Posted on 10/06/2004 11:50:17 AM PDT by NorseWood
BRIDGEVIEW, United States (AFP) - US Muslims have embarked on a vast drive get the community registered to vote in the presidential election to build what could be a potentially powerful voice in deciding the winner.
The war on terror launched by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks has antagonized huge numbers of the estimated six million Muslim Americans. Concerns about US foreign policy in the Middle East have been replaced with concerns about their own civil rights among Muslim leaders who are now seeking to get as many people registered as possible. "I got another one," crowed Anam El-Jabali, waving her clipboard in victory as she emerged from a mosque here to compare notes with two other volunteers. "He's Palestinian. He's lived here for 40 years, and he's never voted, but he'll vote on November 2." It was quite an accomplishment, noted the Palestinian-American mother of five. "The old men are the hardest," to sign up, she explained. "They've lived here forever, but they feel hopeless. They just want to keep a low profile, and keep out of trouble." Voter registration drives, like this one at the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation in suburban Chicago, have been the order of the day at mosques and Islamic centers across the nation in the past couple of months. Muslim groups say the outreach effort has been unprecedented in size and scope, although they are still waiting on hard figures that would show exactly how successful they have been. The likely beneficiary will be Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, although The American Muslim Task Force on Elections, an umbrella group bringing together nine US Muslim groups, has held off endorsing any one candidate. The panel is seeking iron-clad promises on political appointes among other things before it delivers what it expects will be a Muslim bloc vote. Polls, however, show that this small, but potentially influential voting bloc is leaning heavily towards Kerry. Three quarters of Muslims polled recently said they would support Kerry to just seven percent for Republican Bush. The poll of 1,700 Muslims was published September 22 by Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. "In an election as tight as this, the Muslim vote in swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania could make a difference," said Zahid Bukhari, a researcher at the center. It's a radical about-face from the 2000 presidential election, Bush made some encouraging noises about the use of secret evidence in immigration hearings and got about 40 percent of the Muslim vote. The war on terror has changed the thinking of Muslims. Racial profiling, the detention and deportation of an unknown number of young men from Arab and Muslim countries, some for fairly minor immigration violations, and the Justice Department's crackdown on suspect Muslim charities have all fueled a sense of persecution. Reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation may step up surveillance of mosques and renew a program of random interrogations of Muslims in the lead up to the elections has stoked old fears. "The community is scared and depressed," said Joy Shaffea, as she emerged from a prayer service at the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation here. "We want to feel like we used to. We want to live in comfort, not fear." More than anything else, Shaffea hopes that a new administration would change the tone in the national debate about the war on terror and Islam. "I hope Kerry gets in there and appoints people who start talking intelligently," she said. "They need to quit generalising, calling all Arabs evil-doers and all those other stupid names Bush uses."
Where is the URL for this post?
Bush generalizes? I don't think he generalizes enough.
Where's the paragraph breaks for this post?
I found it here:
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=36918
There are 6 Million Muslims living in the USA?! That's scary! Sure, a majority of Muslims voted for Bush in '2000, prior to 9/11. Now, they're supporting wimpy Kerry. What does this say about how they feel about the war on terrorism? Hmmm?
< p > is the HTML symbol for paragraphs, consider that FRee FRiendly advice.
'Sorry!
Mabe they feel deprived. Interning them would give them something to whine about.
Where's my glasses for this post?
Hey Shaffea--Bush only calls terrorists (who happen to be Muslims) evil. He calls Islam the religion of peace and has praised Muslims who stand against terrorists. Shaffea obviously believes that Muslims and terrorists are one and the same and she supports them. Otherwise, she would be voting for Bush. Hmm?
"There are 6 Million Muslims living in the USA?! That's scary!"
Roughly that many, give or take a million. A somewhat smaller number are citizens, but it's still a sizable chunk of population.
Of course, some are blacks who have converted to Islam. The rest are from the Middle East, with an emphasis on Pakistan.
As citizens, they have the right to vote, just as all citizens do. As President Bush says, "Islam is a religion of peace." Terrorists are not good citizens. Most Moslem citizens, however, are OK. They own businesses, create jobs, and do all the things we all do. They just have a different religion.
Telling the terrorists from the peaceable Moslems is the problem. I have no solution for that one.
Let me get this straight: these people left a hell-hole to come live in this country, and now they're going to try to vote out the guy who's trying to keep this country from becoming the same kind of hell-hole they left.
That about sum it up?
Not nice.
"Let me get this straight: these people left a hell-hole to come live in this country"
Actually, they came from all sorts of places. Islam is a pretty widespread religion. A lot of Moslems who are US citizens were born right here, so they didn't come from anywhere other than the USA.
Just more street talk. Bush never said anything of the kind and needless to say she will never be able to come up with a direct quote from Bush to prove it either.
I try to distinguish between Muslims and Islamofascists. I just complained about post #9 (I'm sure I'm not the only one who did) and it has been removed.
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