American Muslims gaining a foothold in politics

The mayor of nearby Prospect Park is a 30-year-old high school business teacher with a young son. He was a volunteer firefighter at 18 and has been active in his community ever since. But when he sought the mayor's office last fall, voters received anonymous fliers calling him a "betrayer" tied to the 9/11 terrorists.

Why? Because he is a Syrian-born Muslim named Mohamed Khairullah.

"I was worried for my family," Khairullah says. "Any crazy person could have just driven by and done something. But we just had faith and went on doing what we had to do." The result: he got the job, open because the previous mayor had moved away, and now is running to keep it.

The 9/11 attacks have had a curious double-edged impact on the political emergence of American Muslims. They are up against more stereotyping and backlash, which they perceived recently in the furor over a Dubai company's thwarted plan to take over port operations in several U.S. cities

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060324/pl_usatoday/americanmuslimsgainingafootholdinpolitics

In this country if you're an Arab or a Muslim it can be very difficult, even in progressive places such as Democatic Underground. There is an underlying distrust, or even hatred, of Arabs and Muslims, whether or not people like to admit to it. Such as a recent discussion here on DU about that niece of bin Laden who is having a reality show. Even though she's never met bin Laden, is a american born citizen, one of the responses was for her to 'get out of my country'. Those kind of comments, particularly surrounding the whole ports controversy, really cause Arab Americans to percieve this dislike.

I think it's great for these politicians to be getting out there, though it dismays me that so many Arab Americans and Muslims are still voting republican, it's been that way for as long as I can remember. Still the best of luck to them.

It seems it didn't take the Muslim community long to figure out that Bush was full of s*#*t, and repughs in general will turn on you in a heart beat.

Perhaps they'll soon discover that most Dem's i know wasn't against the Dubai deal because of Arabs, but because of security and the two are very different things.

Catholics and other groups have been critiqued out of the fear they would follow orders from Rome etc. That has by an large been shown to be false. Its an equivalent concern over the Sharia, and given the high profile case in Afghanistan and the inability of the muslim world to tolerate a few cartoon, there may be something to the concern this time.

So few Muslims have come forward to denounce the radicals and those that do are ostracized and threatened. Any public criticism and the race card is played.

I'm not buying the Religion of Peace nonsense...

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http://www.cair-net.org/?Page=articleView&id=38915&theType=NB

As deplorable as the cartoons about Prophet Muhammad in Denmark's Jyllands Posten have been, the violence that ensued is also condemnable. The cartoons depicted Islam's most revered personality, Prophet Muhammad, in a way that was inaccurate, intentionally derogatory and provocatively inciting. Other than demonstrating visceral hatred toward Islam, the cartoons achieved little else.

The cartoons fell far short of demonstrating "visceral hatred toward Islam". About the worst they could be classed as is genial contempt, and people who cannot endure that from others need to stay indoors alone, because it is the most common human attitude. This is nothing more than the squawk of a professional victim.

To non-Muslims, it may seem benign, but apparently, Mohammed is not to be depicted, and the cartoonists knew that.

I think the reaction to the cartoons was extremely excessive, unnecessary and stupid, but the cartonns were clearly meant to inflame.

It does not matter a tinker's damn to me what Muslims consider proper behavior for Muslims towards a Muslim religious figure: they have not the shadow of a right or reason to expect, let alone insist, that anyone who is not a Muslim abide by their internal code. And further, they have the same duty all people do, not to be drawn by even deliberate provocation into excessive reactions of violence. There are any number of people who would claim they were driven to a killing rage by the sight of two men holding hands on the street, and even assert it was a religiously driven reaction, but who would argue that a violent reaction by such a person should be understood, or excused in any degree, because the men holding hands could have expected it would enrage someone?

I have no qualms about the freedom to publish inflammatory material, whether they be cartoons of Mohammed or Serrano's "Piss Christ."

I do have a problem with the overreaction of the offended groups if the response includes violence, as it happened in this case. But to not expect ANY reaction from Muslims regarding the cartoons is shortsighted, even though the violent reaction was clearly excessive and immoral.

We actually seem to agree on the broad issue, though.

A pleasure to make your acquaintance.

:toast: