Where
Do We Go from Here?
By Naseem Shekhani,
MD
St. Louis, MO
The American Muslim Taskforce
(AMT) has been in the forefront of organizing
Muslim activists. The question remains if they
have the bargaining power to talk on behalf of
Muslim Americans.
Few of the organizations making up the AMT are
religious, some are just getting along, and a
few have no grassroots structure. So, in essence,
the AMT was just a self-appointed bunch of organizations
that felt that they had to do something.
I feel they have taken the first step, but they
need to reshape and emerge as an organization
that will represent most of the Muslims in the
USA.
I think all AMT leaders have good motives, but
they are failing the Muslims in the USA. AMT does
not have any campaigns at the grassroots level,
and all its leaders at present are just symbols,
as borne out by a survey conducted by the Council
of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In essence,
we need to identify more organizations in mainframe
media.
Now, where do we go from here? First and foremost,
we have to get our youth involved in the political
process and we must encourage them to organize
themselves on regional basis. We must also identify
community leaders who have a track record of delivering
and achieving goals. We should explore the prospects
of establishing think tanks and facilitating Muslims
working in either of the two major parties. The
formation of the American Muslim Taskforce was
a good first step, but it failed to represent
the Muslim American population of diverse backgrounds
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