Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Muslims groom candidates for 2004
2003 WorldNetDaily.com ^ | May 20, 2003 | WorldNetDaily

Posted on 05/20/2003 6:31:04 AM PDT by joesnuffy

Muslims groom candidates for 2004 Islamic group on nationwide tour to urge political participation

Posted: May 20, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A leading Islamic lobby group is on a nationwide tour to introduce Muslims to American politics.

Building an influential voting bloc for the 2004 elections and eventually seeing Muslim candidates on ballots for everything from city council to congressional seats are two aims of the Virginia-based Muslim American Society, the St. Paul Pioneer press reported.

The MAS also wants to increase campaign donations for politicians who have represented Muslim interests, including civil-rights protections and immigrant issues.

On Saturday, MAS will lead a civil rights march and rally in Washington, D.C., it touts as the largest gathering of Muslims ever in the nation's capital.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American Muslims, who traditionally focused on foreign policy, increasingly have made domestic policy their biggest concern, the St. Paul paper said. At a day-long workshop last Saturday in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., participants discussed issues such as mosque expansions, Islamic slaughterhouses and racial profiling.

The workshop turned 60 eager participants into lobbyists and, possibly, potential candidates, the Pioneer Press said.

"It's not just talking about issues that affect Muslims," workshop organizer Jessi Frenzel told the paper. "It's our duty as American residents to speak up on a lot of issues. To be a good citizen is to be a good Muslim."

Frenzel said he is considering a future in politics.

Another Muslim group held a political awareness seminar Sunday at the Islamic Center of Minnesota in Fridley in which participants learned how to approach the mayor, handle media interviews and build interfaith support.

About 700 Muslims ran for public office in 2000, and 153 were elected, the St. Paul paper reported. In 2002, however, the number of Muslim candidates dropped to fewer than 70, with about 15 elected, said Agha Saeed, a professor who has compiled the figures for the American Muslim Alliance.

One of a handful of Muslim candidates elected in the country last year was Keith Ellison, the first Muslim chosen for state office in Minnesota. Ellison, a member of the state House, said he was hit with a campaign "smear tactic" but now laughs about it. Fliers post in Minneapolis neighborhoods showed him in a bow tie with "Muhammad," his Muslim name, displayed prominently, the St. Paul paper reported. The message essentially said: Can this person really represent you?

Ellison said he wants to see Muslims add their voices to issues such as homeland security and the economy.

"I'm down here [at the Capitol] every day, and there's no Muslim presence at all," he told the Pioneer Press. "Without speaking up, people will pass repressive legislation on you. It's essential to raise your profile and find your political voice."

Muslim groups claimed their support of President George W. Bush put him in office, but an exit poll by the Detroit News showed 66 percent of Muslims in Michigan voted for Al Gore. Muslims are heavily concentrated in Detroit and other major metropolitan areas including New York, Chicago and Southern California.

Rahma Farah, 18, who participated in the Saturday workshop, said the experience made her optimistic about the future of Islam and U.S. politics.

One day, she told the St. Paul daily, there may even be a Muslim president of the United States.

"Who knows?" Farah said. "Maybe in 2020."

MAS said, according to a news release, it is planning a June 9 workshop on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to train imams and other Islamic leaders in the "community-building skills of political participation and media relations."

The session will be part of the American Muslim Council's annual imam conference, from June 5th to June 9th.

"No leader in our community should miss this opportunity to build crucial outreach skills," said Dr. Souheil Ghannouchi, president of the Muslim American Society. "In order to be effective leaders, our imams must be able to engage government officials on issues of concern to the community and properly represent their faith to the media."

After the training seminar, imams will have lunch with Muslim congressional staffers, MAS said, providing "an ideal opportunity for networking and building practical knowledge of the role of Muslims in politics."

Related story:

American Islamic lobby gets out the vote


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2004; cair; mas; muslimamericans; muslims; wahhabi; wahhabilobby
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 05/20/2003 6:31:04 AM PDT by joesnuffy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
Let's just hope thay are just as succesful as the Cynthia McKenney election.
2 posted on 05/20/2003 6:37:02 AM PDT by Only1choice____Freedom (http://www.despair.com - "Agony - Not all pain is gain")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
I wouldn't treat this lightly...this is how it begins when Islam has sufficient numbers to think it's time to pursue their ultimate goal.
3 posted on 05/20/2003 6:39:54 AM PDT by borisbob69 (This space available...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
No worries, I don't vote for people whose name I can't pronounce.
4 posted on 05/20/2003 6:44:56 AM PDT by anniegetyourgun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: borisbob69
not to mention the vast amount of "oil" cash they can tap for "greasing" the political skids
5 posted on 05/20/2003 6:45:16 AM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
The MAS also wants to increase campaign donations for politicians who have represented Muslim interests.

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/14thamend.htm Fourteenth Amendment Selective Incorporation

AMENDMENT XIV

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

The Constitution of the United States must remain the Law of We The People regardless of political correctness and special interests. Remaining a Free Society is a constant battle from both the afore mentioned.

6 posted on 05/20/2003 6:52:31 AM PDT by yoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
the Trojan Horse.
7 posted on 05/20/2003 6:57:16 AM PDT by sheik yerbouty
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anniegetyourgun
ROFL!
If they're ever nominated I'm moving to Mars.
8 posted on 05/20/2003 6:58:23 AM PDT by MeekMom ((HUGE Ann Coulter Fan!!!) (Life-long Python Addict))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: sheik yerbouty
indeed!
9 posted on 05/20/2003 6:58:52 AM PDT by MeekMom ((HUGE Ann Coulter Fan!!!) (Life-long Python Addict))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
Bump.
10 posted on 05/20/2003 7:02:02 AM PDT by DoctorMichael (You say Muss-lim, I say Moose-limb; Let's call the whole thing off.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yoe
AMENDMENT XIV


You mean like China?

Legal issues has not stopped the Dem's before.

11 posted on 05/20/2003 7:21:04 AM PDT by Only1choice____Freedom (In order to achieve some long-term goals, some short-term goals must be abandoned. And Vice-versa.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
May I suggest, the year 2525.
12 posted on 05/20/2003 7:38:19 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
It is a real threat to our future... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/914649/posts They also have up to 4 wives x children. Don't laugh, while were all having 1.9 children they are having???
Also,the black community seems to be embracing the muslim way, it gives them a way to get away from the faith of the massa, except that the muslims still practice slavery in other countries, kinda funny really...(funny as in weird)
13 posted on 05/20/2003 7:51:49 AM PDT by doubtfullyhopefull
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: borisbob69
As more and more muslims get elected to local, state, and fed political positions,you will start seeing more laws get passed for the benefit of muslims.

When they get a majority in America, all h*ll will break loose.
When that happens, the "peaceful muslims" will get less peaceful.

The proof is in their history.
14 posted on 05/20/2003 7:53:26 AM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: borisbob69
This is a very sobering situation and one that should be taken VERY seriously. Look at France and see how they bend and bow to their Muslim residents. The Muslim approach may be different here, but the aim is the same - to control.
15 posted on 05/20/2003 8:01:30 AM PDT by ImpotentRage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: ImpotentRage
Actions have consequences. Our Islamic friends who would like to run for office, are very effectively rendered useless when watching the news each day.

Perhaps when Muslems are a political force in some country, somewhere on the globe which is not blowing up McDonalds, stoning adulterers to death, cutting off body parts, referring to their neighbors as "infadels", throwing elderly people in wheelchairs off of pirated cruise ships, taking movie theaters hostage, beating their wives, slicing off the genitals of little girls, and building a base by recruiting people from of all places.....prison!, then and only then I might talk about an Islamic representative who just might know the separation of church and state thingy.

Nah, as long as they keep doing what they are doing around the globe it will ruin it for the good ones. As it does for everyone.

16 posted on 05/20/2003 8:15:08 AM PDT by blackdog (Tag Line was where I stood in the second grade)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy
"I don't view myself through separate identities. The yardstick I measure by is my faith; everything else falls into place. My identity is an American Palestinian who is a Muslim."
-Dr. Laila al-Marayati, member U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

"I feel not only proud to be an American - to carry an American passport and travel worldwide - I feel that I can be myself, a fully practicing Muslim, particularly in America. This means I wake up in the morning without fear and come home at the end of the day without fear."
-Imam Yahya Hendi, member U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom


Fully practicing Muslims for religious freedom?


A Muslim's religious obligations have remained unchanged over the centuries. Due to geographical dispersal, slightly different interpretations of politics, family, attire, and social life exist, but a Muslim in Malaysia is summoned to exactly the same obligations as the Muslim in Brooklyn and in Riyadh.
Congressman Paul Findley

In the future, America could become a functionally Islamic country, to the extent that its various peoples follow the common revelation and natural law that informed both the founders of the American republic and the great scholars of Islamic law. Although the details or fiqh of these two great traditionalist movements may differ due to unique circumstances of time and place, the basic sources of American and Islamic law and therefore their basic principles are identical.
This "Islamic" future of America, however, is contingent upon the development of indigenous leadership of the Muslim ummah in America dedicated to integrating Muslims both spiritually and politically into the American mainstream.Dr. Robert D. Crane
President, Center for Policy Research.

Representatives in Congress pay attention to the concern of their constituents; when American Muslims organize, raise funds, and communicate their concerns to elected officials, these officials pay attention. They realize that American Muslims are a group whose concerns they must address.
Aly R. Abuzaakouk
Executive Director, American Muslim Council

17 posted on 05/20/2003 8:31:30 AM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: joesnuffy

Aba Daba Aba Daba- Abu Daubi -Honeymoon

18 posted on 05/20/2003 11:38:50 AM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yoe; Alamo-Girl
Source: "Portrait of a Wahhabi: My encounters with Randall Royer…and the “usual suspects.”," FrontPageMagazine.com , Tuesday, July 1, 2003 , By Stephen Schwartz, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/938532/posts?page=5

(snip) An especially disgusting item appears as number 104: “On or about February 1, 2003, in a message celebrating the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia, Unindicted Conspirator #1 advised his followers that the United States was the greatest enemy of Muslims.”

This tidbit is fascinating because in 2002,[Randall aka Ismail] Royer was employed as Communications Director of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a major component of the “Wahhabi lobby” or Islamic political establishment in the U.S.   At the time of the shuttle disaster, Eric Erfan Vickers, then-executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC), another element in the “Wahhabi lobby,” lost his job with AMC when an e-mail was exposed in which he wrote that the disaster may have been “a sign from God about America’s future.”   Royer and Vickers both hail from St. Louis, Missouri.

See also the FR search engine using the key words "Royer" and "Paintball cell"

19 posted on 07/09/2003 3:46:02 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: piasa
Royer and Vickers both hail from St. Louis, Missouri.

I assume both of these guys are Black Muslim converts?

20 posted on 07/09/2003 3:49:59 PM PDT by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson