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."
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Don't think about my crappy backwards religion that wants to kill you just vote for me.
" Don't think about my crappy backwards religion that wants to kill you just vote for me "
Ummmm...
Would that be "muslim" or "democrat" ?
The leftist jump to that from GWB using the phrase "islamofacists."
I am not from Minnesota, but the 5th district seems to outline a very liberal part of the state (Minneapolis). So either the dem party had no real prospects to begin with which explains Ellison's win or that the dems there are really a radical antisemitic bunch which explains why they voted for a Nation of Islam Muslim. Brain freeze from the cold winters could also be a plausible reason for such a pick.
On a positive note, the bar at he Sofitel hotel in Minneapolis makes the best hamburger I have ever had!
Mr Ellison: "Darn you caught me, I'm sorry" (that you caught me)
"real"
I don't know if "Nation Of Islam" is pure Muslim, its more like a racist offshoot.
Keith Ellison Hakim has a track record of being one of the Farrakhaners that he's trying to run away from.
Farrakhan and the Nation Of Islam favor racial separation and believe among other things that the world was created by God with only black people in it.
Then some evil magician came along and created the white race to mess things up. They believe that in the future the world will be restored and the evil white race will be dealt with.
For now NOI people are supposed to be good citizens and wait for the right moment to rise up and take what's rightfully theirs.
That's puts him in alliance with Islamofascists, though not exactly one of them. (I guess all those Arabs and Asians would be "white" in Farrakhan's book)
There's the slight hurdle called an election he has to clear before he gets annointed as the first Muslim elected to congress.
MN Dems were backing away from him last I heard. Martin Sabo (who's seat is the one being contested) distanced himslef from the guy.
I'd bet a focus on his Islamic roots will turn many voters away. It probably wasn't so much of an issue in the Dem primary. Under the spotlight of a campaign from the opposition party things could change dramatically.
So convert.
Go to http://www.powerlineblog.com to get the whole story on this guy. They've written about him extensively.
Not Minnesotan, but a lot of African American Muslims have a figurative axe to grind against the rest of the nation (particularly the European-descended part). A lot of their predecessors simply became Muslim because it wasn't Christian (which they erroneously supposed was a [European] man's religion).
I highly recommend his opponent hold it high for him, for all the voters to see. Stop this insanity now. Islam is not a religion, it is a hate group. Ellison personally has used the surname Muhammad. He's anti-Semitic and can try to run away from Farrakhan but he's chained to him for life.
Bad development. He should not be elected.
How any self respecting black person could have anything to do with the religion that has been and remains front and center on the slave trade is beyond me.
Agreed. It could be that they didn't know about the extensive Muslim slave trade network across Africa (more than primarily West Africa), and only saw slavery as something nominal Christians did.
I live in the 5th district and it's always been extremely liberal and obviously now is a member of the looney left. If anyone is interested in the real story on Mr. Ellison; go to Powerline.com. and you can read all about the lies and law-breaking habits of Mr Ellison that are excused away by the insane people that surround me. I must admit I always enjoy by conservative signs and bumper stickers. I don't want anyone to think i'm a liberal. (the 5th district is generally the city of Mpls.
Not all liberals are wacky, irrational bafoons. Many are but not all. They are the 9-11 democrats. One good thing about Minneapolis is that the city gave us The Replacements. Can't fault them for that.
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