WASHINGTON, D.C.: Tens of thousands of Americans descended on the US capitol on Saturday to demonstrate their support for moderation in American political discourse.
The event, named “The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” was sponsored by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, two popular American comedians. Stewart hosts “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” a faux-news program, while Colbert runs “The Colbert Report,” a show mocking American conservative pundits like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.
Stewart said the rally aimed not “to ridicule people’s faith or people’s activism … or suggest that times are not difficult or that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live in hard times, not end times.”
Stewart criticized American politicians and media for making politics reliant on partisan bickering and divisiveness rather than results.
“We [Americans] work together to get things done every damn day,” Stewart said. “The only place we don’t is here [pointing at the Capitol building] or on cable TV.”
“But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV,” Stewart continued. “Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.”
Stewart and Colbert seemed to have underestimated the number of people the rally would draw. Very few large television screens were set up, and many attendees at the National Mall complained that they could neither see the stage nor hear the performers. American weekly news magazine Newsweek unofficially estimated that approximately 150,000 people showed up for the event.
Stewart himself acted surprised at the crowd’s size. He joked that “10 million” people had come to the rally, and urged attendees not to litter.
“Let’s leave this place cleaner than we found it,” Stewart said.
While the Middle East did not play a major role in the rally, the subject of tolerance for Muslims came up repeatedly.
Many signs advocated for tolerance towards Islam. One read “I’m not afraid of Muslims, Tea Parties, Gays.” Another read “I am a Palestinian and I would like my country back.”
Colbert, who pretends to be an American conservative pundit on his show (and contributed the “fear” piece to the event’s previous title, “the Rally to Restore Sanity”), said he distrusted all Muslims, unequivocally.
Colbert was then confronted by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a Muslim basketball player and a professed hero of Colbert’s.
“Perhaps I need to be more discerning,” Colbert said. “Your reasonableness is poisoning my fear.”
Saud Iqbal, an activist with the Virginia-based organization “Muslims for Peace,” said he had come to the rally to spread awareness about the peacefulness of Islam.
“We want to get the message out,” Iqbal told Daily News Egypt. “We’re trying to promote the moderate face of Islam.”
“Terrorism — that’s not Islam,” Iqbal added. “We’re trying to get that message out.”
Garrett Okrasinski, a university student who flew in from San Francisco for the event, also praised the pro-tolerance discourse at the rally.
“There were a lot of people holding signs saying ‘I’m a moderate Muslim,’” Okrasinski told Daily News Egypt. “There were a lot of people talking about Islam and terrorism — trying to break down that stereotype.”
Many attendees echoed Stewart’s complaint that the media furthers the divisiveness in American discourse on issues like Islam or the Middle East.
Christian Walters, a web designer who came from Atlanta for the event, told Daily News Egypt that he viewed the rally to be a criticism of the media, not actual politicians.
“I think it’s a critique of the media more than any one political party,” he said. “I’m sort of down on the media myself … I think they’ve moved more to sensationalism over substance.”
Walters said he hopes people in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East don’t believe the stereotypes of Americans they see in the media.
“I don’t know exactly what Egyptians see on TV about [Americans] … but we’re all not really like that,” he said. “Likewise, I’m sure they’re not the same as they’re portrayed over here.”
Golnar Duchateau, a primary school teacher, said she would like the Stewart/Colbert rally to get media coverage in the Middle East.
“I hope they can see it because I want them to see that there’s more than one side here,” Duchateau told Daily News Egypt. “There’s more to America than just the side they see on TV, especially in the Middle East.”
Ravi Kapoor, an attorney from Washington, D.C., also thinks the rally shows a better side of America to the world.
“I think the rally is a good indicator that Americans are pretty level-headed,” Kappor told Daily News Egypt. “We’re not the extremists we’re made out to be.”
Cornelia Beckett, a university freshman who drove from Massachusetts’ Smith College to attend the event, said the huge crowd demonstrated America’s diverse political views.
“There are as many reasons [for attending the rally] as there are people [at the rally],” Beckett told Daily News Egypt. “Some people are here to lobby for their own causes. Others are here just to have fun.”
However, Beckett said that the attendees seemed to come almost entirely from the liberal wing of American politics.
“The left has lost some of its bite over the years,” she said. “But [this rally] shows we’re still here.”
Beckett also had a similar message for overseas viewers of the rally.
“Americans aren’t the ignorant, angry, jingoistic, irrational folks that we are perhaps portrayed as in the international media,” said Beckett.
Many blamed the Tea Party — an American conservative movement advocating reducing American governmental power — for poisoning the image of America overseas.
“The Tea Party and its rallies have been blown way out of proportion,” Beckett said. “Politics [have] gotten so nasty.”
Television personality Glenn Beck held a Tea Party rally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial back in August. The rally, entitled “Restoring Honor,” drew a far more conservative crowd to the American capital. Many at the August rally carried signs protesting the construction of an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, near the site of the World Trade Center. Other signs suggested US President Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim, as well as a Kenyan citizen.
Many saw the Stewart/Colbert rally as a counter-argument to Glenn Beck’s event.
Becky Schenck, an attendee from Columbia, Maryland, said that while the Tea Party receives a great deal of media attention, it does not represent most Americans’ beliefs.
“I think there is a silent majority in this country,” Schenck told Daily News Egypt. “Humor is a good way to bring those people together … [and] get that message across.”
Schenck also had a message for viewers in the Middle East.
“We’re not afraid of people who live in the Middle East, contrary to what the news outlets might say,” she said.
Comedian Stephen Colbert (L) listens as colleague Jon Stewart speaks during the "Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear". (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)
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Thousands participate in the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the National Mall in Washington, Saturday, Oct. 30. The "sanity" rally blending laughs and political activism drew thousands to the National Mall Saturday as the comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert cast themselves as the unlikely maestros of moderation and civility in polarized times. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
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Photo by William F. Zeman.
