‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

2023/06/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

‘It’s brought us together’: at Ramadan, American Muslims on life in the age of Trump

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”

While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election. Some leaders and residents are now bitter political enemies engaged in a series of often vicious battles over the city’s direction, and the Pride flag controversy represents a crescendo in tension.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”

For about a century, Polish and Ukrainian Catholics dominated politics in Hamtramck, a city of 28,000 surrounded by Detroit. By 2013, largely Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni immigrants supplanted the white eastern Europeans, though the city remains home to significant populations of those groups, as well as African Americans, whites and Bosnian and Albanian Americans. According to the 2020 census some 30% to 38% of Hamtramck’s residents are of Yemeni descent, and 24% are of Asian descent, largely Bangladeshi.

After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.

The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide, and other US cities have passed similar bans, with the vast majority driven by often white politically conservative Americans.

While the situation in Hamtramck largely evolved on its own local dynamics, some outside rightwing agitators connected to national Republican groups have been pushing for the ban on Hamtramck’s social media pages and voiced support for it at Tuesday’s meeting. They are from nearby Dearborn where they were part of an effort last year to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.

But that sentiment is “an erasure of the queer community and an attempt to shove queer people back in the closet”, said Gracie Cadieux, a queer Hamtramck resident who is part of the Anti-Transphobic Action group.

Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.

“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.

Though the city’s Muslims are not a monolith and some privately told the Guardian they were “frustrated” with council, the only leader to publicly question it was the former city council member Amanda Jaczkowski, a Polish American who converted to Islam.

In a statement, she raised concerns about the move’s legality: “There are far too many questions to pass this today with any semblance of responsibility.”

On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.

When Michigan legalized marijuana, it gave municipalities a late 2020 deadline to enact a prohibition of dispensaries. Hamtramck council missed the deadline and a dispensary opened, drawing outrage from conservative Muslims who demanded city leadership shut it down. That ignited counterprotests from many liberal residents, and the council only relented when it became clear it had no legal recourse.

At other times, the issues are not unique to Hamtramck. In the realm of local politics, personal fights among neighbors, warring factions and dirty politics are a common part of the democratic process across the US.

“I don’t know that we’re really all that different from other cities in most ways,” Majewski said.

However, race and religion add more fraught layers to Hamtramck’s issues. Islamophobia exists here, and some Muslims say they saw bigotry in local voter fraud investigations, and in LGBTQ+ supporters not respecting their religion.

But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed.

Ghalib disagreed, and labeled the prayer broadcast a “first amendment issue” while noting no one was asking for city hall to broadcast the calls.

Moreover, the white majority council was not always hospitable to Muslim residents who have previously faced overt racism. And with a majority-Muslim council in place, more Muslims had been appointed to boards and commissions, and hired in city hall. So had some LGBTQ+ residents, Ghalib added.

Despite the political clashes, he thinks there is hope for Hamtramck to live up to its multicultural ideals.

“We can get along and people are not violent here,” he said.

Cadieux agreed peaceful coexistence was possible.

“We aren’t in the business of excluding people from our society and I’m not going to exclude socially conservative Muslims – they have a place at the table just like everyone else,” she said. “However, they cannot, and will not, shove another community out of the way.”

Source: ‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

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On Islam, Trump Takes a Different Approach at Home and Abroad – The New York Times

2018/06/15 Leave a comment

Striking, if not surprising. Notable understatement by the Republican Muslim Coalition president, likely a lonely position:

The White House’s guest list last week for President Trump’s first dinner celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan included a who’s who of diplomats from the Middle East. But the event turned out to be more notable for who apparently was not there: representatives from Muslim American groups.

The night highlighted a paradox of Mr. Trump’s presidency. While he has sought to ally himself with Middle Eastern leaders, in part by at times softening his hostile tone on Islam, at home Mr. Trump has seemingly made little attempt to repair his fractured relationship with Muslim Americans — even those in his own party.

Saba Ahmed, the president of the Republican Muslim Coalition and a Trump supporter, said that at the outset of the presidency, there was a “complete shutdown of engagement” with Muslim Americans.

“It was quite a challenge” to work with Mr. Trump’s campaign staff, Ms. Ahmed said. “Even for the Republican Muslims who campaigned for him and helped him.”

The reinstatement of the dinner, which has been hosted by three previous presidents, and the departures of some staff members with hard-line views on Islam have left her optimistic that the White House will grant more access to its Muslim supporters.

“They have tarnished the image of Islam and Muslims, but I do think he is concerned about American Muslims,” Ms. Ahmed said. “The fact that he’s coming around, that he hosted the dinner, gives me a lot of hope.”

Activists outside the Republican Party do not share that hope.

“There is absolutely zero engagement with the Muslim American community,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Not good, not bad, not indifferent. Zero.” Everything he has said and done, Mr. Hooper said, “has had a tremendously negative impact on Muslim Americans.”

Mr. Trump has provided evangelicals with unprecedented access to the Oval Office, meeting regularly with a cadre of conservative Christians for issue-specific “listening sessions.” And although his meetings with faith leaders skew heavily toward Christians, they have been sprinkled with phone calls and holiday celebrations with members of the Hindu and Jewish American communities.

But according to his public schedule, the president has yet to meet with any Muslim American groups. Another hitch came last year when Mr. Trump upended a decades-old tradition by not hosting a gathering for iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan.

But the snub at this year’s iftar dinner was “a double-edged sword,” Mr. Hooper said.

“I don’t know a lot of Muslim American leaders who would have even wanted to attend,” he said. “But to have absolutely no Muslim American leaders invited? It’s a real slap in the face.”

The dinner tradition was started in 1996 by Hillary Clinton, the first lady at the time, and continued by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The attendees have historically included cabinet members and diplomats, but also members of advocacy groups and the public, according to a review of published guest lists.

Past presidents have also used the dinner to highlight noteworthy Muslim Americans. Mr. Bush made a point in 2006 of inviting Muslim military veterans and New York City police officers who were serving on Sept. 11, 2001, and Mr. Obama sought to emphasize women and young leaders by seating them at his table in 2015.

The White House has not made this year’s guest list public and did not respond to requests for comment. Among those in attendance were at least a dozen Middle Eastern ambassadors, including from countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to pool reports.

The relationship had begun to fray well before last week’s dinner. On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump frequently lobbed vitriolic remarks about Muslims. “I think Islam hates us,” he declared in an interview with CNN, and more than once he made unfounded claims that “thousands and thousands” of Arab-Americans in New Jersey cheered as the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11.

Once Mr. Trump took office, one of his first acts was signing an executive order barring people from several predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. And he has appointed officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, whose remarks about Islam and ties to anti-Islam groups have raised concern among Muslims.

Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, said her nonprofit used to “believe in engagement as a tool” and worked with the Obama administration on civil rights issues. When Mr. Trump was elected, Ms. Khera hoped to continue that tradition, and accepted a meeting with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, in the weeks before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

Ms. Khera said she thought it was important to meet with Mr. Kushner “to have the opportunity to determine to what degree the hateful rhetoric used on the campaign trail was bluster.”

A couple of weeks later, she said, the travel ban was rolled out.

“It became abundantly clear that this was his agenda,” she said. “Our posture now has really moved; our form of engagement now is really filing lawsuits.”

Despite his track record at home, however, Mr. Trump has shifted in the eyes of some Middle Eastern royalty to ally from antagonist. And in March, he called the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia “probably the strongest it’s ever been.”

The president has also publicly praised Islam abroad. Last year in Saudi Arabia, at a summit meeting of dozens of Muslim leaders, he retreated from his incendiary language and called Islam “one of the world’s great faiths.”

Speaking before Middle Eastern diplomats at last week’s iftar gathering, Mr. Trump reiterated that statement and focused on the summit meeting, calling it “one of the great two days of my life” and giving thanks for the “renewed bonds of friendship and cooperation.”

The remarks were less than convincing for American Muslims.

“What the president does is motivated in his self-interest,” Ms. Khera said. “He believes he motivates his base by demonizing Muslims, and when it comes to a foreign audience, especially in the gulf, he’s looking to curry favor with these power brokers. He’s a transactional person.”

Although the president has tried to rally Middle Eastern leaders to join him in combating terrorism and extreme ideology, according to experts, engaging Muslims in the United States is just as crucial as mounting an effective counterterrorism campaign.

Mr. Trump’s actions “negatively impact the view toward Muslims in the United States, and it creates a situation where future generations might feel alienated or targeted,” said Ali Soufan, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and a former F.B.I. agent. “In Europe, in some communities, Muslims feel they are second-class citizens, and it’s these young kids who are questioning their identity who can become radicals and join ISIS.”

Mr. Soufan said that while Mr. Trump’s inflammatory remarks cater to his base, more caution is needed “not to bring cancer into the United States.”

But for some activists, it is too little, too late. Maha Elgenaidi, the executive director of the Islamic Networks Group, a cultural literacy nonprofit, cast doubt on the likelihood that Mr. Trump could repair his relationship with Muslim Americans.

“It’s not going to be easy to shift because many of the policies they’ve acted on have been based on religious profiling and are supported by evangelicals, his base,” she said. “I don’t think that’s going to be easily changed.”

Mr. Hooper, the Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman, said that for the community to sit at the table with Mr. Trump, it would take a complete repudiation of anti-Muslim remarks, policies and staff members he had appointed.

“You’ll find that every Muslim American leader wants to have a good relationship with any sitting president,” Mr. Hooper said. “But how is that possible when all of these negative forces are out there?”

via On Islam, Trump Takes a Different Approach at Home and Abroad – The New York Times

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The Real Muslim American Threat? It’s Against Us – The Daily Beast

2015/08/31 Leave a comment

Dean Obeidallah on white extremism against American Muslims:

We have alarmingly reached an ugly place in America with anti-Muslim sentiment. And while Donald Trump has not targeted Muslims with his rhetoric (at least not yet), his fear mongering will no doubt embolden others to spew hate versus various minority groups, including Muslims.

And worse, this type of divisive language can inspire violence as we saw last week in Boston when two men attacked a Latino homeless man. After the assault, one of the attackers told the police: “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”

Interestingly one of the two Boston attackers had also been convicted of a hate crime for assaulting a Muslim man shortly after 9/11. Thus again proving that bigots tend to hate more than just one minority group.

I would predict we will see even more plots to kill Muslims in America or at least attempts to gin up the hate toward the Muslim community. This, of course, makes ISIS ecstatic because the terror group would use any attacks on American Muslims as proof that the West hates Islam and that Muslims should join them.

I wish I could be more optimistic, but I’m a realist. My only hope is that our media starts covering these terror plots to make it clear that the threat of “radical Americans” is very real.

Source: The Real Muslim American Threat? It’s Against Us – The Daily Beast

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Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist

2014/09/06 Leave a comment

The Economist’s survey of Muslim Americans and the contrast with European Muslims. Same general pattern with Canadian Muslims (about 3 percent of Canada’s population) in terms of the diversity of communities and outcomes, although overall have a higher low-income percentage.

And like the US, we also have that small number of those who radicalize and go off to fight in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere:

America’s Muslims differ from Europe’s in both quantity and origin. The census does not ask about faith, but estimates put the number of Muslims in the country at around 1% of the population, compared with 4.5% in Britain and 5% in Germany.

Moreover, American Islam is not dominated by a single sect or ethnicity. When the Pew Research Centre last tried to count, in 2011, it found Muslims from 77 countries in America. Most western European countries, by contrast, have one or two dominant groups—Algerians in France, Moroccans and Turks in Holland. This matters because the jumble of groups in America makes it harder for Muslim immigrants and their descendants to lead a life apart.

Different traditions get squashed together. When building mosques, says Chris McCoy, a Kentucky native who is a prolific architect of Islamic buildings, “the question is usually not whether we should have an Indian- or a Saudi-style dome but, can we afford a dome?”

Mixing breeds tolerance: Pew found that most American Muslims think that their faith is open to multiple interpretations, making them the Episcopalians of the Islamic world.

America’s Muslims are better off than their European co-religionists. They are almost as likely as other Americans to report a household income of $100,000 or more. The same cannot be said of the Pakistanis who came to work in the now-defunct textile mills of northern England or the Turks who became guest workers in West Germany. Many American Muslims arrived in the 1970s to complete their higher education and ended up staying. Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America, which issues fatwas, or religious opinions, to guide the behaviour of the country’s Muslims, is typical: he was born in India and holds a Harvard PhD in comparative religion.

There is a stark contrast between this group and some of the more recent immigrants from Somalia, who have fewer qualifications and lower wages as do African-American Muslims, who make up about an eighth of the total. This divide, if anything, makes America’s Muslims look more like the nation as a whole.

Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist.

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