Author: Mansoor Ijaz
Publication: Los Angeles
Times
Date: November 5, 2000
Mansoor Ijaz, a Muslim
American of Pakistani descent, is chairman of Crescent Investment Management
in New York.
America's 6.6 million
Muslims have finally come of age. Last week, an umbrella organization
of Muslims throughout the U.S. united as never before and endorsed
George W. Bush for president. The announcement marks one of
the more compelling paradoxes of the 2000 presidential sweepstakes.
For eight years, President
Clinton and the Democrats reached out to America's Arab and Muslim communities.
In return, we worked hard to assimilate ourselves and played by the rules
to develop an intelligent, unified voice. Our cultural and religious
distinctions made our issues unique. Whether on immigration reform,
racial profiling at airports or the FBI's use of secret evidence to detain
and deport us, we offered important insights on crafting solutions for
these problems.
We bought in to the concept
that Democrats offered an umbrella of diversity and friendship. Then,
nomination in hand, Al Gore turned his back on us. His version of
diversity collapsed under a Buddhist temple fund-raiser and the paranoia
of his staff, many of whom feared Asian Americans were Chinese spies and
Muslim Americans were terrorists. Until last Sunday, when political
expediency demanded that he meet with Arab Americans in Michigan, Gore
had steadfastly refused to meet any organization with a trace of Arab or
Muslim ties.
Why? Cynics among us
believe Gore could only match the Republican money machine by pursuing
the deep pockets of the American Jewish community to the total exclusion
of Arabs and Muslims, a condition that became more urgent with the explosion
in Middle East tensions. The more enlightened among us wondered whether
Gore's racial and religious divide was a new brand of subtle class warfare
in the U.S. The new Democratic message seemed to be you can play
only if you pay.
American Arab and Muslim
communities no longer can be ignored in such a demeaning way. According
to pollster John Zogby, 62% of the 6.6 million Arab and Muslim Americans
are registered to vote. Battleground states like Michigan, where
9% of all voters are of Arab descent, and even Democratic strongholds like
California, where more than 370,000 American Muslims will vote this year,
could swing on the back of the Arab-Muslim bloc.
This bloc may not yet
match the Jewish American community's money and organization. But
it will certainly negate much of the benefit Gore got by naming Sen.
Joseph I. Lieberman as his running mate. After all, we still
live in a country where a millionaire media mogul's vote is exactly equal
to that of a Pakistani taxi driver in Queens.
The deep sense of betrayal
pervading our communities at the Democrats' arrogance and intransigence
cannot be easily undone. We recognize that U.S. relations with
the Arab and Muslim world, already challenged by Islam's extremist fringe
abroad and anti-Semitic hate-mongers at home, could become a serious source
of political and economic instability if moderate Muslims in the U.S.
are cast aside. Jewish Americans would do well to understand this
phenomenon too.
Bush seems to recognize
this when he tempers the faithful American support of Israel with a need
to maintain loyalty among Arab and Muslim allies. By engaging moderates
among us and substantively addressing our issues, he demonstrates that
not every Arab is a terrorist and not every Muslim is a "Jihadist." He
thereby becomes accountable to us as citizens and we to him for policing
our own ranks and choosing our leaders wisely.
The American promise
of equality and opportunity has been summarily dismissed by an arrogant
Gore campaign that must now face the ultimate test of the very democracy
it claims to want to uplift.
