typed a new piece for The Nation on her “Lessons from Standing Rock.” After Naomi learned of my academic and professional background working on diversity and inclusion at University of Michigan, Swarthmore College and UMass Amherst; she asked me to edit her piece before publishing it. To say that I was honored by her entrusting me to edit that important piece is an understatement.
Meanwhile, my friend from Standing Rock’s tribal council spoke with a Vice-President from Tesla about how they could support renewable energy efforts in the future. In addition, friends I’ve known for many years, who had spent the previous months defending protesters, shared stories with me regarding the horrific tactics used against protesters that had not been reported in the media. Had nothing else occurred that evening, it would still be one of the most profound experiences of my life and something I would never forget.
We later heard that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard would be coming to the house to greet us and thank activists for their important work and commitment. It was an exciting moment for everyone to know that she would be coming by the house. Upon hearing the news, I felt internally conflicted about meeting her. Although I sincerely appreciated her commitment to indigenous rights and veteran issues, I was also aware of her problematic politics as related to Muslims.
As an Indian-American, I was originally proud to learn of Rep. Gabbard (despite herself not being Indian-American) when she became the first Hindu elected to Congress. However, in the years following her election, I learned about her strong political alignment and alliance with right-wing Hindu Nationalist groups in India and the United States. These groups have since been empowered under the current ruling BJP party led by Prime Minister Modi, a man who rose to power from Hindu Nationalist movements. The current climate of BJP with empowered Hindu Nationalist groups are creating terrible conditions of violence and suppressed rights of religious minorities including Muslims, Sikh and Christians in India. Given that my family is Indian-American Muslim with many still living in India and subject to these rising hateful practices and policies, it is hard for me to not feel disturbed by her alliances.
In addition to Rep. Gabbard’s Hindu Nationalist political alignment, she has also demonstrated negative attitudes regarding Muslims in various parts of the world. In fact, when asked about the suppression and violence directed at Muslims in India, she suggested that their suffering was minimal compared to the experiences of minorities in Muslim-majority countries (Reported in: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/what-does-tulsi-gabbard-believe). This is an ignorant (not all Muslim-majority countries suppress minorities) and mean-spirited ‘apples-to-oranges’ comparison further revealed her bias regarding Muslims given that conditions in other countries are not relevant to what is occurring to Indian minority groups. Such dangerous rationale’s can be used to justify the oppression of any group in the world by creating arbitrary relativism to justify their oppression. Couple this with her disturbing meeting with Bashar Assad in Syria, support for limiting visas and refugees from Muslim countries, and her alignment with U.S. right-wing hawks in criticizing the Obama administration insisting that rhetoric regarding terrorism must be labelled as “Islamic” terrorism; and I think my reasons for concern are quite understandable.
Despite all of this, I respected Rep. Gabbard’s accomplishments and looked forward to meeting her upon her arrival at the house. She arrived with her spouse and a few other individuals who seemed to have ties with her in Hawaii. She was welcomed and gifted with a Lakota blanket and then went around the room to greet all of us. As Rep. Gabbard and her spouse approached me, we shook hands and I politely said, “Hello, my name is Amer Ahmed, it’s nice to meet you.” Upon saying my name, they both immediately recoiled as she quickly pulled her hand away from me. They then looked at each other perplexed and then looked at me but this time with a look of suspicion. The behavior I am describing was not subtle and was the most obvious visible reaction to an introduction by name that I have ever experienced. I have experienced numerous overt and subtle encounters involving Islamophobia in my life but I had never experienced something this overt with regards to someone’s negative reaction to learning my name. Rep. Gabbard and her spouse then moved on and continued to greet others, hang out and speak to people for a while.
Over their remaining time at the house, I noticed a couple more suspicious looks towards me from each of them from across the room. I was utterly shocked by the fact that this seemed to be occurring but chose not to say anything about it to anyone at the time because I didn’t want to create any discord regarding this joyous moment for everyone in the house. There were a couple times when they were near me again and I thought maybe I was over-interpreting their behavior. I decided to politely make some small talk with her spouse (who was standing next to me at the time). He was visibly uncomfortable while speaking with me and clearly trying to avoid further engagement even though there was no one else around him to speak to other than another person from their group from Hawaii. Before they left, I attempted to speak Rep. Gabbard and her spouse again to test one more time to see if I was crazy. This time, they both tried to avoid me and attempted to engage the host before saying that they needed to leave.
Although I realize that it is unusual to encounter a South Asian-American Muslim at Standing Rock, I strongly believe that their overt suspicion of me was beyond unjustifiable. I’m not sure if they perceived me as a spy, a terrorist or something else but they definitely seemed to have a problem with my presence in the room. Despite knowing about her politics, I had no expectation that she might hold attitudes that would translate into her interpersonal behavior towards me. I personally thought it would simply be a brief uneventful greeting. I’m not sure if her attitudes towards Muslims stem from her service in Iraq or some other aspect of her experience. However, the realization that Rep. Tusli Gabbard’s Islamophobia would cause her to react so strongly to my presence caused me to understand how deeply-held her attitude towards Muslims are.
I am sharing these experiences despite knowing that she has been a strong and vocal supporter of Native rights. I have Native friends who seek for Native issues to get more attention in the upcoming election cycle and her candidacy could create that opportunity. However, given my experience and the reality that we currently have a President who banned Muslims from the U.S., I believe it is important that I share my truth and experience. For those of you who ask why I didn’t say anything about this prior to her presidential announcement, I actually did let people know through my social media accounts in recent years but had not yet written a piece to fully articulate my experience. I also had no desire to have my interpretation of not-so-subtle nonverbal communication publicly challenged and questioned. However, her announcement compelled me to do what I can to ensure that my experience was known, especially by those who respect me enough to trust that I would not share this experience simply to be an alarmist.
It is truly my hope that other candidates will take Native issues as seriously as Rep. Gabbard does so that we don’t have to choose between Native and Muslim rights and issues. The challenges that face both of our communities are critically important and do not need to be pitted against one another. However, in the meantime, I must vehemently state that I believe that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s Islamophobia should disqualify her from holding any higher office in the United States.
