(In tone, this diary is primarily addressed to a muslim liberal audience. Of course the views of non-muslims are solicited and welcomed. Also cross-posted at eteraz.org, the Dailykos of the Islamsphere).
It is critically important for western muslims to remember that our political allegiances should never be engraved in stone. Look at the relative influence the tiny Miami Cuban community wields relative to the gigantic African American one in US politics as an example. Note that as a group, we tend to be all over the map on foreign policy, social, and economic issues. As I have argued before, notions about the global muslim ummah are largely irrelevant to our needs.
As a political community, our primary issue is really civil liberty. On that score, there's really no guarantee that Democrats are inherently any better than Republicans. Case in point:
Recall the Dubai Ports World affair from last year. Pejman Yousefzadeh, an Iranian-American who is a conservative Republican, wrote of the affair:
We should understand that the management of American ports by foreign companies is not some stark or alarming deviation from the norm. Rather, it is the norm and as such, is entirely emblematic of the nature of the global economy. Similarly, the ability of American culture and companies to pervade the cultural and economic life of other countries is part and parcel of the global economy. Autarky — never an attractive option — is now permanently out as an approach to business management; whether or not that management significantly impacts domestic security.
emphasis mine. There were certainly a fair number of xenophobes on the right who demagouged the issue, it should be noted that the Democratic leadership seized upon the issue as an excuse to burnish their Security Party credentials. Hillary Clinton in particular degraded herself and demonstrated a shocking, most un-Bill-like ignorance of who our friends and who our partners are abroad.
Not all Democrats succumbed to the allure of Large Testes over DPW however. President Jimmy Carter in particular did me the honor of replying to my pointed question about the issue, and unequivocally dismissed the reaction to DPW as unadulterated demogougery. (incidentally, props to Pejman for his hat-tip).
However, the incident did prove that we do not have allies of principle, only of convenience, on the left. In many ways the outright hostility towards Islam and muslims brandished by the right is preferable to the layers of misdirection that the left employs. On many issues, we are destined for conflict with the leftist fringe, especially with respect to issues like the veil, public displays of religious expression, and protection of our cultural and moral values, which do tend on average to be more conservative than the mainstream. Solidarity with Christians over Christmas exemplifies the internal conflict we have with the secularist mainstream of the progressive wing.
But again, as I noted above, civil liberties are the primary concern. And for all its flaws, CAIR is the only organization that is fighting on our specific behalf to make sure that we do not cede the media battlefield in this regard. Demonization of CAIR is a good marker for someone who buys into the emerging narrative that muslims are suspects first and citizens second. And on that score, Senator Barbara Boxer fails miserably.
Boxer’s office confirmed to NEWSWEEK that she has withdrawn a "certificate of accomplishment" to Sacramento activist Basim Elkarra after learning that he serves as an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). After directing her staff to look into CAIR, Boxer "expressed concern" about some past statements and actions by the group, as well as assertions by some law enforcement officials that it "gives aid to international terrorist groups," according to Natalie Ravitz, the senator’s press spokeswoman.
CAIR, which has 32 offices around the country and bills itself as the leading Muslim-American civil- rights group, has never been charged with any crimes, nor have any of its top leaders. But a handful of individuals who have had ties to CAIR in the past have been convicted or deported for financial dealings with Hamas—another reason cited by Boxer for her action. The senator directed her staff to withdraw the certificate—which she routinely gives to community leaders in California—and asked that a statement she had previously made endorsing CAIR be stricken from the group’s Web site, Ravitz said in an e-mail.
Let's understand here that the accusations againnst CAIR are mainly due to the foolish leadership at teh national level. However on the local scale, CAIR does good and essential work. Withdrawing this award is nothing more than a political fig leaf that validates the entire premise that if a muslim is ever found to have even the most tenous of interactions with a terror suspect, then they are immediately suspect. That's the same premise upon which pro-assimilation scholar Tariq Ramadan was denied entry to the United States - tenous "links" which Ramadan himself disclosed willingly, that became the mere pretext for expelling him.
The depth of Boxer's pander is laid bare by the partisans at RedState, who find that she was full of praise for CAIR when it suited her. This too, in California, ostensibly the bastion of liberal leftism!
In summary, we must not forget that any overture from the political left is more for their benefit than ours. Especially as Democrats take control of Congress, we must spare them no scrutiny. With DPW and CAIR as our markers, we can begin to define the boundaries of the same deep strain of American xenophobia that underlies both left and right. I am personally a liberal and will be aligned with the Democrats on most issues for the forseeable future, but neither will I shy away from stating that we must be willing to actively vote against Democrats who are willing to sell us downriver for their personal gain.
In my view, any primary challenger to Boxer deserves the support of the California muslim community as a matter of principle, absent some kind of retraction from Boxer's office. It would be a longshot but the point is to send a message. Articulating that message now will assuredly pay off later. Folks, time to play the game.
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Update [2007-1-5 18:6:35 by azizhp]: I changed the title, replacing "Dhummi" with "Jafi". Dhummi was a play on words, that referred to those conservatives who are convinced that muslims secretly desire to make "dhimmis" of them - second class citizens. Dhummies is just "dummies" spelt for flair. To avoid any possible confusion I rplaced it. You can find a definition of JAFI at my other blog, City of Brass.