Robert Jensen Robert Jensen is a professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin.Nature bats last: Radical political theologyPolitics without theology is dangerous, and we must construct a new worldview not reducible to just evidence and logic.Last Modified: 18 Aug 2011 11:57

My title is ambitious and ambiguous: revolution and resistance (which tend to be associated with left politics), revelation and redemption (typically associated with right-wing religion), all framed by a warning about ecological collapse. My goal is to connect these concepts to support an argument for a radical political theology. First, I realise that the term "radical political theology" may be annoying. Some people will dislike "radical" and prefer a more pragmatic approach. Others will argue that theology shouldn't be political. Still others will want nothing to do with theology of any kind. But a politics without a theology is dangerous, a theology without a politics is irrelevant, and radical is realistic. By politics, I don't mean we need to pretend to have a traditional political programme that will lead us to the land of milk and honey; instead, I'm merely suggesting that we always foreground the basic struggle for power. By theology, I don't mean that we need to believe in supernatural forces that will lead us to a land of milk and honey; instead, I'm merely pointing out that we all construct a worldview that is not reducible to evidence and logic.  And all this needs to be radical - an unflinching honesty about that unjust and unsustainable nature of the systems in which we live. Whatever pragmatic steps we take in the world, they should be based on radical analysis if they are to be realistic. Revolution

Ask an audience to name the three most important revolutions in human history, and the most common answers are the American, French, and Russian. But to understand our current situation, the better answer is the agricultural, industrial, and delusional revolutions. The agricultural revolution started about 10,000 years ago when a hunting-gathering species discovered how to cultivate plants for food and domesticate animals. Two crucial things resulted, one political and one ecological. Politically, the ability to stockpile food made possible concentrations of power and resulting hierarchies that were foreign to band-level hunting-gathering societies, which were highly egalitarian and based on cooperation. Humans were capable of doing bad things to each other prior to agriculture, but large-scale institutionalised oppression has its roots in agriculture. 

Ecologically, the invention of agriculture kicked off an intensive human assault on natural systems. While hunting-gathering humans were capable of damaging a local ecosystem in limited ways, the large-scale destruction we cope with today has its origins in agriculture, in the way humans started exhausting the energy-rich carbon of the planet, first in soil.

The post-World War II "advances" in oil-based industrial agriculture have accelerated the ecological destruction. Soil from large monoculture fields drenched in petrochemicals not only continues to erode but also threatens groundwater supplies and contributes to dead zones in oceans.

The larger industrial revolution that began in the last half of the 18th century intensified the magnitude of the human assault on ecosystems and humans assaults on each other. This revolution unleashed the concentrated energy of coal, oil, and natural gas to run the new steam engine and machines in textile manufacturing that dramatically increased productivity. The energy - harnessed by the predatory capitalist economic system that was beginning to dominate the planet - not only eventually transformed all manufacturing, transportation, and communication, but disrupted social relations. The world population soared from about 1bn in 1800 to the current 7bn, far beyond the long-term carrying capacity of the planet. The industrial processes are destroying the capacity of the ecosystem to sustain human life as we know it into the future, and in the present the material comforts produced are not distributed in a fair and just fashion. The way we live is in direct conflict with common sense and the ethical principles on which we claim to base our lives. How is that possible? Enter the third revolution. The delusional revolution is my term for the development of sophisticated propaganda techniques in the 20th century (especially a highly emotive, image-based advertising/marketing system) that have produced in the bulk of the population (especially in First World societies) a distinctly delusional state of being. Although any person or group can employ these techniques, wealthy individuals and corporations - and their representatives in government - take advantage of their disproportionate share of resources to flood the culture with their stories that reinforce their dominance. As a culture, these delusions leave us acting as if unsustainable systems can be sustained simply because we want them to be. Resistance

Even if a revolutionary programme is not viable at the moment, strategies and tactics for resistance are crucial. To acknowledge that the social, economic, and political systems that have produced this death spiral can't be overthrown from the revolutionary playbooks of the past does not mean there are no ways to affirm life. We face planetary problems that seem to defy solutions, but the US empire and predatory corporate capitalism remain immediate threats and should be resisted. An honest, radical assessment of our situation doesn't mean giving up, but it requires us to be tough-minded. The first step is recognising that certain approaches are not effective. The protests of the anti-war movement, for example, failed to stop the US invasion of Iraq. When certain resistance tactics don't work as part of a strategy that's not clearly articulated, it's time to rethink. I have no grand strategy to offer, and I am sceptical about anyone who claims they have worked out such a strategy. I believe we are in a period in which the most important work is creating the

organisations and networks that will be important in the future, when the political conditions change, for better or worse. Whatever is coming, we need sharper analysis, stronger vehicles for action, and more resilient connections among people. Revelation

Most discussions of revelation and apocalypse in contemporary America focus on the Book of Revelation, also known as The Apocalypse of John, the final book of the Christian New Testament. The two terms are synonymous in their original meaning - "revelation" from Latin and "apocalypse" from Greek both mean a lifting of the veil, a disclosure of something hidden from most people, a coming to clarity. What is the nature of this unveiling today? Rather than thinking of revelation as divine delivery of a clear message about some fantastic future above, we can think of it as a process that requires tremendous effort on our part about our very real struggles on this planet. That notion of revelation doesn't offer a one-way ticket to a better place, but reminds us that there are no tickets available to any other place; we humans live and die on this planet, and we have a lot of work to do if, as a species, we want to keep living. That process begins with an honest analysis of where we stand. There is a growing realisation that we have disrupted natural forces in ways we cannot control and do not fully understand. We need not adopt an end-times theology to recognise that on our current trajectory, there will come a point when the ecosphere cannot sustain human life as we know it. As Bill McKibben puts it, "The world hasn't ended, but the world as we know it has - even if we don't quite know it yet". We can't pretend all that's needed is tinkering with existing systems to fix a few environmental problems; massive changes in how we live are required. This is a revelation not of a coming rapture but of a deepening rupture. The end times are not coming, they are unfolding now. Redemption

Just as revelation can be about more than explosions during the end times, redemption can be understood as about more than a saviour's blood washing away our sin. But we shouldn't give up on the concept of sin, for we are in fact all sinners - we all do things that fall short of the principles on which we claim to base our lives. Given that we all sin, we all should seek redemption, understood as the struggle to come back into right relation with those we have injured. At some point in our lives we all do things that violate our own principles, which suggests the capacity to do nasty things. Equally obvious is that even though we live interdependently and our actions are conditioned by how we are socialised, we are distinct moral agents and we make choices. Responsibility for those choices must in part be ours as individuals. But an individual focus isn't going to solve our most pressing problems, which is why it is crucial to focus on the sins we commit that are created, not original, and solutions that are collective, not individual. These sins, which do much greater damage, are the result of political, economic, and social systems. They create war and poverty, discrimination and

oppression, not simply through the freely chosen actions of individuals but because of the nature of these systems of empire and capitalism, rooted in white supremacy and patriarchy.  So, a desire to return to right relation with others in our personal lives is not enough; collectively we have to struggle for the same thing, which requires us to always be working to dismantle those hierarchical systems that define our lives. Our most important struggle for redemption concerns our most profound sin: Our willingness to destroy the larger living world of which we are a part. Whatever the limits of our predictive capacity, we can be pretty sure we will need ways of organising ourselves to help us live in a world with less energy and fewer material goods. We have to all develop the skills needed for that world (such as gardening with fewer inputs, food preparation and storage, and basic tinkering), and we will need to recover a deep sense of community that has disappeared from many of our lives. Nature bats last

The phrase "nature bats last" circulates these days among people who have their eye on the multiple, cascading ecological crises. The metaphor reminds us that nature is the home team and has the final word. We humans may be particularly impressed with our own achievements - all of the spectacular homeruns we have hit with science and technology - but when those achievements are at odds with how nature operates, then nature is going to bring in the ultimate designated hitter and knock the human race out of the ballpark. The point is simple: We are not as powerful as the forces that govern that larger living world. So, we need to see beyond the egotistical rhetoric of our technological fundamentalism - the claims that infinitely clever humans will solve all problems with gadgets - and end the human war on the rest of the living world.

The radical political theology I believe we need for this moment in history would acknowledge, rather than try to mask, our confusion and uncertainty. Facing that takes a new kind of courage. We usually think of courage as rooted in clarity and certainty - we act with courage when we are sure of what we know. Today, the courage we need must be rooted in the limits of what we can know and trust in something beyond human knowledge. In many times and places, that something has gone by the name "God". Religious fundamentalism offers a God who will protect us if we follow orders. Technological fundamentalism gives us the illusion that we are God and can arrange the world as we like it. A radical political theology leaves behind fear-based protection rackets and arrogance-driven control fantasies. The God for our journey is neither above us nor inside us but around us, a reminder of the sacredness of the living world of which we are a part. That God shares the anxiety and anguish of life in a desecrated world. With such a God we can be at peace with our powerlessness and alive in hope. With such a God, we can live in peace.

Robert Jensen is a professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin. His latest book is titled, All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Major reforms cast as a power grab Turkey's referendum would deeply alter the legal system, which foes say helps the ruling party stay in power.Evan Hill Last Modified: 13 Sep 2010 08:52

Turkey's

constitutional

vote is

being seen

in part as a referendum on Rece

p Tayyi

p Erdog

an, the

prime minister

[EPA]

The plot lines of Turkey's constitutional referendum make for a complicated read.

On one side, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which opponents paint as Islamist, is urging a "yes" vote on a package of amendments that will promote individual and human rights, increase access to the courts, and decentralise judicial authority. The European Union (EU), which one day may welcome Turkey into its ranks, has approved of the reforms.

On the other, opponents, including the leaders of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP), who stake their "no" campaign on the legacy of Turkey's secularising and modernising founder, Kemal Ataturk, now find themselves arguing against the amendments from an anti-reformist position.

And Turkey's Kurdish leadership, who arguably benefit most from proposed changes that make it more difficult to ban political parties, having seen Kurdish politicians repeatedly thrown out of parliament by judges, are trying to boycott the entire referendum.

Meanwhile, the public remains largely unenlightened, as the public debate in Turkey ahead of the nationwide vote turned vitriolic and oversimplified.

A case in point: The CHP was widely criticised for spreading around a poster in the town of Avcilar comparing a vote in favour of the amendments to support "for Muslim women to cover themselves like nuns" - a reference to the AKP's Islamist reputation and unsuccessful attempt to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves in public places.

Meanwhile, prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP's chairman and public champion of the referendum, has compared prospective no voters to "defenders" of the 1980 military coup that produced Turkey's most recent constitution.

The outcome of such political ping-pong is a confused citizenry low on information and lacking a firm grasp on what is at stake.

"Erdogan has not done a good job clarifying the whole content of the amendment[s]," suggests Birol Baskan, a visiting professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. "So basically the masses are lost in the political discourse now. They don't know what's going on."

Shuffling the legal deck

The debate over the amendments, which modify or repeal 24 articles of Turkey's constitution which have already been approved by parliament and modified by a court, essentially boil down to the changes they set out to the way the country's judges and prosecutors are chosen, evaluated and investigated.

Parliament, almost 47 per cent of which is occupied by the AKP, voted in favour of the amendments in the spring, and the legislation survived a summer challenge by the CHP and the Democratic Left Party (DSP) in the Constitutional Court.

Turkey's judiciary and military class have long been sources of support for the secular Kemalist ideology that officially governs Turkey's state institutions. Though the changes laid out in the proposed amendments would bring the judiciary more in line with liberal democracies in Europe and North America, tinkering with the makeup of the court has stirred fears among some in Turkey that Erdogan and the AKP intend on chipping away at the secular state.

Under the current constitution, the president controls all 15 appointments (11 sitting judges and four substitutes) to Turkey's Constitutional Court - the highest legal body in the country for rulings on the constitutionality of laws and the venue for any criminal case that may involve the president, cabinet members or other judges. No Western liberal democracy, including the entire membership of the EU - which Turkey hopes to join - has a system that similarly cuts the legislature out of the judicial appointments process.

"The whole purpose was to ... insulate the state institution against the ups and downs of politics," Baskan said. "And so far it has been very successful."

By law, the president chooses his appointments from a variety of candidates nominated by other state institutions: One comes from a university, and three others from within the president's own administration, but seven must be jurists nominated by other courts.

Samih Idiz, a columnist for the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, said the government has argued that this appointment system means the judiciary "has established itself as some kind of self-perpetuating organisation," with the overwhelming majority of the arbiters of the country's constitution coming from established legal cadres.

This insulated institution decides weighty issues that bear on Turkey's future. Unsuccessful attempts to ban the AKP, the latest flaring up in 2008 after Erdogan pushed the headscarf issue, have twice been made before the Constitutional Court. The court has banned Kurdish political parties on at least four occasions since 1993.

The proposed amendments would change Article 146 of the Turkish constitution to expand the court from 11 to 17 members and allow parliament to appoint three of the new judges. Two of the new, parliament-chosen jurists would still be required to come from another court, but one need only be a lawyer nominated by a bar association president. The amendments would also set a 12-year term limit for members of the Constitutional Court.

A new tutor

The second controversial set of changes would shift the makeup of the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors, which approves new judges and state prosecutors as well as oversees their promotion, dismissal and potential investigation. The council, currently made up of five judges picked by the president, would expand to 22 members. The president would choose four, who must only be lawyers, while the large majority of the rest would be judges chosen by their peers and other prosecutors.

The president of the council would remain the minister of justice - a presidential appointee - but would be newly empowered to open investigations into judges and public prosecutors.

Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist for the English-language Hurriyet newspaper who is against the amendments, wrote that these two sections, dealing with the Constitutional Court and Supreme Council, "weigh more for the future of this country" than all of the remaining amendments.

Although the two sections might, as their supporters say, move the country away from "military tutelage," Ulsever warned that they will replace it with "civilian tutelage".

The "tutelage" rhetoric stems again from the concept of an ultra-insulated judiciary built to keep the Kemalist ship on course, no matter who might be in power. To allow political winds to buffet Turkey means the country might soon find itself shifting course away from secularism, or even allowing internal ethnic divisions - such as that between Turks and Kurds - to grow.

"Those advocating the maintenance of the status quo are concerned that a democratic regime which is free from such tutelary 'filters' and meets universal democratic standards may lead to the emergence of an Islamic regime or to secession, either gradually or rapidly," Ergun Ozbudun, a prominent lawyer recruited by Erdogan to help design a draft for an early version of the constitutional amendments, wrote in a recent report for the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation.

Students opposed to the

amendmen

ts hold a sig

n readi

ng 'university says no to the AKP liars' [AFP]

Predictably, Turkey's judges are not pleased with the plan to shake things up.

"The judiciary is no one's backyard. Never has been and never will be," Hasan Gerceker, head of the Supreme Court of Appeals, told a gathering of judges on Monday at a ceremony marking the opening of the judicial year. "With the constitutional amendments, the conflict between the courts and the executive power will increase, as the amendments ignore the courts' will and cut their authority within the judiciary."

Power to the people

In addition to changing the makeup of the Constitutional Court and country's judicial and prosecutorial watchdog, the amendments would limit the power of military courts, open up access to the legal system for more people and make it harder to disband political parties - a common occurrence in Turkey.

While the current constitution - passed in 1982 after the coup by national referendum - allows military courts to try civilians in special cases mostly related to security issues, the proposed amendments specifically disallow that practice, restricting the jurisdiction of military courts to military personnel only and leaving the rest to civilian courts.

The amendments would also allow the Constitutional Court for the first time to hear cases brought by private citizens, similar to the way in which landmark constitutional decisions in the US, such as the desegregation of schools, grew out of individual cases that eventually found their way before the Supreme Court and were decided there.

"Anyone who claims that any of their fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under the constitution and falling under the European Convention of Human Rights has been violated by the public authorities can apply to the Constitutional Court," according to the proposed amendment, as long they have exhausted other legal remedies. The new constitution, if passed, would also allow litigants to petition the Constitutional Court - which usually sits in a smaller group - to sit in a full assembly for a second review of their decision.

Political parties, which have long faced a tenuous existence in Turkey, would enjoy more protection under the amended constitution. Presently, the Constitutional Court may ban political parties and annul constitutional amendments with a three-fifths majority vote - seven of the 11 judges.

Often, the court will act against anything it views as a threat to the "Kemalist state," Idiz said: "It means in practice that Turkey is a graveyard of banned political parties." The new constitution would allow such decisions only with a two-thirds majority, meaning 12 of 17 judges must be in favour.

Yet the latest iteration of the minority Kurds' political representation, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), has stated its intent to boycott the referendum vote, though a victory would seem to aid their continued existence.

The BDP's predecessor, the Democratic Society Party, was banned last year by the Constitutional Court for alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and other countries.

According to Human Rights Watch, the court found that the Democratic Society Party had "promoted Kurdish separatism" and ordered the party disbanded permanently and 37 of its members banned from politics for five years.

Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of the Kurds' new BDP, told Al Jazeera that his group had called for a boycott because they wanted "sweeping changes to the constitution," and the package of changes proposed by Erdogan and the AKP merely "revitalises" the legacy of the 1982 military coup constitution.

"This government wants to form their own civilian dictatorship," he said.

Demirtas said that the existing courts are already biased against Kurds, who make up nearly 20 per cent of the country's 76.8 million people, and that if the AKP "was to take over the judiciary, from our point of view nothing will change".

"We want non-politicised justice, not only for Kurds but for all of Turkey," he said. "[A boycott] would be a very effective message given to the public."

Political winds

Recent polls indicate that Sunday's vote will be close, though some have indicated that Erdogan and the amendment supporters have a slight edge. According to the Pollmark agency, 56.2 per cent of those surveyed earlier this week said they intended to vote "yes".

But in several other polls, the results were not as clear.

Two polls conducted at the beginning and end of August by the Sonar and A&G agencies, respectively, yielded results that fell within the 1-2 per cent margin of error, with roughly half of the respondents on both the "no" and "yes" sides.

None of the polling agencies surveyed people in all of Turkey's 81 provinces.

Idiz said that a poll released on Thursday by Milliyet showed the "yes" side winning handily in Turkey's major cities, including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Antalya.

Even in the city of Diyarbakir, in the heartland of Turkey's southeast Kurdish region, Milliyet's poll showed "yes" with 84.3 per cent of the vote, Idiz said, which would mark a major defeat for the Peace and Democracy Party's boycott effort.

"When I was in Turkey in the summer I talked to many people from different walks of life, and what I realised was there were two groups," Baskan said. "One groups says, 'We will say no whatever it is,' one group says, 'We will say yes whatever it is,' and the majority is confused, the majority don't know what this referendum is about, they don't know what is at stake."

But Erdogan and the AKP "feel pretty politically strong at the moment," Idiz said - otherwise they probably would have compromised with opponents who earlier promised to vote for the amendments if the AKP removed the two sections on the Constitutional Court and the judicial and prosecutorial watchdog council.

Indeed, the AKP itself is so tightly tied to the amendments that many in Turkey now consider Sunday's vote to be more or less a referendum on the party itself. That could inflame passions at the polls - though it is hard to tell in which direction.

But the referendum results are almost sure to echo in the months following the vote. A parliamentary election is set to come sometime in 2011, and victory or defeat on Sunday will likely affect the AKP's strategy, such as whether it feels strong enough to put the headscarf issue on the table again or continue its much-promised initiative to extend more rights to the Kurds. 

Either way, most observers seem to agree that the referendum process has been marked by a lack of public debate on such a momentous issue.

"While our views on the simple question of 'yes' or 'no' are mixed, we are in complete accord that this initiative, from its drafting last spring to its debate in recent months, has been almost completely devoid of candor, statesmanship and commitment to democratic principles," a Hurriyet editorial  said on Tuesday.

"The ruling party has cynically packed a ballot with diverse elements that should not be decided in sum ... The opposition parties have callously turned the campaign into a tactical dry run in advance of next year's general election."

Political success eludes US Muslims Dearborn, Michigan, a blue-collar, industrial suburb of Detroit, perhaps best known for being the home of the Ford Motor Company, is often referred to as the unofficial Arab capital of America. Benjamin Duncan in Washington, DC Last Modified: 27 Nov 2003 10:21 GMT inShare0

Email

Print

Share

Feedback

No Musli

m American has yet

been elected to the US

Congress

Dearborn, Michigan, a blue-collar, industrial suburb of Detroit, perhaps best known for being the home of the Ford Motor Company, is often referred to as the unofficial Arab capital of America.

The town boasts one of the largest populations of Arab Americans of any city in the country, the majority of them Muslims.

Yet, Dearborn has never elected a Muslim representative to the US Congress. In fact, it has never even fielded a Muslim candidate - and it is not alone.

In the history of the United States, no Muslim American has ever been elected to the US House of Representatives or the Senate, according to officials from several of the largest Muslim civic associations in the country.

While a few individuals have launched congressional campaigns in states such as California, Virginia and Missouri, none have come close to winning a race for federal office.

Activism needed

Muslim American leaders cite the lack of political organisation and a limited understanding of the democratic system among immigrants as the main reasons for the absence of representation at the highest level.

“I think it has a lot to do with our immigrant community not being as politically proactive in the process,†�Sherifah Rafiq, the outreach coordinator for the Muslim American Society in Washington, DC, said. 

“Most people vote, but most people don’t understand how important the political process is,†she added.�

A survey of American Muslims co-sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), titled “The Mosque Study Project 2000,†� estimated that of the 6-7 million Muslims in the United States, roughly two-thirds of those who attend mosques are of South Asian and Middle Eastern heritage.

Approximately half of them are immigrants who come mainly from countries where American-style democracy is an unfamiliar concept to people living under totalitarian governments and monarchies, experts said.

Quantum shift

“Many Muslim immigrants came from countries where politics was not a very big part of life, and they came to a country where politics is everything,†Nihad Awad, CAIR's Executive Director said. �

Dr Imad al-Din Ahmad, a Palestinian Muslim who ran for the US Senate in 1988, said Muslim immigrants often come from homelands “that arrest people for speaking out about political issuesâ€.�

Another large group of Muslim constituents is African American converts, who, according to the CAIR survey, comprise about 30% of Muslims in the US.

Jameel Johnson, the chief of staff for US Rep Gregory W Meeks, D-NY, and an African American Muslim, said many black Americans had difficulty reconciling voter participation with America’s history of racism and political disenfranchisement.

African Americans in the southern United States endured years of discrimination and violent efforts to bar them from the voting booth. The subsequent cynicism towards politics among black Muslims is a reflection of that nefarious legacy, Johnson said, adding that they must now work to bridge the gap between religion and politics.

“From a theological point of view, there needs to be clarity about the importance of being involved in the process,†he said.�

September 11

"I think it has a lot to do with our immigrant community not being as politically proactive in the process"

Sherifah Rafiq,outreach coordinator,Muslim American Society

Many African American Muslims have difficulty reconciling voter participation with America's history of racism and political disenfranchisement

Another reason why Muslim Americans have recently struggled to get elected to local and federal office has been the attacks of September 11, 2001.

It was a day that few who witnessed the devastation will ever forget, but it also shattered the campaigns of several Muslim candidates running the last leg of hard-fought political races.

Abed Hammoud was running for Mayor of Dearborn at the time. Sept 11 was not the only reason he lost the election, but it certainly did not help, he said.

“The campaign was great until September 11, which was the primary day, and then the whole campaign became about the Arab and Muslim issue,†he said.�

Kamal Nawash was at home in Virginia on that day, closer to the tragedy than most.

“My building shook when the plane hit the Pentagon,†he said.�

He was running for the Virginia House of Delegates, but the post 9/11 backlash against Muslims proved to be a serious blow to his campaign.

The attacks sparked an estimated 85% drop in the number of Muslims running for political office, a decrease from about 700 candidates in 2000 to roughly 100 in 2002, according to the American Muslim Alliance.

Whether or not anti-Islamic discrimination accounts for the lack of Muslim Americans in Congress is unclear. However, Ahmad said that both religious intolerance and xenophobia have hindered their political evolution.

Obstacles

Other factors such as fundraising, constituent mobilisation and the development of platforms that appeal to a wide array of voters are the more critical stepping-stones to overcome, he said.

Hammoud said simply galvanising Muslim voters to support their own candidates would not get Muslims elected. Out of 60,000 registered voters in the two congressional districts representing Dearborn, roughly 10,000 are Muslim Americans, he said.

“If you mobilise the community and get them very excited you might get 60% of Muslims,†he said, adding �that a Muslim candidate would still fall short of victory without the strong support of non-Muslim voters.

“Is there a city where the mere number of Muslims could allow Muslims to get elected? No,†he said. �“But can Muslims get elected? Yes.†�

Ahmad said they have failed to rally around Muslim candidates in the past, something that was a serious problem during his 1988 Senate campaign.

“It was very hard to get Muslim support because they weren’t involved in the process,†he said.�

Jewish vote

That is not the case for Jewish congressional candidates he said.

There are currently 37 Jewish members in the 108th Congress, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, a website created by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.

Ahmad said Jewish politicians are able to rely on the backing of Jewish constituents, an area where Muslims are at a disadvantage.

The 9/11  attacks have brought  about an image crisis

Most Muslim Americans are ill-at-ease with American politics

“Muslims running for office can’t count on the support of Muslims in their community like Jews can count on Jews from their community,†he said. �

Not true, said Malcom Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations. He said it is a myth that the Jewish community is united in its support of Jewish candidates for Congress.

“Jews contribute more to non-Jewish candidates than Jewish candidates,†he said, citing a 1992 Senate race �in New York in which Bob Abrams, a Jewish Democrat, could only manage to win 60% of the Jewish vote and lost the election by a razor-thin margin to the Republican incumbent, Alfonse D’Amato.

David Twersky, the communications director for the American Jewish Congress said he did not believe Jewish members of Congress are elected because of their religion or because of any political backing from Jewish organizations.

“We don’t do ourselves a service when we say it’s a question of them being Jewish candidates or not,†he said.�

Abrams failed to secure the Jewish vote in New York because D’Amato was seen as the candidate who conveyed the strongest support for Israel, he said.

Awad said the Jewish American community goes back several generations, something that has given them a political leg up on Muslims.

“American Jews have a longer history in this country than American Muslims,†he said. “The American �Muslim experience is relatively new.†�

Hoenlein agreed that it takes a while for any religious or ethnic group to build up a solid constituency.

“It’s a process that takes time,†he said. You have to work your way through the political process.� �

Representation

Yet, until that happens, Muslim groups said they would not have a proper voice on US foreign policy in the Middle East, a critical issue for their people.

While some Muslim political activists said it was unfortunate that they are often viewed solely through the prism of the war on terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they added that a swift and just resolution to both situations would lift a heavy burden from their shoulders.

Without Muslim representation in Congress, there is less chance of that happening, they said.

“The lack of our input in foreign policy issues is missing and therefore the American policy is suffering," Awad said.

Hope

There is reason, however, to be optimistic about the future, he continued.

Muslims already hold a wide variety of state and local offices, from city council seats to the state legislature. Building up a solid base at the grassroots level is an important first step on the road to a more inclusive political status.

“American Jews have a longer history in this country than American Muslims. The American Muslim experience is relatively new†�Nihad Awad,executive director, CAIR

Lack of political organisation is proving to be a handicap

“I think Muslims are going in that direction aggressively,†� Awad said. “There’s more interest in running for political office, because people understand that a lack of representation affects us negatively in terms of policy.†�

Nawash is one Muslim at the forefront of that effort. He recently lost a bid for the Virginia State Senate, running as a Republican in a heavily Democratic district.

Nevertheless, he was excited by the support he received during the campaign and said he would definitely be back sometime in the near future.

“I’m an excellent campaigner,†he said. “I really mastered the game.â€� �