OTHER MUSLIM MINORITIES

USA: Emergence of Muslim Politics

A meeting of humanitarians, educators, social workers and mosque leaders organized by the American Muslim Council (AMC) in Washington, Muslims were urged to participate in school boards, city councils and state legislatures.

Both the African-American and immigrant Muslim communities agree that civics is not only smart politics, it is part of being a good Muslim.

For now, the phrase "Muslim voter" means little in US politics. But with an estimated 4 million Muslims in the country, a new breed of move assertive American Muslims wants to change that lack of clout and secure a toehold in the American power structure.

"We are witnessing the beginning of an important process", says AMC director Abdulrahman Alamoudi, "but there is a long way to go"

Though modest in size and funding, Muslim groups are slowly gathering a scattered and diverse community, leaving behind old suspicions about involvement in government, and making inroads in local, state, and national polities. Muslims see themselves at the start of a long road. In the 1994 elections, Muslim groups backed 77 congressional and gubernatorial candidates. This year, for the first time, a coalition of Muslim groups will back a presidential candidate.

Like any ethnic or religious newcomers in America, Muslims have won elected office mainly at the local level. They are on city councils in metropolitan areas such as Oakland, Calif., Charlotte, N.C., and Chattanooga, Tenn. But this year Muslims will tie a presidential endorsement to a promise to appoint a Muslim to a high-ranking post in the next administration.

In part, Muslims are shifting from support of overseas causes to a broader and more carefully defined domestic agenda. The idea to form a Muslim lobby date to the 1980s. It is spurred by a fear that if political clout is tied to public perception, the constant linking of extremism with Islam will unfairly marginalize Muslims from the political process.

Besides the Washington-based AMC, other leading groups in this effort are the Committee for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington, and the Los Angeles Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). These groups specialize in public relations, lobbying with minimal use of religious rhetoric, and shaping positions on issues such as abortion, hate crimes, and Bosnia.

Increasingly, the new groups are helping develop a grass-roots lobby that educates local Muslims about their rights, and advises them in shaping their media image. At the national level, Muslim inroads are mostly symbolic.

Vice President Al Gore visited a mosque last fall, the highest-ranking US official ever to do so. President Clinton's July 12 speech on religious freedom mentioned Muslims several times. Black Muslim leader Waris Dean Muhammad recently read the invocation at the US Senate, popular New York Imam Siraj Wahaj did so at the House. AMC met with State and Justice Department to lobby against (unfair) provisions in the recent Anti-Terrorism Bill.

The first Muslim chaplain to serve the 10,000 Muslims in US armed forces, Abdel Rasheed Muhammad, was recently sworn into the Air Force.

As a group, American Muslims have traditionally voted Republican-though Muslim groups are bipartisan.

But the community, complex and diverse, defies pigeonholing. Muslims tend to be liberal on minority rights and immigration laws but they link arms with conservatives on family values in attacking sex and violence in Hollywood films, for example.

On foreign policy Muslitas tend to scrutinize and shift support based on what the US is doing abroad more than most main-stream American voters. Presidential candidate Bob Dole (R) of Kansas, was a darling of the Muslim community due to a strong pro-Bosnia stance. But lately many Muslims have left Dole over his introduction of a bill to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to East Jerusalem. But having an influence on US foreign policy still largely remains beyond Muslim political grasp.

Thirty years after the first wave of immigrants, Muslims do not have the money or experience of most ethnic lobbies. The American Jewish Congress, to cite one of many, has a budget of $6.5 million and employs 100 people. The AMC has an operating budget of $40,000 and a staff of 10.

The emerging lobby has also fought Muslim attitudes, dating to the 1960s, that politics would corrupt the Muslim soul and identity. Yet the lobby has grown, partly out of necessity. Muslims need a place to turn as their mosques, for example, come under attack. In the past 18 months’ six mosques, including those serving hundreds of families in Greenville, S.C., Springfield, III, and Yuba City, Calif., have been damaged or destroyed by arson, according to police authorities.

CAIR (has) produced a detailed report on 227 hate crimes against Muslims after the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168. The report was the first of fis kind. CAIR increasingly finds itself dealing with local issues like workplace discrimination, or defamation.

Spearheading efforts to coordinate and bolster Muslim political power is the AMC. The group monitors and coordinates action on Capitol Hill. AMC is looked to and given legitimacy by the two leading American Muslim immigrant organizations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in Jamaica, N.Y., and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) out of Plainfield, Ind. It is also turned to by the Muslim Mission of black leader Waris Dean Muhammad in Chicago. These groups supervise a national network of thousands of mosques and schools.

Both the ISNA, formed by the Arab Muslims and the smaller ICNA, more conservative and Indo-Pakistani, as students became citizens and taxpayers. When ISNA were student groups in the 1960s. But their goals changed took no position on the Gulf War in 1990, the Saudi Royal Family cut its funding. Members today see this as a blessing since the group then had to stand on its own feet.

One of the best-known Muslim leaders in America, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, is a controversial figure in the US Muslim community. Farrakhan's Million Man March on Washington, under the auspices of his group, the Nation of Islam, has made him a powerful force in the black community, and among many black Muslims.

Yet the separatist black nationalism of Farrakhan and his openly racist rhetoric have made Farrakhan a difficult figure for many American Muslims to support. A basic requirement of Islam is to treat every person as equal in the eyes of God.