Muslim Heretics Conference

Political Future of American Muslims

By  Umar Lee

Freelance Writer

95 percent of American Muslims citizens voted in the recent Presidential election placing them far above the national average in America of around 50 percent and puts Muslims with other high voting groups such as American-Jews.

It is common in America after presidential elections for various communities to take stock in what they gained or lost in an election, how well they participated, and where does the community need to go from here to advance the communal agenda.

The Muslim community is no different in this regard. The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections released a survey after the election that gave a general understanding of how Muslims participated in the 2008 Presidential election and the emerging trends amongst Muslim voters.

The poll found that 95 percent of American Muslims citizens voted (a figure that places Muslims far above the national average in America of around 50 percent and puts Muslims with other high voting groups such as American-Jews).

While there was no organized endorsement by Muslim leadership as there was in the 2000 Presidential election, President-elect Barack Obama still received an overwhelming 89 percent of the Muslim vote with the Republican candidate John McCain only getting a puny 2 percent according to the poll (making American Muslims the group in the electorate McCain did the most poorly in). The poll also found that the majority of American Muslims now identifying themselves as Democrats and only 4 percent of American Muslims now see themselves as Republicans.

Moving the Ball Forward

Both Congressmen Ellison and Carson ran as Democrats supporting traditional Democratic issues in heavily Democratic districts.

With this high Muslim turnout and the election of two Muslim congressmen in recent years, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Andre Carson of Indiana, American Muslims are looking for a way to move the ball forward towards gaining greater political acceptance in America and a greater influence over the social and political debates of this society.

Shaheed Amanullah, a prominent American-Muslim political analyst, noted: “American Muslims are fundamentally engaging in the political process in America in two different ways. Some are operating in the system, such as those who work within political parties, and others are seeking to engage from outside of the system.”

Amanullah gives the examples of Congressmen Ellison and Carson. While both are Muslims, neither candidate represents a district with a significant percentage of Muslim voters. Both ran as Democrats supporting traditional Democratic issues in heavily Democratic districts.

“Muslims engaging the system from the inside tend to be more process driven and less issue driven. There is a belief that just by being Muslim and being in the process you can make a difference more so than just coming and knocking at the door from the outside. Those engaging from outside of the system tend to be more issue oriented and motivated by particular issues,” Amanullah said.

Assimilation Not Identity Renunciation

“I think that any [minority] group that stands for single issue losses respect” — Professor Kenneth Warren

When asked about American-Muslim involvement in the political process and working in politics, the director of the highly regarded Warren Poll of American politics, Kenneth Warren, stated, “I think that in America for most people it doesn’t matter your religion, the first step is to get the educational credentials. We are a credential oriented society. Normally you need those educational credentials. In terms of Muslims working for politicians, I don’t think being Muslim would help or hurt. They can get the job if they can handle it.”

The Professor of Administrative Law at the College of Education and Public Service at St. Louis University also noted that, like other minorities, Muslims have to assimilate into the society while not violating the principals of their religion or loosing their culture, and if this is done they can successfully work for political parties, elected officials, and campaigns.
When asked if Muslims should put “Muslim issues” first, such as Palestine, or focus primarily on issues that we share in common with the greater society such as health-care, the economy, and education Warren said, “That would depend on an individuals political preference and how they see themselves. Jewish friends of mine who are liberal all the sudden supported Bush because of his stance on Israel. This is a single issue and I do not think Muslims would do well to turn politics into a single issue just like I do not think it advances Jews to be so pro Israel that they become a one-issue interest group. I think that with the Muslim community, and this is just an opinion, some will try and influence the US position (on the Palestinian issue) but this may be a mistake. I think that any group that stands for single issue losses respect.”

To illustrate this point Warren points to the example of President-elect Obama stating: “Obama did not run with a black agenda” and Americans respected that in his opinion.

Warren and Amanullah both agreed that with the Muslim population in America being as small as it is it is impractical to only deal in those issues that exclusively concerns us.

Congregation is Power

The Muslim voice today is louder than it has ever been before in America and will only grow louder.

“In the United Kingdom if you are elected you can say you are representing Muslims because chances are you are coming from a district heavily populated by Muslims … that is not the case in America,” Amanullah observed.

Muslims, like other minorities in America, are affected politically by the portion of the population in different states and metropolitan areas. As an example, New York Jewish politicians, because they have 2 million Jews in the New York metropolitan area, can promote an aggressive pro-Israel position on all fronts. This could not be done by Jewish politicians living in areas with small numbers of Jews.

Northeastern Irish-American politicians for decades (and many still today) have been aggressively in favor of Irish Republicanism and some have even held radical positions on the Anglo-Irish Conflict. They were able to do this because of the high concentration of Irish-Americans in their districts. Irish-American politicians in the Midwest and South, with much lower Irish-American populations, could not take such aggressive anti-British stances no matter how pro-Irish they were, just as a matter of political reality.

In areas with a high concentration of Muslims, those Muslim politicians being elected can take more assertive stances on advancing those causes deemed to be representative of Muslims. While, Muslims being elected in districts such as the one Congressman Ellison represents, have to keep in mind that they were elected to serve the people of their district and not advance any cause peculiar to their own identity.

With the growth of the Muslim population in America will come a greater political awareness of Muslims and greater political organization within the community. It remains to be seen just how Muslims will help shape future American foreign and domestic policies; but one thing all studies and Muslim experts agree on is the fact that the Muslim voice today is louder than it has ever been before in America and will only grow louder.

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Umar Lee is an American-Muslim writer, blogger, and documentary filmmaker specializing in political and social issues related to Muslims in America. He spends his time between St. Louis, MO and the East Coast.

Political Future of American Muslims - IslamOnline.net - Muslim Affairs

By Bramantyo Prijosusilo, New America Media. Posted December 17, 2008.

Indonesia not only has the largest Muslim population in the world, it also has the liveliest debate on issues related to Islam.

The founder of the Liberal Islam movement in Indonesia, Ulil Abshar Abdalla, frequently receives death threats from Islamists who accuse his movement of being designed by America and “the Jews” to destroy Islam.

However, amongst the educated elite in Indonesia, Liberal Islam’s supporters tend to be growing. It actively disseminates its ideas through a website (www.islamlib.com), through national broadsheets, a network of FM radios and even through Facebook.

The growth of liberal Islam was obvious when Islamic scholar Dr. Siti Musdah Mulia was recently awarded a prestigious human rights award in Jakarta. Dr. Mulia controversially accepts gay Muslims. Supporters of Liberal Islam feel that it is a way to express Islam without being in conflict with their common sense and modern values.

Meanwhile, hardliner Islamism is also growing through mass organizations that reach down to the village level through madrasahs and rallies. Recent surveys in West Java revealed that up to 80 percent of Muslims believe that Sharia law should be implemented by the state. Every problem, they believe, no matter how complex, can be solved by the implementation of Sharia law.

The current global financial crisis has supplied fresh ammunition to the jihadi propagandists. Indonesia’s chapter of the trans-national Islamist party, Hizbut Tahrir, for example, recently published a letter from a party member living in the United States, describing the crisis as a disaster of consumerism and proof of the damage and suffering caused by the absence of an Islamic Caliphate. This simplistic way of thinking becomes particularly attractive when it is presented by someone perceived to hold religious authority.

Indonesia not only has the largest Muslim population in the world, it also has the liveliest debate on issues related to Islam. The country holds a uniquely strategic position in the ideological battle against literalist Islamism. Historically, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), was founded in 1926 as a reaction to the Wahhabi takeover in Arabia. Most contemporary Indonesian scholars and activists of Liberal Islam were educated in NU schools, and many of the brightest amongst them are currently studying on American scholarships at Ivy League universities. The debate within Islam can be seen in a growing gap within NU between the educated elite and the village level: recent studies revealed a literalist and anti- pluralist trend among NU affiliated madrasahs in villages.

To decisively end the debate and bury Islamist terror forever, the United States, and particularly American Muslims, must aid the efforts of Liberal Islam activists in Indonesia, but not through moves that will be dismissed as a ‘scholars-for-dollars’ program. This debate is not only a war of ideas; it is also a battle of charisma. Though charisma alone will never suffice to deal with the task at hand, without charisma, there can be no spiritual leadership.

To keep and nurture a following, a scholar must be careful about where he or she receives funding. American Muslims must produce not only Islamic rap and Islamic youth novels. They need to nurture Islamic scholars who are educated in the classical subjects of Islam but who can also independently offer an Islamic way of life that is compatible with and beneficial to the global village of the 21st Century.

Islamist terror did not begin with perceived injustices committed by the United States; it started with ideology. Islamists respond violently to the perceived injustices of America’s foreign policy because their ideology demands it. Islamists have plenty of charismatic scholars whose works glorify their thirst for violence. Often these scholars lived through a time of profound suffering, such as Ibn Taimiyyah, who experienced the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate to the Mongols in the 13th Century.

Islamist ideologues see the Muslims’ predicament as punishment from Allah for not adhering to religion. In what can be seen as an inferiority complex, they feel compelled to purify the expression of Islam in their societies by word and by sword. The enforcement of a total acceptance of Islam is the main theme of all Islamist ideologues. The total acceptance of Islam requires a state that implements Sharia law expressed through the adoption of 7th Century customs of Arabia.

In a way, Islamdom today faces a situation similar to the time when Islamist fundamentalism was born in the ideas of Ibn Taimiyyah. While he faced the destruction of the Muslim community at the hands of the grandson of Genghis Khan, currently, mankind faces obliteration by the failure of states, nuclear wars, and natural and man- made environmental breakdowns.

The problem is that the Islamists’ responses to current issues are stuck in the 13th Century. The Mongols have become the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies. Muslims and the world need a new, relevant, expression of Islam, one that can stand up to the militancy and the desperation of the jihadi Islamists. It must be an expression of Islam that is true to the spirit of the Qur’an and the examples of the Prophet Muhammad, but it must also contribute towards the humanism and ecological awareness of the 21st Century.

American (and Western) Muslims are the best equipped to produce this desperately needed expression of Islam. Traditional Islamic scholars are not well educated on current environmental issues, and do not relate to modern humanistic concepts such as gender equality and democracy. Islamic scholars brought up in the West have a much broader understanding of the issues facing mankind today.

Could these scholars now please stand up and speak?

Liberals and Hardliners: Islam at War with Itself | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet