Posted on 11/08/2003 12:15:14 PM PST by Lessismore
Throughout the world Arabs and Muslims are taking steps toward greater political participation, and these aren’t just through elections in Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar, or the coming local elections in Saudi Arabia. In the US, Arab-Americans and American Muslims are making great progress, and at astounding speed.
Nov. 4, when a series of state and local elections were held throughout the US, was a milestone for Arab-Americans and American Muslims in Virginia, a state that scarcely had a mosque or an Arab community center when my family moved here 30 years ago. Virginia now boasts an Arab-American population estimated at about 100,000 and an American Muslim population that may be about equal in size.
This growing population is starting to get organized. On election night at a Democratic Party “victory celebration,” Mark Sickles, who had just been elected to the Virginia House of Delegates from Fairfax County, took the stage. Among the first words he said was: “I want to thank the American Muslim community for supporting me in this election.”
As a child growing up in Arlington, the next county over from Fairfax, I never thought I’d live to see the day when mainstream candidates in America would thank the American Muslim community first on their list of acknowledgments. Even more impressive was the fact that the Arab-American and American Muslim communities were involved in a large number of campaigns across Virginia. We are now part and parcel of the political landscape, and we must be reckoned with.
Sickles was elected by 600 votes, so every vote counted. And his strategic alliance with the American Muslim community probably played a major role in propelling him to the state house. Similarly, another candidate, Steve Shannon, was elected by only 250 votes. He attended an Iftar at a local Palestinian restaurant two nights before the election and committed himself to standing side-by-side with the Arab-American and American Muslim communities, mobilizing support and helping take him to the Virginian House for the first time.
Two things were especially significant in light of the fact that this was all taking place a few kilometers away from the Pentagon, which was attacked by anti-American terrorists just over two years ago. Arab-American and American Muslim communities chose active participation instead of isolation; and the mainstream political community went out of its way to embrace them in the political process.
Some Arab-Americans and American Muslims chose to call people in their communities and urge them to get out and vote. On election day others volunteered for their parties. Still others turned out as candidates themselves. By doing this the Arab-American and American Muslim communities demonstrated maturity. They supported candidates who supported their concerns which in the era of US President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft generally meant supporting candidates strong on civil liberties. More often than not, these were Democrats.
As further demonstration of the community’s evolution, Virginia’s Arab-American Political Action Committee New Dominion PAC supported 23 candidates in this past week’s electoral cycle, of which 20 won their contests. That represented a stunning 87 percent success rate.
But what do state and local elections have to do with issues that Arab-Americans care about, like the civil liberties debate defined by the likes of Ashcroft and the foreign policy issues defined by Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld? It is precisely because Arab-Americans and American Muslims are deepening their involvement at the local and state levels across America, that the Democratic presidential campaigns are embracing them like never before.
All of the top campaigns have directly engaged the Arab-American community. General Wesley Clark’s campaign has hired a young Palestinian-American woman to organize the Arab and Muslim communities in support of the candidate. The Howard Dean campaign is setting up an Arab-American, American Muslim and South Asian American outreach committee. And the John Kerry campaign has enlisted senior level Arab-Americans to help define its policy agenda.
The lesson here is that grassroots politics has national implications. And not just in America. As Arabs and Muslims go to the polls to vote in local elections in coming years be they in Doha or Dearborn they will be embracing values of dignity and democracy, and they will ultimately be influencing policies and perceptions at the national level, and even the international level, in decades to come.
The only enemy here is inaction. Those Arabs and Muslims who involve themselves in organizing and campaigning for elections will be making historical steps, and strengthening themselves and their local communities in the process. Those who fail to do so will remain part of the malaise of the past.
Hady Amr formerly served as Al Gore’s national director for ethnic American outreach. He is also the co-founder of the New Dominion PAC and can be reached at hady@amr-group.com. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR
--Boris
Let's hope the French don't have the last laugh.
The media that will soon descend on Lackawanna like fallout from the sky will tag Mr. al-Dossari as a mystery man, but the real mystery lies in the ordinariness of the defendants. They're delivery men and warehouse workers, telemarketers and car salesmen, close friends and soccer pals. Four of the six graduated from Lackawanna High School. Three have children. Five are American-born. All are registered Democrats, and all live within blocks of one another.
And when the democrats put up someone like a "Lieberman", they lose the vote of the muslims. It's going to be impossible to please both. I should think it's time for the Jews to go Republican.
1. Arab does not equal Muslim.
2. The majority of Arabs in the US are Christians, not Muslims.
3. The majority of muslims in the US are not Arab. (The majority of Muslims in the US are Black.)
4. The majority of Muslims in the world are not Arabs. Only Middle East Muslims are Arab. Not even Iranian Muslims are Arab, and the largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia.
The Problem is not Arabs, the problem is Islam.
Our own president doesn't seem to know this difference. Good grief!
Of course there are good Arabs. All the ones that aren't Muslim. But aren't there moderate Muslims? Sure, just as there were moderate nazis, fascists, and communists. Wrong is wrong, whether moderately wrong or extemely wrong, and no one starts out to be an extremist. Without the moderate muslims, the extremists would not exist. Where do you think they come from? The moderates may not be terrorists, yet, but it is the support of the moderates the terrorists must have to exist. Without the hordes of "moderate" Muslims, there would be no extremist Muslims.
Hank
And watch the dems push for more migration from islamee nations.
Close enough. We're in a hurry, and what--precisely--have "Arabs" contributed to the world in the last 14 or 15 centuries?
--Boris
Frankly, your attitude makes absolutely no sense. The Christian majority of Americans with Arab roots are overwhelmingly conservative.
Close enough. We're in a hurry, and what--precisely--have "Arabs" contributed to the world in the last 14 or 15 centuries?
What non-Muslim Arabs have not contributed is the advance of Muslim terrorism. Since most non-Muslim Arabs are Christians, they are opposed to the very same things Americans are, and suffer the same kinds of persecution non-Muslims of every other race or nationality do at Muslim hands.
Muslim propaganda organizations in this country love to confuse Arab with Muslim, because it is one more point of ignorance that obfuscates who the enemy really is. Everyone who propagates that obfuscation, as you seem to be doing, is aiding the Muslim cause and terrorism. Now, I know you don't mean to do it, but ignorance is not how we are going to defeat Islam.
Hank
Very true. Arabs make up a minority of Muslims worldwide; even many of bin Laden's guys in Afghanistan were Chechens (definately not Arab).
2. The majority of Arabs in the US are Christians, not Muslims.
True up until a few years ago (I believe the majority were Lebanese Christians) but I'm not sure that's the case any longer. Do you have up-to-date figures from a reliable source (hint: CAIR and their ilk are not to be considered reliable IMO)?
3. The majority of muslims in the US are not Arab. (The majority of Muslims in the US are Black.)
Once you subtract out the Nation of Islam folks or their offshoots (who no orthodox Sunni or Shia would consider trully Muslim) this may not be the case. Again, if you have up-to-date figures I'll by happy to stand corrected. It occurs to me that the large number of east African and Pakastani Muslims may have an effect on the figures.
For that matter, the whole question of who is and who is not "Arab" can be contentious (not much Arab blood in the ordinary Egyptian's veins; but I wouldn't advise pointing this out to most Egyptian Muslims). For that matter, a large percentage of people currently residing in Saudi Arabia aren't Arabs!
4. The majority of Muslims in the world are not Arabs. Only Middle East Muslims are Arab. Not even Iranian Muslims are Arab, and the largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia.
See above.
The Problem is not Arabs, the problem is Islam.
Agree 100%. Which is why in my original post I used the term 'Islamacist'.
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