Muslims For Kucinich

Muslims in America:
The Challenges of Political Activism

By Dr. Ahmed Yousef

Every election year Muslims in the United States begin to ask which party they will support and which candidate they will vote for. Not that Muslims have ever submitted a bloc vote, or even issued an endorsement of a candidate, except the endorsement for Bill Clinton issued by American Muslim Council in 1996. Nevertheless, we are always contemplating these issues.

Another question that is continuously submitted to the community through various media concerns is the objectives of Muslims as a community. What would we vote for? What are the interests of Muslims locally, nationally, and internationally? How do we determine our objectives and set priorities? Who is accountable for the success or failure of such efforts, and what person or group should lead us through these uncharted waters? Such simple determinations have escaped us. They cease even to entertain us once the elections are completed and the newly elected representatives of all the people, except the Muslims, are sworn into public office. We then begin another four year campaign of 'reactionary' political activity designed to vent frustration, but seldom to make change. Perhaps our failure to answer the questions satisfactorily explains why the majority of Muslims do not vote what might be called a "Muslim ticket" and why neither Democrats nor Republicans generally work hard to garner the Muslim vote.

Main Issues

Of course there are many unique circumstances within the Muslim community in the United States that do not challenge other ethnic or religious communities. These include efforts and opinions of women in the community. Traditionally in America women have manned the first layer of local politics, and they are known to have savvy political opinions and sufficient first hand knowledge of the issues to participate in local campaigns and to organize both men and women on the issues. (For more information on the Islamic stance regarding this read the Fatwa on Women Holding Public Positions). Because of an existing exaggerated 'parochialism' in the Muslim world, we fear that once we lower the gates and let Muslim women out of the kitchen, Muslim communities will be faced with something akin to a mass liberation movement. This prevents us from utilizing a huge and important resource. Woman power is the energy that has kept American politics relevant to American community life. When you look around, you recognize that mothers are the primary energy of communities. While husbands are working, wives are at the neighborhood PTA (Parents Teacher's Association) and party meetings discussing schools, taxes, lunch meals, health care, transportation, and other important issues.

Because of the existing traditionalism in the Muslim world-which deep rooted in the cultural milieu-the Muslim world is suffering from the absence of women from the political sphere, and hence the lack of a well-developed civil society. This is not to imply that women are not capable of much, they certainly are, but we are here addressing the more traditional approach.

Politics in America have both spoken and unspoken rules. Jumping into the fray without knowing the rules can prove disastrous--even if your candidate wins. Communities are routinely rewarded and punished, and often ignored by elected officials and their cronies, regardless of whether they supported and voted for the winning candidate. Take, for example, the African American community. African Americans are known to traditionally vote as Democrats, yet Democrats very visibly cater to Jews, a minority, over African Americans and women. When contracts for road and other repairs and improvements that increase property values never find their way into certain businesses or neighborhoods, this means that the leaders of these communities have little influence. It could also mean that they backed the wrong candidate and are paying the political price.

Other religious and ethnic minority communities in the United States were long in training before they ventured out into partisan politics, even on the local level. Prior to such involvement, communities would spend considerable time building their "machinery." This machinery is the mechanism through which the community's political activism is organized and operates. It is what Muslims like to call unity, even though it has nothing at all to do with unity, and everything to do with organization. If we think that every functioning organization is in unity we are wrong and if we wait for unity to build machinery it is a good chance that we will be waiting a very long time.

Rules and observations

Absolute political unity is impossible and should not be our ultimate goal. It would lead to totalitarianism. To protect diversity in opinion and pluralism we have 'organization'. There will always be differences in opinion and perspectives and objectives in communities on political issues. This is where good leadership comes in. Remember that emphasis of the Prophet, (peace and blessings be upon him) once a Muhajir (an immigrant) had made their way to Medina, was to bring the Ansar (helper) and Muhajir together through marriages and compromise and other means. Yet he never outlawed or punished for diversity in opinions or methods of doing things. So long as Muslims are not promoting sinful activity in our communities, their right to disagree is validated by the Sunnah.

The leadership in our communities must be selected from a pool of men and women who have proven themselves as organizers, knowledgeable of Islam and adherents to the religion. These leaders set the pace in pursuit of consensus and cooperation based on reasonable compromises among the various factions within the community.
In seeking to understand how other ethnic and religious groups have entered the political mainstream in America, we look at other immigrant group experiences. Jews have been one of the more successful and effective groups politically, and Muslims spend a lot of time trying to understand and emulate their model. What is often ignored in this exercise is that the machinery constructed by many early immigrant groups, including Jews, was constructed to facilitate organized criminal activity. When they came to America at the turn of the century these immigrants organized their communities to protect and facilitate and support union and interest of their workers (bear in mind also that some of the earlier and powerful unions were black market ones that guarded their illegal operations). Through such unions and cartels huge pools of money were made available to used for the protecting the political interests of the immigrant communities within the Anglo-Saxon political mainstream.

The Muslim community is a religious community founded on adherence to Islamic laws. It is prohibited from this very basic requirement of community organization and empowerment in the United States. The models we are continuously trying to emulate are not really compatible with either our program or our primary objectives.

This brings us to the subject of Islamic political idealism and the ideas that cause us to believe that we should be involved in politics. If a group pursues power and wealth it does not have to begin its entrance into the mainstream culture with politics, because politics, or at least the politics of voting and lobbying, does not necessarily lead to power or wealth. Some of the most powerful and influential institutions, whether legal and illegal, did not organize around 'politics'. They were organized around crime and survival, and that led to politics. If Muslims decide that we should share in these purely immoral pursuits, we have nothing more than to amass huge sums of money, recruit a few soulless goons and start business. The name of this game would be "Let's see who is the most ruthless and unethical."

If, on the other hand, Muslims are interested in playing by Islamic rules and bringing the Islamic program to light through lobbying and pushing for reforms in America that will reenergize American morality and the founding principles that made America great, we may need to create a model of participation.

Religion and politics have traditionally been kept separate from one another in the United States due to secular interpretations of the first amendment. Of course, many religious communities are beginning to challenge the secularists' interpretation of the first amendment, arguing that Church and State as institutions cannot be literally separate in a country where 90% of the people say they believe in and worship God. It defies reason to imagine that these people can ignore their consciences when making important decisions that pertain to civic life.

The Supreme Court through recent decisions has shown that it is ready to restore to the fifty states many of the rights that have been questioned or ignored. Most people assume that the Court in so doing is seeking to minimize the power of the federal government and restore the rights of states to 'oversee' the affairs of its citizens. If this trend should become a real transformation from federalist to states rights we may see religion again become a center of civic activism in every venue, including politics.

What are the historic roles of the Church and other religious institutions in the United States in the mainstreaming of immigrants and their political activism? Historically it seems that religious participation in politics in America has focused primarily on advocacy. Religious groups have been the advocates of humane policies and have been the most active in calling governments to end repressive tactics against minority citizens. The Catholic Church played a significant role in the reform of migrant worker laws and immigration bills that affected migrant workers and their children. Other religious institutions have chimed in from time to time on issues like crime and gun control, which have been the primary focus of inner city groups, mostly African American and Protestant. They have adopted these issues because they are the primary plagues of their communities (though their takes on these issues vary considerably). The more liberal faction believes that guns kill people, while the more conservative faction argues that people are killing people using guns.

The federal government addresses all such issues, yet outside the religious or moral arguments made against such behaviors. Increasingly, however, religious communities are making the case that these are moral issues and that the religious communities must come back into the mainstream and restore moral thinking as a paradigm for government policy making.

Some believe that the Supreme Court's apparent and growing sympathy for the states indicates that its members share this attitude. Smaller state governments have always been receptive and affected by the religious character of community, while the federal government in America has sought to maintain its secular character in order to avoid any hint that the federal government in America is adopting an ideology, particularly a religious ideology. Unfortunately most political elites have not recognized that secularism is an ideology, and in fact is what might be called a retro-religion.

The Nature of Muslim Activism

Since Islam is a global religion, Muslims seem to have some difficulty understanding exactly how to domesticate their ideals. How do you Westernize or Americanize Muslim politics? This challenge is complicated by the fact that many of the Muslims, who are most interested in American politics, are naturalized first-generation Muslims coming from quite different traditions of political participation in their countries. For the most part these Muslims have not been active or paid much attention to American politics accept to protest those aspects of foreign policy that directly effect their countries of origin. As authentic as they are, still they are the least experienced. On the other hand, we have American Muslims who have generations of experience even if only as observers, but seem to have absolutely no interest in participation. There are numerous reasons for this.

For many Muslims, participation in any system is like tacit approval of that system. Some Muslims believe that if they participate in the American political system, which is seen for the most part as a very corrupt system, they will suffer retribution like every other participant. The worst of these punishments is to become like the stereotypically corrupt politician who is void of any moral quality and whose political position is simply for sale. No Muslim could tolerate this state of being. It would be an abominable denial of Islamic teachings and beliefs. We must enter the project with virtuous goals, behave with virtue, and promote virtue.

Since the 1970s, America has hosted numerous and some very heated debates among Islamist activists of all racial backgrounds on the issue of "nationalizing Islam in America." This debate centers on how to create a movement that is different from a registered organization. An organization is an incorporated entity that has an objective set forth in a constitution and by-laws and operates almost like a business. A movement, on the other hand, is an activity that focuses energy toward a certain target, hoping to move it in one direction or another. Movements are vehicles for change; organizations are mechanisms through which serves are provided. To mount an organization you need $75.00; to mount a movement you need masses of people. One is much easier to construct than the other.

Other topics of debate have included:

1) The geographic parameters of the movement. Will it be international or domestic?

2) Will it be patterned after the international Zionist movement, which cast itself variously as Democrat, Communist, and Marxist in political ideology as a means to attract large numbers of people (the proletariat) since Jews are not a majority anywhere in the world?

3) Will the movement attempt to reform domestic policies, as well as international or foreign policies? And does there have to be a distinction between the two? Can the movement address principles that permeate both the international and domestic political spectrum? For example, if we oppose the occupation of Palestine, it stands to reason that we would not support the right of the federal government to restrict fund-raising for organizations that are fighting the occupation, especially since fund-raising is a constitutionally protected first amendment right.

4) Will the Islamic movement in America have ties with the international movements, and share membership, leadership, resources, and issues?

5) Have Muslims in America finally forsaken the "Myth of Return," and have indigenous Muslims given up their search for paradise in the Muslim world? In other words, are Muslims committed to America?

The answers to these questions will lay the ideological foundation for an organized movement that can be unique in American minority history. No immigrant or indigenous community has ever entered American politics looking to improve America, as a whole, as its priority, understanding that a better America means a better life for all Americans, as well as those whom Americans respect. The challenge is for Muslims to develop a methodology to construct an ideology that is genuinely Islamic, rather than parroting other groups, either secular or religious, who seem to have made the politics of power and money their ultimate goal. The greatest challenge will be for Muslims to bring the Islamic program to America and avoid having Islam 'secularized' as the other monotheistic religions have been.

This distinguishes our project and our motive from those of others who made the leap from the boat to the board rooms, and to the Oval Office, but who forsook some virtues in the way. Muslims have a real challenge if we hope to become a political force in America. But we also have every reason to believe that of all the communities that have contributed various delicacies and traditions to America's rich culture, the Muslims' commitment to morality and justice will prove to be the most durable and greatly rewarded.

Dr. Ahmed Yousef Executive Director, UASR (United Association for Studies and Research), Inc. and Editor-in-Chief, Middle East Affairs Journal.