Muslims in U.S. Politics: Recognized and Integrated, or Seduced and Abandoned?

Although Muslims have been in the United States for more than a century, they have mostly lived on the margins of its political life. On the one hand, their small numbers, ethnic diversity, and lack of experience in playing the democratic game have impeded their political integration. On the other hand, the inertia of traditional American antipathy toward Arabs and Muslims and the political and religious domestic interests of both the Zionist lobby and the Christian Right have managed to keep them out of the mainstream. ¹ Their reluctance to participate in the democratic process was finally put aside during the 2000 presidential election, when a coalition of Arab-American and Muslim political action groups launched a voter registration drive, endorsed the Bush-Cheney ticket, and contributed financially to the Republican party. ² While the community is gathering statistics at the instigation of Governor Jeb Bush on how many Muslims voted in Florida, they continue to believe that they were the margin of difference that delivered the presidency. (According to some estimates, over two thirds of Arab and Muslim voters cast their ballot for the Republican ticket, including 90 percent of the Muslim voters of Florida, estimated at over 70,000.) They have also been credited with a higher voter turnout than the general American electorate.

Their elation at their success in making a difference is being slowly dissipated as they face a continuation of the policies of the past. These policies were defined and pursued during the last three decades according to "American security" and "national interests" by both Republican and Democratic administrations. These interests are, primarily, access to the oil from the Arabian Peninsula and the security of Israel, and, secondarily, human rights, minority rights, women's rights, religious rights, and democracy. Their leadership continues to feel optimistic that Arabs and Muslims can make the difference in critical states in future elections and that their votes can no longer be taken for granted by either political party since they demonstrated that they can vote as a bloc. Some in the rank and file, though, are increasingly feeling jilted by the Bush-Cheney administration, which courted them during the campaign. One editorial in a national Muslim publication out of California that played a major role in building a coalition to support the Bush-Cheney ticket reads: "Mr. Bush is no different than other politicians who make promises only to break them, and who will say anything to achieve power in order to serve the agenda of their special interest groups." ³

The Muslim Mosaic

There are an estimated six million Muslims dispersed throughout the United States, with concentrations on the two coasts and in the Midwest. The community is noted for its diversity. It includes immigrants who chose to move to the United States for economic, political, and religious reasons as well as émigrés, asylum seekers, and refugees from over sixty nations manifesting a variety of ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, political, tribal, and national identities. But not all are recent immigrants; 35 percent of all Muslims in the United States are African-Americans.

Muslim immigrants to the United States have brought with them diverse national identities and allegiances to different ideologies ranging from local to regional nationalism to socialism. Those who emigrated in the 1980s from the Middle East brought with them a different identity, one that is fashioned by the bitter experience of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967, 1973, and 1982, as well as the civil war in Lebanon. They have given up on Arab nationalism and subscribe to some form of Islamic identity. A small minority favors "Islamism" as the only means of fostering unity and strength to overcome division and what they perceive as the incessant efforts by their enemies to undermine Islam and Muslims. They share a common worldview with immigrants from South Asia who identify with the Islamist group Jamaati Islami (Islamic Group) active in...