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Last Updated: Aug 27, 2008 - 10:56:48 AM |
That much was evident at this morning's first ever Muslim
Democratic Caucus meeting. Aftab Siddiqui, a member of the Texas
Democratic Muslim Caucus, walked me through the recent history. Prior
to 2000, Muslims hadn't been, as a group, particularly active in
national politics. But in the run-up to 2000, a coalition of Muslim
groups got together and decided to make a serious play for national
political prominence and put feelers out to both the Bush and Gore
campaigns. Bush met with them and Gore didn't. They endorsed Bush. (NB:
This story is unconfirmed, though there were scattered news reports at
the time backing it up.)
Then 9/11 happened and, at what Siddiqui called "our moment of need,"
the Republican party "wanted to have nothing to do with us." The irony
is that like many immigrant communities, the affluent second generation
of Muslims, those with professional degrees, living in the suburbs, had
been fairly reliable GOP donors. But no longer, according to Siddiqui
"It's very hard to find Muslims who say they are Republican now," he
told me. "Now they say they're independent. When you meet a Muslim who
says he's an independent, it means he used to be a Republican."
So now many Democratic Muslims are trying to organize within the
Democratic Party: hence the morning breakfast, which was kicked off by
a Koranic invocation (in Arabic, then English), followed by the
presentation of the colors by a boy scout group and a quite beautiful
rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Keith Ellison, who was elected
to represent Minnesota's Fifth Dongressional District in 2006, and
became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, was the headliner.
"America, our great country, needs the Muslim community," he said. "The
fact is we have achieved an amazing success simply convening this
meeting."
The theme for the day was involvement: get involved in local politics,
vote, run for office. "Where are our Muslim congresswoman hijab and
without hijab," said Indiana Congressman Andre Carson (the nation's
second Muslim elected to Congress). "Where are our Muslim city
councilmen? We need more Muslims in the schoolboard."
While Jerome Corsi and the reactionary right, whose antipathy towards
Islam is well-documented, would probably have suffered heart-attacks
watching it all unfold, what struck me the most about the event was
just how traditional and familiar all of it was. Syed Hassan, the
incoming president of the Texas Muslim Democratic Caucus (the first of
its kind in the nation) pointed out to me that from the beginning of
the American republic, marginalized groups: the Irish, Jews, African
Americans, have organized themselves and sought to achieve a measure of
political power as means of mitigating the challenges they faced. "It's
part of being American."
It reminded me of the first rule of ethnic politics in diverse and
combustible cities like New York and Chicago: if you're not at the
table, you're probably on the menu.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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