Posted on 09/24/2006 2:49:37 AM PDT by MadIvan
Gathering his teenage players around him, the high school basketball coach urged them to take notice. "This is a moment in history," he said. "This is the first Muslim, and the first African-American from Minnesota, to represent you in Congress."
Keith Ellison looked uncomfortable. He is indeed poised to become the first follower of Islam to enter the United States House of Representatives, but he feels that the focus on his religion has become a distraction from what he wants to achieve as a politician.
"I'm not really enamoured with the whole 'first' stuff," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "I'm not making an appeal on the basis of faith. I do hope, though, that people who have felt that they were on the margins, not included in the American body politic, can now feel they can play a greater part."
Mr Ellison's religion, however, has become central to the mid-term congressional race in Minneapolis where, having won the Democratic Party nomination in the primary election this month, he is the overwhelming favourite for the November 7 vote.
In the backlash against their faith after the September 11 attacks, the number of Muslims seeking elected office across America's 50 states plummeted, despite the fact that the Muslim population now stands at an estimated four million.
Some on the Republican Right have sought to make Mr Ellison, a lawyer specialising in representing impoverished blacks, a national election issue. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, has branded him a "radical Left defender of cop killers" who exposes the Democratic Party as "unacceptably radical at home and weak abroad".
Unabashedly liberal, Mr Ellison rejects President George W Bush's argument that there is a "clash of civilisations" between Islam and the West, insisting that Muslims have the same aspirations as everyone else. "It's dangerous to promote that concept," he said. "Muslims in America mostly want to get an education, start a business, get married, build a mosque, live life."
But he wants Mr Bush to be impeached for going to war based on a "fabricated case" and advocates the immediate withdrawal of American troops from the "quagmire" of Iraq.
Born a Roman Catholic, Mr Ellison, 43, was a 19-year-old economics student when he converted – and became associated with the Nation of Islam, the radical group that promotes black rights and whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, has made racist statements.
Mr Ellison, who previously used the names Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison and Keith Ellison Muhammad, insists that he was never a member of the group.
But Alan Fine, his Republican opponent, who is Jewish, denounced Mr Ellison as a liar. "Anyone who joins a hate group during his adulthood, we should question the character of that individual," he said, to boos, at a candidate forum. "The Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi party and the Nation of Islam are not things that are positive."
When Right-wing bloggers exposed the extent of his links with the Nation of Islam, Mr Ellison wrote to the local Jewish Community Relations Council apologising for failing to "adequately scrutinise the positions" of Mr Farrakhan and others. "They were, and are, anti-Semitic and I should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did."
He has condemned Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups and described "Israel's security needs" as "an absolute rock bottom necessity". Many prominent Jewish Democrats have warmly endorsed him.
Mr Ellison has been a state representative in the -Minnesota legislature for four years, with a constituency where most voters are from ethnic minorities, including many Somali -refugees. But the much larger -congressional district that he hopes will elect him is only 13 per cent black, with an even smaller proportion- of Muslims, so he must also win votes from the majority, white -population.
Imam Markram El-Amin, head of the Masjid An-Nur mosque, where Mr Ellison worships, said: "The time is right. Keith is proud to be a Muslim but he doesn't want to hold the banner so high that people see him only in that light."
Mr El-Amin, who has travelled to the Vatican for a papal audience as well as to Saudi Arabia for the Haj pilgrimage, said that his parents had been members of the Nation of Islam. "I wouldn't class it as a hate group but I can understand how, for the outsider looking in, it would appear that way.
"It was more about building up the black man than tearing down whites and others. Now it's time to embrace a universal, more open Islam.
"We have a great opportunity and an obligation to play our part as Muslims in America, to show the good face of Islam.
''We believe that America is the greatest nation on earth and the freedoms that we have are greater than many Muslims have in Islamic countries."
Good graphics devolve, you've been busy.
The Republican party was started by Christians who fought to end slavery.
Absolutely true.
But that doesn't mean that Christians did not own slaves in America for hundreds of years before, it does not mean that the Bible was used to justify slavery, and it does not mean that those who opposed abolition were almost all professing Christians.
I live in Minnesota, but not in the 5th district. Used to vote Demonrat, but the party isn't and never was what I thought it was, they did have excellent PR though. I didn't jump the Demonrat ship right after 9/11, but I had a co-worker make Ward Churchill like remarks right after and that was the end of my love for leftism. It wasn't until the War in Iraq that my blinders fully came off and I saw the Demonrats for what they are, lying lying liars and opportunists. If you see what they said about Saddam from 98 to 2003 it is perfectly clear that they aren't opposed to war unless Bush is in charge of the war.
The Nation of Islam is a cult. It has absolutely nothing to do with Islam. It was started by a white man. It is a cult of black separtists. A true muslim believer would not accept this cult. I can not believe we have got to the place in the country where no one can state the TRUTH. I should say it is a cult of a cult.
Well if there was a state that was going to send one to congress it was going to be Liberal bastions of Minn or Mich... No suprises here.
Slavery was a world wide economic system. It was white European Christians that finally ended it. All practiced it. Even blacks. It needs to be put in its historical place. All peoples have been enslaved by someone sometime in history. I would even say the development of Capitalism helped end it as socialism is just another form of slavery.
I think they spelled disgrace wrong in the title.
Thanks for posting this, I hadn't heard about it before (I don't live in Minnesota), but the news cannot be good for the Democrat Party as a whole. The more the radicals on the left are exposed, the better.
Any comment from our friends in Minnesota?
Why yes I do have several comments about Mr. Ellison. But I don't want to get banned.
Some on the Republican Right have sought to make Mr Ellison, a lawyer specialising in representing impoverished blacks,
That would include cop killing Crips.
What about his views about the USA? Where are your loyalties?
5th district is bluer than blue. Barring a speech praising Hitler, Osama, and Satan, he'll probably take the seat.
Try Ike's downtown if you're ever through this way again.
I don't know. In the 5th CD, a speech praising Osama and Satan would probably bump up his totals even more. Not Hitler though, because as we know, in their BDS affected minds Bush = Hitler. /only partial sarcasm
Hey! I live in 5. And we only worship Satan on Tuesdays!
Yah, that's essentially true. The Nation of Islam types aren't even so much a religion as a social movement against white America. I'd be a lot more worried about them working with the Black Panthers then Al-Quada, although I wouldn't count out either, at least among the most radical elements of the already radical movement.
I certainly don't want this man in Congress, but since it's all but assured anyway, I'm mostly just wondering how bad he'll be. I'm hoping he won't be any worse then your run-of-the-mill ultra-leftist a'la Jesse Jackson Jr. but I could be wrong about that. He could turn out to be Cynthia McKinney on steroids, which would be REALLY bad for the country on a whole.
I guess we just have to wait and see.
I guess disgrace is a word you can use without getting banned. Can we say Islamic Excremists here?
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