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Election Day USA: Palestinian American Bids for State Seat
By Ayesha Ahmad and Neveen A. Salem
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (IslamOnline) - In the first national Election Day since last year's presidential election fiasco, voters went to the polls Tuesday to cast in their hopes for their nation's recovery as Virginia hosted the first Arab/Muslim American candidate for state delegate.
The New York Times called it the "first broad test of the nation's political mood" since September 11.
Although, as ABC News reported, most campaigns have focused on other issues and have not been markedly changed by last month's events, the
Times said that the "deteriorating economy and the need for strong security and strong leaders" has been a "subtext" in many campaigns.
CNN remarked that these elections - especially those in the areas hit hardest by the attacks like New York and Virginia - may determine how each region recovers economically and socially from the continuing repercussions.
Many Muslims will also be voting today, in a reassertion of the political presence the American Muslim voting bloc created last year in endorsing then-candidate George W. Bush.
Virginia Congressman Jim Moran (D), a long-time friend of the American Muslim community, who also issued a statement in support of the community in the wake of the violent backlash against them after September 11, said that Muslims need to increase efforts to make their presence known politically.
"Not enough Muslims are taking advantage of the democratic process," he said, adding that U.S. Muslim participation in the voting process right now was "insufficient."
Moran, campaigning for his brother Brian Moran - who is running for Virginia state delegate, emphasized that Muslims will continue to be marginalized if they do not participate more fully.
"The events of September 11 will reinforce the realization that American Muslims have a great deal at stake in our political system," he said.
Meanwhile, Kamal Nawash, an Arab American Muslim is running on the Republican ticket for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 46th district, which includes Western Alexandria, and the Skyline area of Fairfax County - against Brian Moran.
An immigrant who came to the United States speaking no English, Nawash went on to earn degrees in business and law and today is a civil rights attorney and partner in a Washington D.C. law firm.
Nawash began life as a refugee. One of six children born in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Nawash was nine years old when his family arrived in New Orleans in 1979.
Well known as the former Legal Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a renowned human and civil rights organization, Nawash began the race as an underdog against the three term Democratic incumbent.
As a Palestinian American, Nawash's campaign has suffered from the backlash of the September 11 attacks. Some of his door-to-door volunteers suddenly encountered hostility, and others quit. The campaign has received ugly letters and calls, reported the
Washington Post.
But Nawash pushes on, saying, "The overwhelming majority of people in my district do not even know who their delegate is. That means they have not been well served."
Congressman Moran remarked that over the past several years, American Muslim participation has increased, resulting in less alienation both culturally and politically.
The congressman also suggested that deeper participation could allow for more informed voting, rather than what he said was a tendency of Muslims to traditionally vote for Republican candidates due to the assumption that their conservative attitudes reflect values shared with Islam.
But he noted that most Republicans vote negatively in issues such as immigration or education, saying that many Muslims end up "voting against their own interests."
For example, he said, because of ties between the Israeli lobby and the Democratic party, there has been a perception of Democrats as being anti-Muslim.
But Republicans have supported the hardline Likud party in Israel, whereas Democrats are traditionally more supportive of the Labor party - and "Labor is more supportive of a just peace for Palestinians than the Likud party," he said.
Mahdi Bray, the political advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) told IslamOnline that he agrees with Congressman Moran that American Muslim participation in the political process is by no means indicative of the community's potential and that such participation would only increase as the community becomes more politically educated.
"One could say yes - indeed the American Muslim community does not vote up to its potential but it is also a matter of seeing the value of being engaged as much as we could, in addition to increasing our knowledge of the political process, more political education and a willingness to seriously engage in the process," Bray said.
But he did go on to say that American participation in the political process as a whole illustrates the greater society's disillusionment with and apathy towards the political process. "When you have most elections bringing out less than 50% of the voting population, it is indicative of some disillusionment of Americans as a whole with the current two-party system, which seems to represent less and less of a choice," he said.
Addressing Moran's comment that American Muslims tend to vote Republican, Bray cited that African American Muslims historically have voted Democrat and that the American Muslim community is by no means a monolithic entity.
American Muslims voted in bloc for George W. Bush in last year's presidential elections, giving the impression that they were voting along party lines. However, they have in the past strongly favored many Democratic candidates, illustrating that their votes seem to be more issue-based than party-based.
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