Arab and Muslim-American Activism

AMA Holds Regional Leadership Training Conference

The American Muslim Alliance held a regional leadership training conference at Georgetown University in Washington, DC on July 21. During the morning session Muslim media representatives, activists and students heard leaders from Muslim political organizations give an overview of their work, both individually and collectively under the umbrella American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC). Moderator Dr. Agha Saeed described the achievements and goals of the AMPCC, a coalition of American-Muslim political organizations much like its Jewish equivalent, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Even though AMPCC was founded only two years before the 2000 presidential elections, the organization had a significant impact in uniting Muslims across the nation to vote for president as a bloc. The national turnout of American-Muslim voters on Election Day last year reached 3.2 million, with 2.3 million—or 72 percent of the total—voting for Bush. In the pivotal state of Florida, Bush received 91 percent of the Muslim vote, while only 256,000—8 percent—supported Gore.

While not all Muslims voted as a bloc in 2000, Dr. Saeed said, the hope is that with increased dialog between Muslim organizations there will be even greater unity in future elections. Without doubt, Muslim voters put themselves on the political map in 2000, and became a crucial, even decisive, voting bloc that could provide a swing vote for any party or politician that tackles issues of concern to American Muslims.

American Muslim Council national executive director Aly Abuzaakouk described his organization as an advocacy group to encourage Muslim participation in grassroots American politics. AMC organizes voter registration drives because, Abuzaakouk told the audience, “if you are voteless you are weightless in America.” He added, “Muslims can help rebuild a moral America, a better America, and improve both domestic and foreign policies.”

AMC works to form coalitions with other groups to address issues of concern to Muslims. These include the profiling of members of the American Muslim community and the use of secret evidence. Prior to the 2000 presidential elections, AMC released a survey that showed who Muslims are, in terms of national origin, age and other factors, and what issues they view as important. The American Muslim voice is now recognized—and sometimes even heard—in the public policy arena, Abuzaakouk concluded.

Robert Moore described the work of the Coalition for Good Government by comparing good government to a body, with politics representing one lung and business the other. While a body can survive with only one lung, Moore said, it works better with both lungs acting together. The Coalition works to restore economic dignity to all Americans, including African- and Muslim-Americans. Its goal is to educate and empower American citizens, Moore said, because they need to be part of the political discussion.

In the past African-Americans have visited their elected representatives, given their views and been dismissed while the actual decisions were made behind closed doors, according to Moore. A constituency is paternalistic in nature, Moore said, if your representative gives you the bacon. “You want to bring home the bacon yourself.” Voters can do this, he said, by becoming partners in a policymaking coalition. Moore urged Muslim- and African-Americans to run for elected offices and lobby for political appointments in order to attain visibility and direct involvement in the decision-making process.

Shaw University Prof. Ihsan Bagby described the work of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, formed in 1993 to respond to any defamation of Muslims or Islam in the press, government or businesses. In addition to lobbying American political leaders on issues related to Islam and Muslims in the U.S., CAIR helps protect the civil rights of Muslims and combats hate crimes and discrimination, even in correctional institutions. Bagby co-authored the recent CAIR study, The Mosque in America: A National Portrait, designed to further the understanding of the Muslim presence in America.

Mahdi Bray, national political adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council, described MPAC’s work by recounting the events of his past few days. He was arrested June 26 as he and other American-Muslim leaders protested President George W. Bush’s welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the White House (see Aug./Sep. Washington Report, p. 95). “You’re arresting the wrong guy. Sharon is the war criminal,” Bray said he shouted to the arresting officers.

Bray also met with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and was in attendance at the June 28 White House briefing with members of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives when DC-intern Abdullah Al-Arian was removed (see Aug./Sep. Washington Report, p. 47). “In a beautiful demonstration of Muslim unity,” he told the audience, “all Muslims walked out of the meeting.”

Somehow, Bray found time to get married that same night.

Bray’s great uncle was bludgeoned to death for registering other African-Americans to vote. As a result, the MPAC national political adviser is especially dedicated to achieving voting power for American Muslims. “It’s not enough to be a wanna be. We’re going to be!” Bray vowed. “I don’t go into my congressman’s office to get a picture of him with me to put on my wall. I want to know what he is going to do for us. Is he going to join what is good and prevent what is bad?” he asked. “Politicians should move from bluff to stuff and translate political accessibility to political action.”

In describing the American Muslim Alliance, Eric Vickers, the first Muslim elected to Congress, discussed why Muslims should be involved in politics. Muslims are tasked to create a just society, he noted, not just for Muslims but for all its members. He told a story about redistricting in St. Louis, Missouri. Just when the area where many of the economically deprived African-Americans lived had a majority of seats, he said, the area was redistricted and a wealthy, predominantly Jewish, district was added. The lower-income residents thus were outflanked, and their hopes for social justice dashed.

Though historically Jews have been involved with civil rights issues in America, and thereby obtained the support of African-Americans, Vickers noted, they no longer seem to be focusing on civil rights issues, such as profiling. If the African-American community teams up with the Muslim American community on issues of importance, he argued, they will find solutions to the problems that face both communities.

Bagby described the Muslim Alliance of North America, the youngest Muslim organization on the block, whose members are Muslim converts, or indigenous Muslims, and second-generation American Muslims. This community is developing and increasingly speaking out on issues like profiling. The situation in Sudan impacts the Muslim community in the U.S., Bagby maintained, warning, “Enemies are trying to trash Islam and place a wedge in between Muslims and Christians.”

Muslims need to work hard to respond to the defamation of Islam and combat negative stereotypes, he concluded.

Detecting and Correcting Anti-Muslim Bias

The conference’s afternoon session focused on “Detecting and Correcting Anti-Muslim Bias,” and was moderated by Prof. Jamshed Uppal.

Khalil Jahshan, vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) examined bias in think tanks and educational institutions involved in policy research. The U.S. has 12,000 think tanks, Jahshan said, and many of them become part of the political process with an important impact on policymaking. There was a “fuzzy line” separating think tanks and the government, he noted: think tanks are policy incubators that the government may use to research specific questions. Think tanks offer talent pools or training grounds for people who later take positions in the government. Some, like Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, take advantage of the revolving doors between think tanks and government office. Think tanks also offer prestigious retirement jobs for people leaving government employment.

Think tanks offer important public relations tools—complete with seminars and conferences—and supply talking heads for the media. They also publish journals which advocate their perspectives.

Jahshan suggested five ways for American Muslims to influence think tanks: monitor their research; visibly participate in their events and provide input in their reports prior to publication; fund projects; intern with think tanks; and, finally, Jahshan said, Muslims should start their own think tanks.

This reporter, news editor of the Washington Report, spoke about detecting anti-Muslim bias in the media, especially in the American media’s reporting of the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories. As a result of the media’s routine use of certain language, misleading headlines and anti-Arab stereotypes, America continues to blame the victim and Israel’s image stays squeaky clean.

As Washington Report executive editor Richard Curtiss once said in a speech, “There is a media conspiracy of silence when it comes to anything critical of Israel. Most daily newspapers, virtually all television stations, and many radio stations are deathly afraid of offending advertisers and readers supportive of Israel. And it is for this reason that they have also tended to keep their distance from Muslims and anything to do with Islam.”

Muslims in the U.S. get bad press because supporters of Israel fear that if Muslim- and Arab-Americans gain access to the media and political leaders, Americans will learn what really is happening in Israel.

Professor M.M. Ali discussed anti-Muslim bias in academia. Coincidentally, he said, just as the Muslim presence in America has grown, the Israeli-Arab conflict has intensified. As a result, Ali noted, “mischievous” supporters of Israel repeatedly bring up a purported “clash of civilizations,” or accuse Muslims of being anti-Semitic, anti-Christian or even anti-American. Muslim bashers, he continued, add their “shrill voices to the cacophony that equates Muslims with terrorists,” and color the vision of well-meaning, but na•ve, Americans.

“Political activism on the part of the Muslim community will be a guarantee against bias and hate-mongering,” Prof. Ali concluded. “No one messes with muscle.”

The subject of visiting University ofNorth Carolina Prof. Robert Newman’s keynote talk was “The Moral Economy of the American Media.” Lambasting the media for clouding the truth, Prof. Newman said he’d cut his teeth on foreign policy during the McCarthy era, when the Hearst newspapers were the Wisconsin senator’s handmaidens. “Vietnam taught us you can’t trust the government and you may not know for sure what is going on for years,” he said. The citizens of America, Israel, and other countries, he added, only now are learning what really occurred in their countries’ histories.

Turning to the present conflict in the Middle East, Newman reminded the audience that Israel was born in force and violence. Israelis keep saying Palestinian terrorism is a weapon of the weak, but Israelis like Menachen Begin, Ariel Sharon and the Irgun and Stern gangs effectively used violence and terrorism. Terrorists destroyed the King David Hotel and wiped out much of the population of Deir Yassin. State terrorists assaulted the USS Liberty, and were responsible for the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon.

“Israel was conceived and is maintained by terror and repression,” Newman said. “If Palestinian terrorism is so evil, why is it that Israel kills four times as many Palestinians?” he asked the audience, “Why do you think Israel refuses to allow international monitors?”

Israelis didn’t invent terrorism, Newman said, but showed Palestinians how it was done.

“The Jewish state isn’t going away,” Newman said, “Jews deserve a homeland.”

But, he added, the whole world agrees that Palestinians have an equal right to their own sovereign state. Professor Newman advised Muslims concerned about the violence to form alliances with Jewish groups in this country who do not support Israeli policies. He also recommended that Muslims “capture the high ground and control the terminology. Use the words ‘ethnic cleansing,’ ‘freedom fighters,’ and ‘activists,’ not ‘terrorists.’ Use the term ‘colonists,’ not ‘settlers,’ because the world has had it with colonists.”

Dr. Mustafa Kamaal Pasha introduced Prof. Akbar S. Ahmed, who recently moved to Washington, DC to take American University’s highly esteemed Ibn-Khaldun Chair. Professor Ahmed addressed where Muslims are going in America and what they bring to the American table. “There is no public image of a Muslim,” he noted. “The Muslim is the hero in a play in search of a role in America.”

Naming the many great Islamic heroes in history, Professor Ahmed suggested that present-day Muslims could help create a moderate society with peace for everyone.

“This culture [in America] is a culture of images, but there is no image of an Islamic professor,” Prof. Ahmed continued. He recently tried to provide that image with his highly acclaimed film “Jinnah—The Movie”—even though popcorn-eating American audiences, more accustomed to Muslim terrorists, may not be ready for a Muslim hero, he noted. Muslim scholars need to go off-campus and identify some long-term strategies and visions for society, Prof. Ahmed concluded.

The final sessions included a leadership training session moderated by Adnan Kifayat. Suggestions for Muslim youth activism were presented by Adnan Zulfiqar and Sameera Fazili, along with a brief discussion on running for public office by Asim Ghafoor.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Farewell Dinner for Prof. Akbar Ahmed

Dr. Pervaiz Malik, president of the American Muslim Council’s New Jersey chapter and chairman of the board of directors of the Islamic Center of Central Jersey, organized a farewell dinner on July 1 for Professor Akbar Ahmed. Having spent a very productive and eventful year as a visiting professor at Princeton University, Professor Ahmed was moving to Washington, DC to assume this fall the tenured Ibn-Khaldun Chair in Islamic Studies at the American University. The Ibn Khaldun Chair, last occupied by Dr. Serif Mardin, is one of the most prestigious in American academia. The first Pakistani to hold this appointment, Professor Ahmed is the author of highly regarded academic books used on many American campuses, including Islamic Anthropology, and the director of the “Living Islam” video series used to teach about Islam in the West.

Imam Chebli welcomed the guests on behalf of the center. The guests gathered for the occasion covered the entire religious spectrum, including Hindus, Christians, Jews, and liberal and conservative Muslims alike. They included Prof. Bernard Lewis of Princeton University, who, having written many books on Islam, had come to a mosque for the first time; Villanova University professor Hafiz Malik; Mr. Michael Caroe, son of the late Sir Olaf Caroe, the first governor general of NWFP in independent Pakistan, and author of the authoritative book The Pathans; Aly Abuzaakouk, executive director of the American Muslim Council in Washington, DC; and Dr. Suhail Rifai, Dr. Ahmed’s friend for 40 years and a prominent member of the Islamic Center.

Prof. Lawrence Rosen, chairman of Princeton’s department of anthropology, was unable to attend but sent a message, which was read by Dr. Malik, saying, “We at Princeton University are honored to have had Dr. Akbar Ahmed visiting with us this year. In every way he has been our teacher. Our students have seen in him a man who holds knowledge above power, our colleagues have seen in him a man who values justice above self, and our community has seen in him a man who seeks mutual understanding above partisan privilege. The Holy Qur’an says, ‘If God had willed, he would have made you one nation’ (XVI: 95), and again, ‘We appointed you a midmost nation, that you might be witness to the people’ (II, 137). Akbar Ahmed has in the space of one short year, shown us how, though we may be different nations, Islam as that midmost nation may, through its wisdom, bring us all much closer together. The university community thus joins you in honoring his presence among us and we extend to him, to his family and through them to all of you, our heartfelt gratitude and enduring best wishes.”

The guests were unanimous in their praise and appreciation of the remarkable efforts Professor Ahmed has made in nurturing interfaith dialogue. They all looked forward to an enhancement of this role by virtue of his presence in Washington, DC in a highly visible position, which will make him more available to Muslim groups and think tanks. The genuineness of the audience’s feelings of respect and admiration for Dr. Ahmed was evident by the presentation of some small gifts by the society and by individuals. At evening’s end, Professor Ahmed spoke briefly about his mission and thanked the audience for their support.

—Dr. Masood Haider

French Muslim Professor Addresses GWU Students

The national Muslim Student Association hosted a July 26 lecture by Prof. Tariq Ramadan at George Washington University in Washington, DC. Ramadan, currently a professor of philosophy and Islamic studies at Geneva University of Fribourg, in Switzerland, discussed challenges facing Muslim communities in the West.

Professor Ramadan said that among the various challenges facing immigrant Muslim communities in the West, perhaps the greatest challenge of all is building a Western Muslim identity that remains true to its Islamic essence, while appreciating and adapting to the new cultures to which Muslims have immigrated. Reminding students that “Islam is a universal civilization with universal values,” Professor Ramadan asserted that Muslims must normalize their presence in the West and abandon the “minority” mentality, which leads only to marginalizing Muslims and disenfranchising their interests. Muslims must contribute to the ongoing economic, social, political, religious and cultural debates occupying the larger societies in which they live, he said.

Within the Muslim community itself, Professor Ramadan observed, there exist many debates and challenges. There is a widening generational gap, for example, between first-generation Muslims and the next generations, he said. According to Professor Ramadan, there also exists the challenge of differentiating between cultural Islam, which is specific to a country, and “pure” Islam, which is universal to any culture.

Furthermore, he added, it is very important to articulate a clear and unified Muslim discourse on concerns such as human rights, gender issues, social justice, and military intervention. It is equally important, said Professor Ramadan, to bring spirituality into peoples’ lives and to allow Islamic plurality and its tradition of valuing diversity to guide the involvement of Muslims in Western countries.

—Asma Yousef

U.S. Muslim Groups Hold Leadership Summit

Leaders of 10 national American-Muslim organizations met July 29 in Washington, DC to outline a joint strategy for dealing with issues related to the Islamic community in the United States. Topics discussed at the summit included: 1) ways in which the various segments of the Muslim community can unite on key issues, 2) the necessity to ensure that Imam Jamil Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown) receives due process during his upcoming trial, 3) identifying and challenging groups and lobbying efforts attempting to block American-Muslim political participation, 4) increasing political support for the Secret Evidence Repeal Act (H.R. 1266) currently under consideration in Congress, 5) mobilization of Muslim voters for the 2002-2004 elections, and 6) the importance of American-Muslim input on government policy and public discussions dealing with the issues of Sudan and Palestine.

A joint statement released at the summit’s conclusion noted: “American Muslims have many opportunities and challenges. To take advantage of those opportunities and effectively face the challenges, we must draw strength from our diversity by mobilizing grassroots social and political activism.”

Organizations represented at the summit included (in alphabetical order), the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), American Muslim Council (AMC), American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ), Coalition for Good Government (CGG), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim American Society Monitoring Team Mid-Atlantic Section, Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

—Courtesy AMPCC