NJ, NOV 10 - Come January, Democrat Keith Ellison Muhammad
will be the first Muslim U.S. representative, not to mention
the first black congressman from Minnesota. This sends a
powerful message.
His election has been hailed as a positive
indicator of American pluralism and tolerance - rejection of
"Islam-bashing" and profiling. The
43-year-old criminal defense lawyer got 136,061 or 56% votes while his rival, Republican Party
Jewish candidate, Alan Fine, received only 52,263 or 21%
votes. Independent candidate Ms. Tammy Lee also got 21% or
51,456 votes.
Since 9/11 Muslims have been unfairly stigmatized, putting
their intentions and loyalty to question. The highest seat
ever reached by a Muslim has been a state senator, which was
Larry Shaw of North Carolina. In 2004,
Ferial Masry, a Saudi-born woman lost her bid for congress
in California. Also from California, Syed Rifat Mahmood
made an unsuccessful bid for congress in 2002 on a
Republican ticket. America 's estimated five to seven
million Muslims are nearly invisible when it comes to
holding office, until now.
Keith made history by becoming the first African American
elected to Congress from the state and the first Muslim
elected in the nation to Congress. And, Muslims across
America, and even overseas, celebrated his election.
But, his road to victory was filled with landmines. The
assault on his character was vicious. The attack on his
capacity to perform the duties of the office unremitting,
while this election period has been characterized by
mudslinging of the lowest order, the attacks on Rep. Keith
Ellison by his Republican opponent Alan Fine and the
Republican machine were embedded in a deeply rooted racism
masked as critique, wrote a news analyst.
Ellison denied any link to Louis Farrakhan of Nation of
Islam and reached out to Jews, eventually gaining some
endorsements from Jewish groups. In the end he won with
landslide.
Giving a video blog interview recently, Keith was asked by blogger Amanda, "what would
it be like to be the first member of congress as a Muslim
and will you be sworn in on the Quran?"
His response: "Well I hadn't really thought about what I was
going to use to be sworn in but I assume I would use the Quran. It sounds like a good idea to me."
Some (bloggers) suggested it meant he would pledge
allegiance to Islamic law rather than to upholding the
Constitution.
Keith continued: "My own personal profile has not been in the forefront of my
thinking. I'm a Muslim, I'm proud to be one, Assalam u
Alaikum.. that means peace be unto you, but you know my own
personal profile is not what i am thinking about. I'm
worried about those 46 million Americans with no healthcare,
I'm worried about those families getting a visit from the
military personnel saying your daughter, (or) your son's not
coming home because of this misdirected war."
According to Keith, peace is his main focus. "We need
diplomacy, multilateral negotiations...too often with the Bush administration they don't want to talk it
out, they want to shoot it out....and i think this has made
our society in America less safe. It has made the world less
safe...and I think we got to really change the tone there."
Keith however wants to talk about more than being the first
Muslim member of Congress.
“I’m not a Muslim leader,” the incoming Democratic
congressman said Thursday in a radio interview. “I’m a
politician who happens to be a Muslim.”
But as he earns international attention as the first-ever
Muslim member of the U.S. Congress, Ellison suddenly finds
himself among the most prominent members of his faith in the
United States — at a time when incidents of terrorism and
violence by extremists has created unwanted associations for
many American Muslims.
He acknowledged Thursday that with his newfound prominence
may come a responsibility to speak for peaceful Muslims.
“There are people in a better position to speak on all
things Muslim than me,” Ellison said. But, he quickly added,
“Killing innocents is un-Islamic. Suicide is un-Islamic.
Committing suicide to kill innocents is extremely
un-Islamic. These people you read about, these Osama bin
Ladens, they don’t represent Islam any more than Timothy
McVeigh represents Christianity.” |
