Election 2004 - Milestones of Muslim Activism
By Lisette Poole
CA


Now that the results of an epic election are in and collective attention is beginning to move from ‘what’ to ‘why’, the time has come to take stock of the American Muslim activism which scored several “Firsts” and has etched an acknowledged, permanent place for itself in the political arena.

Since 1990, a slowly increasing majority of Muslims have been concluding that as American citizens they must participate in the American politics. This trend has been significantly strengthened since 9/11. By now an absolute majority of Muslim Americans holds this view.

This analysis is focused on analyzing milestones of American Muslim politics during the 2004 election cycle.

During the 2004 election cycle, there were two interesting developments: Ideological diversification of the community, and a fork in the road faced by the ideologically diverse community and its representative organizations.

The ideological diversification was evident by identification of Muslim groups and individuals with a much larger set of ideas and organizations including party platforms of Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Reform, and Independent parties.

In no time, this led to the formation of “Muslims for Bush”, “Muslims for Kerry”, and “Muslims for Nader” websites and support groups. These three divergent support groups were started and staffed by American-born sons and daughters of immigrant Muslims.

The community also witnessed the blossoming of individual activists who played a useful role in their respective parties. These included: Dr. Islam Siddiqui, Usman Siddiq, Shahid Khan, Mukeet Hussain, and Mahdi Bray in the Democratic Party; the Hassan family, Zaheeruddin Ahmed, and Dr. Yahya Basha in the Republican Party, Arif Khan in the Libertarian Party, and Khusheed Khoja in the Green Party.
Several Muslims were elected delegates to the Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, and Reform party conventions. Under the able leadership of Ambassador Syed Ahsani, Dr. Inayat Lalani and Council Member Musroor Khan, the Muslim community in Texas got an impressive number of their members elected to DNC Convention in Boston. This year about 20 Muslim Democrats were elected as delegates and alternates, roughly one-third from Texas.

Guess who got AMA’s prestigious 2004 Malcolm X award? Well this year, it was given to three political parties. Green (received by its co-chair Jo Chamberlain), Libertarian (received by its presidential candidate Michael Badnarik), and the Independents (received by Ralph Nader’s running mate Peter Camejo).

Contemplate the above-discussed diversification of the Muslim community and then imagine a loosely organized coalition, with some of its members having acquired new proclivities and preferences, arriving at a fork in the road!
The question that the national organizations had to answer was: should they strive for another bloc vote, or divide themselves into several camps – Democrats, Republicans, Green, etc. – in keeping with the ideological preferences of groups and individuals, or should they simply ask community members to vote any which they like.

Well, on December 14, 2003, they decided to organize themselves into a largest-ever, national coalition, and gave it a somewhat longish name: The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, but cleverly abbreviated it as AMT instead of AMTCRE.

Its mandate came from several sources: 1) members of member organizations (which include the largest Muslim organizations in the United States), 2) town hall meetings, 3) input from Muslim thinkers and intellectuals, 4) input from distinguished friends of the Muslim community, 5) community input solicitation questionnaire, and 6) the resultant consensual agenda

“What is the most effective way to conceptualize and organize Muslim politics?” was the question that the newly formed AMT faced. They decided to conceptualize Muslim politics around key issues, later labeled as the “Civil Rights Plus” agenda. This agenda itself was drawn from a list of overall objectives, which included the following: 1) becoming full partners in the defense, development and prosperity of our homeland, the United States, and 2) defending civil and human rights of all.

The next step was to have this agenda approved by the American Muslim community, which led the AMT to hold more than fifty town hall meetings. "We are going to hold town hall meetings all over the United States for the community and for the candidates to engage in a dialogue where we bring ourselves up to speed on these issues and create common cause with fellow Americans," the AMT Chair Dr. Agha Saeed was quoted by the Associated Press.

So impressive was the idea of these town hall meetings – an all inclusive process of building bottom-up democracy – that the state of New York-based newspaper Observe-Dispatch editorially applauded the AMT town hall meetings by writing: “That's responsible citizenship”. The same editorial also described Muslim Americans as a role model for the nonparticipating Americans to learn from.

The AMT initiated a process of consulting key Muslim activists and intellectual, writer, thinkers and poets. More than 100 individuals including reliable friends of Muslims community such as Paul Findley and Richard Curtiss were consulted in person or over the phone.

For the first time 'progressive' Muslim intellectuals (not those who have started donning this label since 9/11 but those have a proven track record of having espoused progressive ideas) were also brought into the fold. These include Prof. Bashir Hussain, editor, Encyclopedia of Capitalism and the dean of Muslim progressives in America, the working class intellectual Naseem Sarwar, and the dissident poet Iftikhar Naseem, to name only a few.

More than 10, 000 people were given a four-page AMT input questionnaire during 50 plus town hall meetings held all over the united states. As reported in the mainstream media, 8, 000 people had participated in the AMT mains session during the ISNA convention.

By organizing hospitality suites at Democratic, Republican and Green Party Presidential Conventions, in Boston, New York, and Milwaukee, respectively, the AMT maintained vocal and visible presence of Muslim American at all major power centers and vigorously highlighted their demands for civil liberties and social justice for all.

While ambitious individuals have been trying to build politics of personal access and limit their interaction with elected officials to their own homes, the AMT has been conducting its events and activities in public spaces with free and open access.

Similarly, while others have been, wittingly or unwittingly, trying to divide the Muslim vote along ethnic lines – Pakistani, Iranians, Turk, Indonesian, etc. – the AMT has been reuniting the community.

Also, the AMT has played a central role in connecting Muslim vote with demands for civil liberties and social justice; it has furnished the contents of American Muslim politics by holding educational forum all across the United States.
What if the re-elected Bush Administration decides to push forward

with the PATRIOT Act II? The AMT Board has already assembled the core elements of a nationwide civil rights coalition to create a common cause with fellow Americans, garner insights from previous movements and struggles, and to remain seized of the larger picture.

AMT’s ‘multiparty strategy’ is perhaps the most impressive of all its achievements. First of all, it does not imply endorsing a third party. It means working with multiple parties while staying in the mainstream. This ‘multiparty strategy’ was clearly reflected in multiparty endorsements issued by the AMA-PAC a few weeks ago. The AMA-PAC has endorsed candidates from all parties who support liberty and justice for all.

The political setback suffered after 9/11 was significantly, though not completely, rectified in 2004. In its soon-to-be-released report, the American Muslim Alliance (AMA) is expected to list all the Muslim candidates who ran and won in this year’s general election. At least eight Muslim Americans ran for state level offices in 2004. Many were elected.

It speaks very highly of the Muslim community and its representative institutions that, despite principled disagreement on the issue of endorsement, The Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) continues to be an affiliate member of AMT. Earlier the MPAC had decided to abstain from supporting either Bush or Kerry because neither candidate has publicly committed to support due process and equal justice.

This unity without conformity testifies to the fact the Muslim organizations have gained the capacity to agree to disagree and continue to work together “without throwing out the baby with the bath water”.

The AMT succeeded in creating the second Muslim bloc vote in 2004. The first Muslim bloc vote took place in 2000. This time 93% Muslims had voted together for Sen. Kerry to highlight their demand for civil liberties and social justice. Pakistan Post, a New York-based newspaper, summed the impact of AMT’s qualified endorsement in its headline: “AMT endorsement creates a wave of joy in the Muslim community”. (Lisette B. Poole, a freelance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay area, also lecturers at CSUH)


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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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