The pesky truth: the Statue of Liberty WAS originally a Muslim Woman

I"m fed up with the lie blindly and enthusiastically accepted by the right that credible, professional media has a secret agenda to lie to the general populous.  It is false. In point of fact, the only real "fake news" of any substance or quantity originates from the right, particularly the right wing propaganda machine.

There is a fact free, fact averse paranoia which is being promoted by "their" president, Rump, and his White House, most notably by press secretary Spicer and other spokes puppets that the main stream professional media are liars.  We see it in a wide range of major stories and also minor stories like the one about the origins of the Statue of Liberty origins, a topic featured on CBS news and USA Today among others.  The Statue of Liberty Originated as a Muslim Woman story is an excellent template to examine the right wing mdeia paranoia.

The reality resisted by the right, for example, in their anti-Muslim bigotry,is that the story is true and factually correct that the Statue of Liberty really was originally conceived and designed as a female Muslim figure, Libertas, (the Roman Goddess of Liberty) by the artist who created it, Bartholdi. 

Why pick a Roman goddess reconfigured as a Muslim woman in Egypt? Why not? A little history: the Romans conquered Egypt when Octavian /aka Augustus kicked out Marc Antony and Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemeic dynasty put in place by the Macedonian Alexander the Great. (Cleopatra was actually ethnic Greek.) Trajan conquered the rest of the applicable territory to the canal a bit later.  And in the era of Bertholdi (a German from the Alsace Lorraine region of France) the French were fascinated with "orientalism" and neo-classic subjects in the works of artists like Gerome and Ingres as well as Bartholdi.  So the assumption that the Egypt of the mid 19th century, the time of the construction of the Suez Canal, was subject to rigid Islamic fundamentalism is false, as is the right wing notions of the Islamic version of Aniconism as it pertains to a Muslim woman being the image for a statue of Libertas/Liberty.

Aniconims is the prohibition of figural art, sometimes defined as only applying to human figures, sometimes applying to images of all forms of natural and supernatural subjects, both plant and animal, as well as figures such as angels and demons, etc.  The strongest examples of aniconism tend to occur in the monotheistic Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  But that varies tremendously by geography and historic era.  There is in fact a rich tradition of figural art in Islam, both religious and secular forms.  But don't take my word for it, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has an excellent essay on it, here.  In my personal experience, which has included viewing a wide range of Islamic art featuring human beings, aniconism tends to be limited to religious contexts, such as inside mosques.  The assumption that all figurative art is prohibited in Islamic countries or by Sharia law is ridiculous, the kind of bigoted misinformation one finds on the right.

A little more history as context to the original statue that became the Statue of Liberty in New York City harbor, while Egypt at that time was a semi-autonomous part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, it was ruled by Mohammed Ali Pasha, a Muslim Albanian.  Egypt had a substantial presence of Albanian mercenaries.  But the real control of Egypt was by the French and English, who owned the debt for the building of the canal, and who held important seats in government that provided de facto control of the region involved in the Canal zone.

The original design was for a female figure holding aloft a torch, that would serve as a lighthouse at the mouth of the Suez Canal, back in the 19th century.  We only have the current statue of Liberty, or more correctly, and certainly ironically, "Liberty Enlightening the World", because the funding on the Suez Canal version fell through.  The title for the proposed but not completed Suez Canal version of Libertas, holding a torch just like the one held by the USA Statue of Liberty was very similar, "Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia".

This rubbish about the mainstream media is simply not true.  It relies on a mixture of propaganda from what has become a right wing propaganda machine, a concerted effort to misinform and dis-inform, and from willful intentional ignorance on the part of the right wing and right wing leaning information consumers.

The premise of being "post Truth" is wrong, that facts simply matter less in this first quarter of the 21st century.  This is pure bloody-mindedness combined with a childish denial of objective reality by those who don't find reality catering to their prejudices.   Put another way, the facts are not their friends. It is compounded by resentment that the 21st century requires education based knowledge and expertise, and that gut hunches and wishful thinking are insufficient for making good decision or for good governance.  An example of this would be Sarah Palin's selection and appeal as John McCain's VP choice and Betsy DeVos, the theocrat Education Secretary pick of Trump who wants God in schools, not facts or logic.  These are two women who shed only darkness on the American populace.

To be unable and unwilling to differentiate fact from ideological fiction, to believe one doesn't need to know anything of history, or art, or factual comparative religion, or geography is a weakness.  To deny objective reality is a terrible failing.  This is a facet of right wing ideology which not only dangerously exacerbates existing tensions but which endangers us all in the short, middle and especially the long term.

Birtherism, the Track Back of Fact

Much ado about nothing has been made of the Clinton staffer who was fired for circulating an email questioning Obama's birthplace.

No one however has ever claimed that the staffer WROTE that email.  Here is a copy of that email, via Snopes, and their observations about the email origins and circulation.

“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth,” asserted one chain email that surfaced on the urban legend site Snopes.com in April 2008.

That Hillary Clinton supporters circulated such an e-mail isn't in question, but the claim that that's the moment the birther theory "first emerged" simply isn't true. The likeliest point of origin we've been able to find was a post on conservative message board FreeRepublic.com dated 1 March 2008 (which, according to a report in The Telegraph, was at least a month before Clinton supporters got on the e-mail bandwagon):

I was told today that Obama swore in on a Koran for his Senate seat. I do not believe he did. Can someone clarify this for me? I am under the impression only a Congressman has so far sworn in on a Koran.
Also that Obama’s mother gave birth to him overseas and then immediately flew into Hawaii and registered his birth as having taken place in Hawaii.
Again, any clarifications on this? Defintely disqualifies him for Prez. There must be some trace of an airticket. While small babies are not charged air fare they do have a ticket issued for them.
Long time ago but there may be some residual information somewhere. Good ammo (if available and true) BEST USED AFTER he becomes PREZ (if that occurs) and it’s too late for Dems - except accept the VP.

Only the right persisted in perpetuating the theory beyond 2008, notably Trump, well after the totally unnecessary release of the president's birth certificate - something done, imho, to humiliate the president as different (and therefore inferior in the minds of conservatives) to prior presidents, (like Chester Arthur rumored to have been born in Canada, with a foreign father). Not only is there some question as to the location of Chester Arthur's birth, but also a question of what year he was born. 
As with President Obama, the issue of school records were involved as well in the conspiracy theory. Chester Arthur's birther, by the way, really WAS a Democrat, a lawyer by the name of A. P. Hinman.

Politico did a great job tracking down who really DID originate birtherism in a recent article in 2008:

“As we reported, some of her supporters flirted with the idea in 2008 — but it has its origins in the fever swamps beginning in Illinois in 2004,” he said.
In fact, birtherism, as it’s been called, reportedly began with innuendo by serial Illinois political candidate Andy Martin, who painted Obama as a closet Muslim in 2004. That spiraled into a concerted effort by conspiracy theorists to raise doubts about Obama’s birthplace and religion — and essentially paint him as un-American.
Martin, who briefly launched a little-noticed presidential campaign last year, has disavowed the movement he’s often credited with starting, though he still foments similarly discredited doubts about Obama’s religion.
...On Friday, Clinton’s former senior aide Patti Solis Doyle acknowledged that a volunteer coordinator in Iowa forwarded a birther-related email. “Hillary made the decision immediately let that person go,” she said. “We let that person go. It was so beyond the pale of the campaign Hillary wanted to run and that we as a staff wanted to run that I called David Plouffe who was managing Barack Obama to apologize to say this is not coming from us, that this was rogue volunteer.”

And here is Mr. Martin, courtesy of internet video from 2008 -- see how easy it is for Trump and the GOP to fact check? That they don't is a choice for willful ignorance:





The New York Times, back in 2008, did a great job digging into this, elaborating on those in the right, from the 'Freeepers" aka the Free Republic crackpots and extremist conspiracy theorists, and via Fox Not-News, to rabidly Anti-Semite Andy Martin, to equally radical righties who are pro-Israel Jews.  Politics truly makes strange bedfellows.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

Though he is not a lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he made unsuccessful attempts to win public office for both parties in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as a writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases.

Mr. Martin, in a series of interviews, did not dispute his influence in Obama rumors.

“Everybody uses my research as a takeoff point,” Mr. Martin said, adding, however, that some take his writings “and exaggerate them to suit their own fantasies.”

As for his background, he said: “I’m a colorful person. There’s always somebody who has a legitimate cause in their mind to be angry with me.”

When questions were raised last week about Mr. Martin’s appearance and claims on “Hannity’s America” on Fox News, the program’s producer said Mr. Martin was clearly expressing his opinion and not necessarily fact.

It was not Mr. Martin's first turn on national television. The CBS News program "48 Hours" in 1993 devoted an hourlong program, "See You in Court; Civil War, Anthony Martin Clogs Legal System with Frivolous Lawsuits," to what it called his prolific filings. (Mr. Martin has also been known as Anthony Martin-Trigona.) He has filed so many lawsuits that a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court without preliminary approval.

He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.

It is worth noting that Andy Martin is running again for President, per Ballotpedia, as a Republican. Again.  Also according to Ballotpedia, Andy Martin a week ago lost a run for Congress as a Republican in New Hampshire.for the 2nd Congressional District.
 
So far as I can determine, while Martin attempted to run as a Dem, he got further and more often running as a Republican and he has always been a bigot and a conservative.

Also from the 2008 NYT article, some of the other players in the birtherism conspiracy theory are identified.   They are pertinent to include here, because so many tin-foil hat wearing right wing bigots are still repeating them:

Theories about Mr. Obama’s background have taken on a life of their own. But independent analysts seeking the origins of the cyberspace attacks wind up at Mr. Martin’s first press release, posted on the Free Republic Web site in August 2004.

Its general outlines have turned up in a host of works that have expounded falsely on Mr. Obama’s heritage or supposed attempts to conceal it, including “Obama Nation,” the widely discredited best seller about Mr. Obama by Jerome R. Corsi. Mr. Corsi opens the book with a quote from Mr. Martin.

“What he’s generating gets picked up in other places,” said Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who has investigated the e-mail campaign’s circulation and origins, “and it’s an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time.”

Ms. Allen said Mr. Martin’s original work found amplification in 2006, when a man named Ted Sampley wrote an article painting Mr. Obama as a secret practitioner of Islam. Quoting liberally from Mr. Martin, the article circulated on the Internet, and its contents eventually found their way into various e-mail messages, particularly an added claim that Mr. Obama had attended “Jakarta’s Muslim Wahhabi schools. Wahhabism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging jihad on the rest of the world.”

Mr. Obama for two years attended a Catholic school in Indonesia, where he was taught about the Bible, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” and for two years went to an Indonesian public school open to all religions, where he was taught about the Koran.