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Posted on 08/10/2004 2:07:53 AM PDT by kattracks
Rameen Mosref Javid did not bother voting in the 2000 elections.Back then, the 35-year-old Afghan was more interested in Far Eastern politics. He didn't consider himself a minority, and he didn't feel any persecution or fear.
Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and the American Muslim world changed.
"After 9/11, we became a target," said Javid, a Flushing resident, who said he has been "selected" for random airport checks each of the nine times he has flown since the attacks.
He now plans to vote for the first time - and hopes other Muslims will do the same.
"A lot more is at stake for this community," said Javid, who two months ago began registering voters in front of area mosques after Friday Jumah services.
A flurry of voter activity drives is underway in Muslim and Arab enclaves throughout the city. A patchwork of organizations is hitting the streets to galvanize Muslims into what they say could become a potent voting bloc.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee last month started conducting workshops for people who want to volunteer for registration drives. On July 31, a coalition kicked off a three-month voter drive with tables on Atlantic Ave. in downtown Brooklyn and Fifth Ave. in Bay Ridge.
"There are so many Muslims who are disillusioned out there and that might show at the polls," said Wissam Nasr, the New York director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The council has set up a voter information booth in front of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York - the city's largest mosque - on E. 96th St. and Third Ave.
In the past, Muslims and Arabs have voted along social and ethnic lines, said James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute. Many business-owning Arabs, for example, are Republicans, but African-American Muslims vote for Democrats, he said.
"There is incredible diversity within ... the ethnic and racial groups of Islam and the religious community doesn't yet operate as a political constituency," Zogby said.
This time, however, Zogby and others predict racial and conservative beliefs may take a backseat. The erosion of civil liberties, the unresolved Iraqi War and Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be front and center.
Those were the issues that many Muslims mentioned recently after volunteer Faizan Habeeb, 16, stopped them as they left services at the Islamic Cultural Center and asked if they were registered to vote.
Yeboah Nortey, 50, who became a U.S. citizen two months ago but had yet to register, was pleased to find information on how to sign up.
"I just want to vote for the Democrats," said Nortey, a Ghanaian-American who lives in the Bronx. "They will do better for us."
Originally published on August 9, 2004
"I just want to vote for the Democrats.THEY WILL DO BETTER FOR US."
....geezzz kattracks,yer on a roll this AM......BTTT !!
Silly me. When I first read this, I thought he meant "After 9/11 we Americans became a target".
It is all about what someone else can give them.
For such an old culture it sure is infantile.
Typical Democrat voter.
I have to laugh whenever I see the Leftist media and its drones wail about the "erosion of civil liberties." Hell, the Left has been actively engaging in that for DECADES. Just note how they've curtailed Freedom of Speech with their Orwellian political correctness. Just take a gander at all their anti-Second Amendment laws.
Anyone who wants to wail about the erosion of our rights and claim that it's all Bush's fault has not been paying attention for the last 40 years.
This November election could go down in history as one of the times that Jews and Muslims were both a majority vote for the Democrats.
Maybe Bush should have rounded up all Muslims/Arabs after 911 like FDR rounded up the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.
/sarcasm\
Let's say that I'm a Presbyterian and that a radical group of Presbyterians from another country blew up the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and Disneyland.
If I wasn't active in politics before, that might jolt me into being more politically aware. I would be mad at the bad Presbyterians who hijacked my religion and I would want to vote for a stronger America to make sure that sort of thing would never happen again.
Let's say once in a while I get stopped at the airport because I "look Presbyterian". I wouldn't be mad at the airport people. I'd be mad at the bad Presbyterians who committed the atrocities that gave me the bad reputation in the first place.
I might also be livid at Michael Moore if he released an anti-Presbyterian documentary that implied that the president was a crook just because he had business dealings with some non-terrorist Presbyterians.
"I just want to vote for the Democrats," said Nortey, a Ghanaian-American who lives in the Bronx. "They will do better for us."
GO CRASH YOUR CAB!
How special.
How special...they all share the same brain.
So now the Dems have another demographic to pander to - Muslems who are ticked for perceived security scrutiny. In return for votes they presumably will loosen security procedures. There's a balance between civil rights and the right of the majority to live securely, and at this point in time weakening security checks is not the answer. One good start would be for American Moslems to acknowledge that they have a problem and accept some inconvenience until they sort it out.
And if I were one one of those nonviolent Presbyterians who got stopped a little more often in airports, I would have enough insight to know that this wasn't just protecting those who weren't Presbyterian. It would be protecting MY @ss too! Because I would realize that the violent Prebyterians wouldn't mind killing my non-violent @ss right along with everyone else on the plane.
These morons seem to forget that it's "muslims" who created the need for increased security, but do they blame them? Noooo....
Muslims are at war with the majority of the world's peoples: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, even godless Chicoms, yet they consider themselves unjustly persecuted if someone so much as looks at them funny, (worse yet) makes a rude comment, or (GASP!), searches them at the airport.
Notice they're eager to vote in the U.S. In their native countries, no big deal.
go crash your cab.
this may become my favorite cut down line to all my friends who are in the know. definatly will replace my 7 11 lines.
and yes i do racial profiling and tell un p c jokes.
and i feel better for it too!!!!!!!!
if muslims abandon the republican party, after bush's grace towards them and our efforts to liberate them, then it will be time to give them something to cry about
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