Three Cardinal
Questions for AMA’s Community Development
Strategies
By Hazem Kira
Detroit, Michigan
The American Muslim Alliance
(AMA), a national civic education organization,
with 101 chapters, has added a new strategic component
to its burgeoning series of town hall meetings.
These meetings are primarily designed to provide
civic education and to help build citizen efficacy
through skills acquisition and capacity formation
as well as to seek direct input from community
members and activists for policy decision regarding
the overall American Muslim goals and strategies.
The AMA has recently decided to expand the scope
of its town hall meetings by informing and engaging
the Muslim community about the neocon agenda with
the aim to defeat it and prevent the neocons from
dividing the Muslim community by provoking internal
conflicts. (For detailed discussion of the neocon
agenda see Tahir Ali’s excellent piece on
“Beware of Muslim Neocons and Rand Robots”
published in Pakistan Link on January 07, 2005.)
The AMA plans to hold more than one town hall
meeting a month; each time in a different city
and state.
The AMA has added three cardinal questions to
the feedback list it seeks from the American Muslim
community: 1) how can we build genuine interethnic
Muslim unity among indigenous and immigrant Muslims
as well as among various sections of the immigrant
Muslims? 2) How can we ensure gender equality
within an Islamic framework? and 3) How can we
initiate an intergenerational dialogue to ensure
mutual understanding, accommodation, growth and
continuity?
These questions identify three major fault lines
that the neocons seek to exploit, political sources
said. AMA’s message, however, is not to
be defensive about these issues. Speakers at the
recent AMA town hall meeting in Detroit, Michigan,
the second in less than a month, emphasized that
real solutions can be found only through an open
and democratic process. The community must honestly
and forthrightly recognize that it faces serious
and substantial difficulties, it must involve
the whole community, men and women, young and
old as well as all ethnicities and classes to
find coherent and meaningful solutions, and must
develop an organizational structure to incorporate
and implement the democratically developed solutions.
The community must start by acknowledging in word
and deed that there is crying need for internal
reform and improvement, the sources said. These
problems of ethnicity, class, gender and generation,
among others, must be addressed and rectified
regardless of any other consideration. This is
a much-needed healthy and wholesome process that
will yield strategic benefits as a bi-product,
the organizers indicated.
“The neocon strategy is to divide the Muslim
community and liquidate its political presence,
our counter-strategy is to unite and preserve
our identity, autonomy, and citizen efficacy”,
says AMA Chair Dr. Agha Saeed. “But this
unity can only be achieved through sincere commitment
to implement internal reform.”
At the recent meeting community members suggested
ways of re-affirming a unity of purpose. Of the
75 people in the audience, all offered their insight
and recommendations.
The first question: how to build genuine interethnic
Muslim unity among indigenous and immigrant Muslims
as well as among various sections of the immigrant
Muslims, elicited a variety of opinions and suggestions
from the audience.
First, one audience member said, the community
must change how we define ourselves! Rather than
speaking of and using the term “interracial
harmony”, which acts to polarize the community,
we should think of ethnicity instead than race.
While race is supposedly biologically determined,
ethnicity is characterized by language and culture.
Ethnicity refers to all those perceptual, conceptual,
cognitive and attitudinal elements that could
understandably separate one group from the other.
Muslims coming from different ethnic backgrounds,
therefore, need to learn, understand, and respect
each other’s cultural norms, symbols and
behavior patterns. Unity presupposed learning
and mutual acceptance.
Other audience members expanded on the theme,
adding, that in their opinion the community should
think of itself as Muslims first and everything
else second. Still others argued that class divides
American Muslims more than ethnicity.
The emerging consensus was that we should think
of each other as resource and solution. This way
we can turn our differences into our overall strength.
Immigrants can benefit from the knowledge, experience
and contacts of the indigenous community; while
the indigenous community can benefit from resources
and skill base that the immigrant community brings
to the table. If we have to come up with a motto,
it was said, then let’s adopt the following
from a California high school: “Diversity
is our strength, unity is our goal”.
The key, it was agreed, is for greater socialization
among Muslim of different backgrounds (African,
Arab, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Central Asian,
and European), not only in places of worship,
but at parties, birthdays, weddings and other
festive occasions as well. It is only when tender
moments are shared that genuine fraternity cements
outward affinity. Reminding the audience of the
deep love that the Ansar (indigenous) and the
Muhajireen (immigrants) developed by working,
living and breathing the same circumstances, many
participants reiterated the need for the same
in the United States.
The second question “How can we ensure gender
equality within an Islamic framework?” was
also greeted with enthusiasm. The discussion began
when a member of the audience made an analogy
that Islam has a unique concept of equality, which
can be translated to a head of state and a head
of government. A parallel structure, he said,
is like a husband being designated head of family,
and the wife as the head of household.
A “Sahabi” (companion), one audience
member said, once asked the Prophet of Islam,
“Whom should I honor most?” The Prophet
replied, “Your mother.” “And
who comes next?” asked the man. The Prophet
replied, “Your mother.” “And
who comes next?” asked the man. The Prophet
replied, “Your mother.” “And
who comes next?” asked the man. The Prophet
replied, “Your father.” (Reported
by Al-Bukhari and Muslim) Such is the status of
the mother, that the greatest dignity accorded
to position belongs to her. The importance for
balance and equality is a crucial element in Islam.
A deep structural balance between parents, and
one among siblings, and children must be established
for harmony to exist in both the family and society.
Many in the audience agreed that keeping the spirit
of Islamic values means maintaining and enhancing
gender equality from the very early level of raising
children, and should be extended into leadership
structure, community affairs, and organizational
development.
Many members of the audience said that Muslim
parents must ensure gender equality in education,
sports, professional development, marriage, and
career choices. We must not adopt double standards
in raising boys and girls.
People should find the best way to ensure gender
equality by building a strong and loving family,
which give each child confidence to realize their
human potential.
One father continued that we must make sure Muslim
girls are afforded as much support and attention
as boys in accessing education and building their
potential leadership skills.
The third question “How can we initiate
an intergenerational dialogue to ensure mutual
understanding, accommodation, growth and continuity?”
drew the following responses:
Our children, lamented many in the audience, are
growing up in an environment that is indifferent
to and incognizant of their parents’ country
of origin, therefore they are going to have vastly
different understanding of the world they live
in. Parents should not therefore expect them to
continue in their own nationalistic affinities,
whether it is Egyptian, Uzbek or Pakistani, and
that parents should fully accept that.
Young people need strong education in their faith.
While Islam is under attack, many Muslims, especially
the young, feel intimidated. They need to know
that there is support from the community, and
must be given the tools to explore their identity
within a nurturing and supportive community.
The young, mentioned one youth in the audience,
have been all too quiet in the affairs of our
community, and need to voice their opinions and
be properly nurtured by their elders in how to
affect substantive change. Although the American-born
young Muslim professionals bring a unique skill
set to the table and tend to have a more intimate
grasp of the society they grew up in, yet they
need to inculcate greater commitment to community
service and Muslim causes.
Working collectively, young and old, male and
female, indigenous and immigrant, can the American
Muslim community continue to ward off nefarious
attacks, and harmoniously endure as an integral
part of the ‘American Family.’ For
more information contact AMA at 510.252.9858
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