An
Outline of AMT’s Strategy
By
Tahir Ali*
Boston,
Massachusetts
This is first of four essays
in which I will analyze the overall development
of the American Muslim Taskforce and the key elements
of its strategy. To that end, I will analyze four
aspects of AMT’s work: 1) its strategic vision,
2) political style, 3) its negotiation strategy,
and 4) institutional formation and evolution. In
this piece I will focus on AMT’s strategic
vision.
AMT’s vision is primarily an activist vision.
It is a vision of self-empowerment through political
participation. While most other Muslim groups and
their ethnic variants - Iranians, Pakistanis, Egyptians,
Bosnians, etc. - spend most, if not all, of their
energies in raising funds, the AMT believes and
acts on a demographic strategy: seeking a place
at the table on the basis on Muslim voting power.
“Ours is a demographic approach”, says
AMT Chair Dr. Agha Saeed. “Our work is based
on a ‘people intensive’ and not a ‘money-intensive’
approach.” In other words, if every vote counts,
then we must have the combined say and influence
of four million voters. But first we must vote and
have our vote counted.
There are six underlying differences between the
activist and non-activist points of view. These
differences relate to conception of 1) election,
2) role of the citizen, 3) role of institutions,
4) strategic uses of endorsement, 5) the difference
between popular vote and bloc vote, and 6) single
party versus multiparty strategy.
First of all, while some people view election only
as an occasion to cast one’s vote, the AMT
views elections as an opportunity for 1) electing
representatives, 2) agenda-setting, 3) coalition-building,
4) capacity formation (learning new skills to influence
the formation and working of the government), and
5) negotiations.
Secondly, the two perspectives are mutually differentiated
by the difference in their respective conception
of the role of the citizen. While those who see
election only as an occasion to cast their vote,
conceptualize the role of the citizen as fixed,
passive and limited, the AMT, on the other hand,
sees the role of citizen as fluid, active and creative.
The AMT leaders see politics as a flexible art.
What is unattainable in one context, they argue,
can be attained in another context. The role of
the leadership is to help create new possibilities
and competencies. Since politics always takes place
in the context partial agreements, on the one hand,
and on limited means and multiple ends, on the other,
the enterprise of politics presupposes the art of
concatenating partial agreements into a durable
alliance.
Thirdly, some see a community only as random accumulation
of individuals, unrelated to each other by any affinity
or purpose, or as a mass (“the masses have
spoken”) acting spontaneously or in response
to popular appeals. They completely deny the role
of institutions in creating internal consensus around
goals and strategies. The AMT, on the other hand,
sees an essential and organic link between the community
and its representative institutions, with each nurturing
the other.
While the community embodies the needs, wants and
preferences, the institutions provide the means
to fulfill those needs and actualize those preferences.
One of the most important tasks of representative
institutions is to conduct negotiations on behalf
of the community. Usually, these negotiations deal
with four types of issues: inclusion (including
appointments), policymaking, resource allocation,
and value generalization. Representative organi
zations provide a workable formulation of issues
to their members. An interesting example of agenda
setting for negotiation is provided by the Catholic
Church in its edict, “Ethical Values in Elections:
The Big Five”, issued on Oct 28, 2004. As
the largest congregation in the United States, it
provides its 65 million members with a clear and
concise agenda for performance evaluation, negotiation,
coalition-building and political participation:
Since some matters are as serious as life and death,
the Church has recently been reminding politicians
and voters about five non-negotiable issues we must
consider when choosing a candidate in the upcoming
elections. We will examine these non-negotiable
issues, which we can call the “Big Five”:
1. Abortion
2. Euthanasia
3. Embryonic stem cell research
4. Human cloning
5. Homosexual marriage
Fourthly, those who see a community only as random
accumulation of individuals, unrelated to each other
by any affinity or purpose, obviously, don’t
see any reason for endorsement. Similarly, those
who see a community as a mass of people, motivated
by momentary impulses, see the mass action as an
endorsement in itself.
The AMT, however, see the act of ‘endorsement’
as a cardinal step in the negotiation process. From
AMT’s point of view, an endorsement encapsulates
a given stage in negotiations, authenticates the
level of agreement between the two sides, provides
a sense of direction and purpose to the community,
and documents community’s participation and
multifarious contributions. It enables a community
to express its collective will. This _expression
of the collective will, the AMT leaders argue, must
be calibrated precisely to match whatever has been
offered by the other side.
Fifthly, unlike those for whom there is no difference
between a popular vote and a bloc vote, the AMT
contends that while a popular vote is characterized
by the spontaneous action of a majority, a bloc
vote is exercised only when the majority of a community
votes together for a common purpose negotiated by
its representative institutions. Contending that
spontaneity is not strategy, the AMT calls for connecting
popular vote with community’s political goals.
AMT’s qualified endorsement of Sen. Kerry
was designed to accomplish two goals: calibrate
Muslim support in direct proportion to Sen. Kerry’s
support for civil liberties and human rights, and
turn the popular vote into a bloc vote. By all indications,
the AMT has succeeded in both these endeavors.
Finally, the AMT is keenly interested in capacity
formation: enabling the community to learn new skills
to become more effective as citizens. This includes
working in various campaigns not only as volunteers
but also as professionals including engineers, computer
experts, statisticians, demographers, pollsters,
lawyers and accountants. The AMT has played a pivotal
role in getting immigrant Muslims to volunteer their
services in these professional capacities.
AMT multiparty strategy is fundamentally different
from those who call for total uncritical fidelity
to one party. The AMT believes that the American
Muslim politics should be based on issues and principles
and not on candidates or parties. Moreover, support
for a candidate should be based on critical evaluation
of his or her position and should not bar the community
from supporting an equally good candidate from any
other Party. Members of AMT such as the American
Muslim Alliance (AMA) have endorsed a number of
Green, Libertarian and Independent candidates for
local and state offices.
I concur with AMT’s chair Dr. Agha Saeed when
he says: “While we have given qualified endorsement
to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kerry,
we have retained our autonomy to endorse any candidate
that fits the AMT endorsement criteria”.
(*Author of the book: The Muslim Vote: Counts and
Recounts)
