Muslim White House Staffer Writes Piece On Lasting 8 Days Under Trump

A Muslim woman who worked on the National Security Committee in Trump‘s White House has written a piece describing how she quit the job after only eight days, spurred by the President’s decision to enforce a travel ban on Syrian refugees and people from seven Muslim majority nation.

Writing in The Atlantic, Rumana Ahmed discusses how, as an employee of the White House since 2011, she decided to continue working there during Trump’s administration so she could serve her country, but found the culture far too difficult:
When Trump issued a ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all Syrian refugees, I knew I could no longer stay and work for an administration that saw me and people like me not as fellow citizens, but as a threat.

Ahmed had earlier believed that the Trump administration could benefit from a “coloured, female, hijab-wearing, American Muslim patriot.”

She writes on informing senior NSC communications advisor Michael Anton, a Trump appointee, of her decision to leave, and the icy reception she received. Anton was recently exposed as the author of a series of pseudonymous essays “extolling the virtues of authoritarianism” and describing Muslims as an intrinsic threat to the West.

Ahmed describes her apprehension at watching the Trump campaign in its earlier stages, before he won the election, and worrying about the effect it would have on her Muslim brothers and sisters;
Over the course of the campaign, even when I was able to storm through the bad days, I realized the rhetoric was taking a toll on American communities. When Trump first called for a Muslim ban, reports of hate crimes against Muslims spiked. The trend of anti-Muslim hate crimes is ongoing, as mosques are set on fire and individuals attacked––six were killed at a mosque in Canada by a self-identified Trump supporter.

Throughout 2015 and 2016, I watched with disbelief, apprehension, and anxiety, as Trump’s style of campaigning instigated fear and emboldened xenophobes, anti-Semites, and Islamophobes. While cognizant of the possibility of Trump winning, I hoped a majority of the electorate would never condone such a hateful and divisive worldview.

It wasn’t just the travel ban that troubled her – she says that she had an issue with how control of the security apparatus was being centralised in the hands of only a few people. She said she was inspired by the response of protesters to the administration’s actions:

People of every religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and age pouring into the streets and airports to defend the rights of their fellow Americans over the past few weeks proved the opposite is true––American diversity is a strength, and so is the American commitment to ideals of  justice and equality.
Much of the piece is a bit of a tribute to her experience working under Obama – who, it’s always worth mentioning, persisted with the campaigns of extreme military violence in the Middle East – but it’s a good window into a rare experience: a Muslim working in Trump’s White House.
Have a read HERE.
Source: The Atlantic.
Photo: Getty Images.

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