By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
16 November
2020
• Will Asaduddin Owaisi Be The ‘Chirag Paswan
Of Bengal’?
By Sanjib Kumar Das
• The Rise And Imminent Fall Of Ennahda In
Tunisia
By Dr. Hedi Ben Abbes
• How Arab Americans View Their Heritage And
The Middle East
By James J. Zogby
•What Muslim Voters Want From Joe Biden
By Sarah Parvini
-----
Will Asaduddin Owaisi be the ‘Chirag Paswan of
Bengal’?
By Sanjib Kumar Das
November
15, 2020
As the
results of elections in the Indian state of Bihar started trickling in last
Tuesday, a correspondent for an Indian television news channel in Patna alluded
to an interesting quote while referring to the party-pooper role played to
near-perfection by Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and its leader Chirag Paswan: “The
first election is for us to lose; the second is for us to make sure some people
lose; and the third will be the one to win”! LJP, a partner in India’s ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), won just
one seat in Bihar, but managed to achieve two objectives — one by default, and
the other by design.
It was
LJP’s presence in the fray that accounted for the defeat of the ruling Janata
Dal-United (JDU) candidates in about 39 seats, thereby dealing a severe
embarrassment to JDU supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, relegating
his party to the third position in the overall seat tally. If that was by
design, given Paswan’s animosity to Kumar, then by default, he ensured that NDA
big brother BJP win a far larger number of seats than JDU — an outcome that
will probably keep Kumar on tenterhooks all through his new five-year term and
allow the BJP central leadership to call the shots, keeping Kumar as a
figurehead CM only.
Rank Outsiders
Now talking
about party-poopers, there’s one other party whose performance in the Bihar
elections is quite noteworthy, and that is All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul
Muslimeen (Aimim), led by its firebrand president Asaduddin Owaisi. Aimim,
considered a rank outsider in Bihar politics until the other day, not only
managed to win five seats, out of the 20 it had contested, but more
interestingly, it made significant inroads into the minority ‘vote bank’ of the
Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the Seemanchal area, bordering the
state of West Bengal, which goes to the polls in April-May 2021. And in a
seemingly surprising move, almost immediately after the Bihar poll results were
out, Owaisi declared that in next year’s Bengal assembly polls, his party would
be fielding candidates.
Seemingly
surprising because Owaisi’s Aimim has so far had a zero footprint in Bengal.
However, if one considers the niche-politics played by Owaisi and his Aimim,
mostly catering to the sentiments of minority Muslim voters and his
carefully-calibrated messages by way of raising issues pertaining to that one
particular community, then the fact that Muslim voters comprise about 30 per
cent of the electorate makes Owaisi’s politics of polarisation all too
relevant. And that is precisely the reason why Bengal Chief Minister and
Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee has reasons to worry.
It is still
early days, but there is no doubt that if Owaisi’s Aimim finds even marginal
traction with the minority vote in the state, then it can turn out to be a
decisive factor in about 140 of the 294 seats that will be up for grabs in the
2021 assembly polls. And should that happen, Owaisi may well turn out to be the
‘Chirag Paswan of Bengal’ — party-pooper par excellence, giving Mamata the
jitters more than anyone else. There are at least four districts, namely
Maldaha, North Dinajpur, Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, accounting for a
total of 74 seats, where Muslim voters have always had a say in the poll
results. Owaisi has said it in as many words that Aimim will field candidates
in these districts, apart from a few other areas in the state. Add another 65
seats in the mix from pockets across Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas,
Howrah, Hooghly and Kolkata where the minority vote can make a difference
between winning and losing and it is quite likely that the Owaisi brand of
politics may help BJP in many of these seats in a highly polarised atmosphere.
Why Mamata Needs To Worry
The
question that arises here is that why does Mamata have to worry about Aimim
trying to make inroads into Bengal?
From the
time India became independent in 1947 and until the Left parties came to power
in Bengal in 1977, the minority vote had always stayed with Congress. After
that, for the next 34 years of unstinted Left rule in the state, the minority
Muslim vote has staunchly stayed with the Left. This trend saw a massive change
during the 2008 Panchayat (local rural self-government) polls when the first
signs of a decisive shift in the minority vote from the Left to TMC were
noticed, and that reached a crescendo in the 2011 watershed elections in the
state when the Mamata-led TMC unseated the Left Front and stormed to power,
winning the lion’s share of the Muslim vote.
For the
last decade or so, barring the districts of Maldaha and Murshidabad, where the
Congress has by and large managed to retain its traditional support base among
Muslims, the minority voters in Bengal have repeatedly reposed their faith in
Mamata and the TMC for more than a decade now. One major reason behind that is
the fact that apart from TMC, no other political outfit has made a serious
effort to win over the confidence of the Muslim voter in the state. The
Congress influence, as already stated, has traditionally remained restricted
within its pocket boroughs of Maldaha and Murshidabad, while post-2011, the
Left is no longer considered a credible voice of the minorities in Bengal.
In the 2019
Lok Sabha elections, TMC had garnered an overwhelming 70 per cent of the Muslim
vote in the state, winning 43.69 per cent of the total votes polled. In comparison,
BJP won 18 seats, winning 40.64 per cent of the votes. Given these numbers,
even a 2-3 per cent vote swing away from TMC can turn out to be disastrous for
Mamata.
AIMIM And The Minority Vote
Given such
a scenario, Owaisi’s forays into Bengal is likely to provide the average Muslim
voter with an alternative option — other than what TMC has been propagating for
so long. With Aimim winning five seats in Bihar and doing well in the
Seemanchal region, despite the presence of tried and tested options like the
Congress and RJD in the fray, taking AIMIM’s appeal lightly in Bengal can turn
out to be disastrous, and the TMC leadership knows it only too well.
And it is
not just TMC in Bengal, but the rise of AIMIM can send alarm bells ringing
among many other national and regional parties including the Congress. For more
than 70 years since independence, political parties that claim to be secular in
India have time and again been found blatantly pandering to the minority
sentiments merely as a poll plank. Treating the minority as just a vote bank
without ever making a serious and sincere attempt at addressing the issues that
the minorities are hamstrung with and indulging in tokenism have for long been
considered par for the course.
Now with
AIMIM and Owaisi trying to play the same card and ambush the gravy train of
these parties in terms of the minority Muslim vote is a direct fallout of this
brand of politics of opportunism. So there’s absolutely no point in trying to
blame Owaisi for making forays into Bihar, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh or the rest of
India. As a free citizen of the world’s largest democracy and as the leader of
a political party, he and AIMIM have every right to fight elections at a time
and point of their choosing. That really should be nobody’s business.
If tomorrow
Owaisi turns out to be the ‘Chirag Paswan of Bengal’ and play party-pooper to
TMC, don’t blame him because the template for a highly polarised political
matrix was drawn up much before he jumped into the fray. And one must always
remember. ‘If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind’.
https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/will-asaduddin-owaisi-be-the-chirag-paswan-of-bengal-1.75288942
-----
The Rise And Imminent Fall Of Ennahda In
Tunisia
By Dr. Hedi Ben Abbes
November
12, 2020
Almost nine
years after it re-emerged to become the dominant political force in Tunisia,
Ennahda is experiencing its most significant political and cultural crisis. The
Islamist party has been losing support, seats and influence for years. From a
high of 1.5 million votes and 89 seats in 2011, it received 947,034 votes and
69 seats in 2014, but only 561,132 votes and 53 seats in 2019. It has lost
massively to newly formed political parties, including Heart of Tunisia, which
was the second-most popular party in 2019 with 38 seats, followed by the
Democratic Current with 22. At the roots of this steady decline lie a number of
factors.
The
Islamist movement in Tunisia based its political stance on democratic values it
claimed to share with secular political forces in the country. It rightly said
that the only protections against dictatorship are democracy and the rule of
law. Many political parties, including the Congress for the Republic
(El-Mottamar) and the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties (Ettakatol), both
of which are secular parties, trusted the leaders of Ennahda and agreed to work
with them. They formed a strong coalition with the aim of preventing a possible
return of the Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD), the party that ruled the
country from 1956 until 2011. That was the theoretical political platform that
cemented a deal between the three parties after the revolution.
Signs of
disagreement soon began to surface, however, as Ennahda began to reveal its
hegemonic attitudes and stopped hiding its true agenda. Not only did it welcome
many high-ranking figures from the former regime into its political structure,
it even adopted the ousted regime’s strategy of placing a stranglehold on the
main state institutions.
A process
of political infiltration of public services and state-owned companies began as
soon as Ennahda appointed Hamadi Jebali as prime minister. Police forces, the
judiciary, the army, the administration, the trade unions — almost every vital
political and trade body — were swiftly and systematically infiltrated under
the Islamist principle of “Tamkine” — first control and then impose.
Thousands
of Islamists have been appointed to state-run institutions, testifying to
Ennahda’s interpretation of the “rule of law” to mean “rule of the party.” The
Islamist alignment on universal values was all on the surface, and less the
result of any commitment to said values than a strategy based on the principle
“accept today what you can undo tomorrow.”
The
preamble to the constitution states that Islam is the official religion of
Tunisia. It enshrines the bond between the state and religious institutions,
and opens the door for a possible reinterpretation of the constitution sooner
or later. Ennahda’s leader, Rached Ghannouchi, believed that a strategy of
infiltration, combined with “clientelism” on one hand and the weakness of the
major secular parties on the other, would secure the party an enduring tight
grip on the state and permanent domination of the political arena.
Corruption,
incompetence, and regional and international geopolitical changes undermined
this strategy. Signs of internal feuds began to show, fueled by the hegemonic
stance of Ghannouchi and his inner circle, which was built around his family
and a few other Islamist leaders whose reputations had been tarnished by
allegations of suspicious financial dealings and political corruption.
Links with
terrorist groups in the Middle East are continually alluded to but are not yet
proven. These allegations have been made by journalists and lawyers
investigating political assassinations and the financing and exporting of
extremists to Syria and Libya.
On the
social and moral levels, the Islamist movement has managed to hinder the
further development of modernist Bourguibism (named after Habib Bourguiba,
Tunisia’s hero of independence and the country’s first president).
On top of
that, it has spread its supporters and extremists through numerous Islamist
organizations, most of which benefit from subsidies the origins of which are a
matter of deep concern. These organizations have created “proselyte tents” to
recruit young people and advocate for the implementation of their version of
Islamic values that stand high above the country's constitution.
The party's
main aim is the revival of a deep conservatism that was buried under decades of
the forced modernist layers of Bourguibist policies. In addition, the party
aims to clear the way for the establishment of a Islamist society despite the
secular universal values enshrined in Tunisia's constitution. Islamists argue
that the constitution was written by elected parliamentarians and so could be
rewritten.
On a moral
level, the popularity of the Islamist movement was built on the fact that it
was persecuted during the regimes of both Bourguiba and Zine El-Abidine Ben
Ali. Therefore its followers believe they deserve payback; some kind of moral
reparation for the mistreatment of their supporters and their families. This
was at first political in nature, as Ennahda was lifted to power and granted
the opportunity to have the honor of its members restored as part of a moral
reparation.
Nine years
later, however, Ennahda is losing its popularity and its moral high ground. The
election numbers testify to the erosion of their political power. That the
party managed to maintain its position as the leading political party in last
year’s election is more the result of the other parties’ weaknesses than its
own popularity or performance.
As a
consequence of the political and moral decay, Ennahda is experiencing a major
crisis. Its secretary-general, Zied Ladhari, a young, promising, savvy
politician, resigned and voiced open disagreement with — even hostility to —
Ghannouchi and his inner circle.
Lotfi
Zitoun, the party’s political adviser and most liberal figure, also resigned
after declaring it to be on the brink of collapse. Other prominent members,
such as Abdellatif Mekki and Mohammed Ben Salem, are no less hostile and have
strongly criticized Ghannouchi in public, calling for his resignation as party
leader. Abdelhamid Jlassi, another leading figure in the party, resigned on
March 5, accusing Ghannouchi and his supporters of plundering Tunisia’s
resources and finances.
A wave of
panic is engulfing the party. Its internal elections, which are due to take
place before the end of the year, represent a litmus test. The party will be
compelled either to implement profound changes that accept the principle of the
rule of law in a secular, democratic country, or face being wiped from the
political arena.
----
Dr. Hedi Ben Abbes is Tunisia's former minister
of state for foreign affairs.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1761846
-----
How Arab Americans View Their Heritage And The
Middle East
By James J. Zogby
November
15, 2020
Any
discussion of Arab Americans must consider, at the outset, both the deep
diversity as well as the shared attitudes and concerns that exist within the
community. As is the case with most ethnic groups, Arab Americans are not a
monolith. They hail from 22 Arabic-speaking countries. They are of different
religious traditions. And while three-quarters are native born (some being
fourth-generation American born), the rest are foreign-born naturalised
citizens. Despite this rich diversity, a recent poll conducted by the Arab
American Institute (AAI) revealed a great number of shared attitudes among
significant numbers of respondents from all demographic subgroups.
While it
has already been reported that the AAI poll found Arab American voters
favouring Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a 59 per cent to 35 per cent, also
explored were how Arab Americans viewed a number of Middle East related issues
and how they evaluated both candidates’ handling of many of these same issues.
Weighed
against a list of 14 major policy concerns, only 5 per cent of Arab Americans
ranked resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a priority issue in
determining their vote for President — the only foreign policy issue included
in the list. Nevertheless, 44 per cent of the respondents indicated that
resolving this conflict was one of the most important foreign policy challenges
facing the US Administration. In fact, this issue was ranked the most important
of the seven Middle East-related concerns covered in the poll. In second place,
at 33 per cent, was “meeting the humanitarian needs in Syria. “Addressing the
political and economic crisis in Lebanon” was third, at 28 per cent. These were
followed by the ending the war in Yemen, improving relations with the Arab
World, countering the threat posed by Iran, and stabilising and rebuilding Iraq
— seen as important by between 16 per cent to 11 per cent of Arab Americans.
A strong
plurality of Arab Americans saw Donald Trump’s handling of each of these
foreign policy challenges as ineffective. And by a margin of 48 per cent to 32
per cent, the community’s voters said they believed that Joe Biden would be
best at improving ties with the Arab World.
When asked
for their attitudes about “several nations across the Middle East who are
playing increasingly important roles,” Arab Americans were most favourably
disposed toward Egypt, with 73 per cent saying they had favourable attitudes
toward that country. Next in line was Turkey, with a 68 per cent favourable
rating, followed by the United Arab Emirates at 66 per cent, Saudi Arabia at 56
per cent and Iran at 47 per cent.
Seventy-eight
per cent of Arab Americans said they viewed the recently signed UAE and Bahrain
agreements with Israel as a positive development, with 63 per cent expressing
the hope that “it may contribute to making the Middle East a more peaceful
region” and 57 per cent hoping that “it might contribute to advancing
Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
The AAI
poll also asked Arab Americans how they are most likely to define themselves,
whether by country of origin, religion, or as Arab American. The preferred
identity was simply “Arab American” (29 per cent), followed by country of
origin (27 per cent), and religion as the preferred self-identity of only 15
per cent. “All three,” Arab American, country of origin, and religion, was the
choice of 17 per cent.
More than
three-quarters of all Arab Americans said they were “very proud” of their
ethnic heritage. It is important to note that they maintain this pride despite
the fact that 61 per cent claim they have “personally experienced
discrimination because of my ethnicity or country of origin.” This fear remains
strong, with 70 per cent of all Arab American respondents saying they are
“concerned about facing future discrimination because of their ethnicity or
country of origin.”
In the end,
what emerges from this survey of Arab Americans is that with all of its
diversity, it is a community proud of its heritage, concerned with
discrimination and sharing many attitudes on a range of issues both foreign and
domestic.
-----
James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab
American Institute
https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/how-arab-americans-view-their-heritage-and-the-middle-east-1.75276006
-----
What Muslim Voters Want From Joe Biden
By Sarah Parvini
November 15
2020
In the
lead-up to the midterm election two years ago, Sara Deen noticed that many
fellow Muslims in her South Bay community weren’t voters. Some didn’t
understand the process. More lacked faith that their voice would matter, or had
trouble navigating a ballot.
She decided
to prepare a voter guide and hand it out to friends and members of her mosque
during Friday prayers. This year, she’s seen an increase in engagement from
Muslim voters — friends and acquaintances alike. They’ve asked for her help
explaining state propositions, pored over her recommendations and debated their
merits over WhatsApp and Zoom.
“I love it,
and it means people are coming into their voice in my community,” said Deen, a
Rancho Palos Verdes resident. “But what’s been disappointing is how often it
feels like other politicians want to co-opt our voice, but are not super
interested in what we have to say.”
In an
election year defined by the coronavirus pandemic, calls for social justice and
economic uncertainty, a record number of Muslims have mailed in their ballots
and headed to the polls, continuing a surge in voter registration and political
engagement seen after President Donald Trump took office in 2016, according to
Emgage, a national get-out-the-vote group that focuses on Muslims. Emgage
Action, an arm of Emgage, endorsed and supported President-elect Joe Biden.
After their
newfound voices resonated loudly in battleground states like Michigan and
Pennsylvania, community members say, Muslim voters want more than just a seat
at the table from Biden and his administration. They, like other minority
communities, want to be part of the decisions that are being made at a national
level, not merely relegated to community town halls with campaign surrogates or
visits from candidates in even-numbered years, when their presence could help
tip close elections.
Muslim
organisers say that voters have often felt ignored by presidential candidates
on both sides of the aisle, with the exception of Senator Bernie Sanders’ two
presidential campaigns. They expect thoughtful engagement on key issues and
inclusion from the next administration, including considering Muslims for
cabinet- and upper-level positions.
Many were
encouraged when Biden, as the Democratic nominee, engaged with voters as part
of Emgage’s “Million Muslim Votes” plan, pledged to end the Trump
administration’s travel ban on several Muslim-majority nations, and promised to
fill the position of Muslim American liaison in the White House Office of
Public Engagement.
“The idea
is that Muslims will be included in a Biden-Harris administration,” Deen, 41,
said. “I am somewhere between cautiously optimistic and doubtful.”
Nationwide,
some 78% of eligible Muslims reported being registered to vote in 2020, up from
60% in 2016, data from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding show.
And there are fewer “Insha’Allah voters” — those who plan to vote in an
upcoming election but haven’t registered — this year, ISPU noted.
Deen would
like to see Muslims in the next administration transcend what she calls “the
first level of inclusion” that involves minorities who won’t “shake the status
quo,” she said. The community organiser hopes that “our voices and our opinions
are given equal weight and equal consideration.”
“Equal
agency in driving policy in this country — that’s what I would like to see,”
she said. “But I don’t know if we are there yet.”
This year,
110 Muslim candidates were on general-election ballots across 24 states and
Washington, DC, according to an analysis from the Muslim organisations Jetpac,
the Council on American-Islamic Relations and MPower Change. All four members
of the “Squad,” the group of progressive female US House members who are
outspoken Trump adversaries, were re-elected. Two — Representatives Rashida
Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — are Muslim.
“Increasing
our political representation is a critical part of defeating the violent rise
of Islamophobia here and around the world because it forces elected officials
and the media to include our perspective in the narrative on healthcare, the
economy, criminal-legal system and every other issue impacting American life,”
said Mohammed Missouri, executive director of Jetpac.
For years,
Muslim voters have watched as President Donald Trump campaigned across the
country, declaring that “Islam hates us” and calling for a “total and complete
shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” His administration passed a
travel ban on Muslim-majority nations in 2017 and has repeatedly cut the cap
for refugee admissions at a time when many Middle Eastern refugees are seeking
US asylum.
That —
paired with Muslim American organisations’ outreach and educational work — led
to historic turnout this week, said, Youssef Chouhoud, an assistant professor
of political science at Christopher Newport University.
“Now, they
expect some sort of a voice, some sort of representation, when it comes to not
just decisions with regards to where Muslims (live) but in terms of broader
national policy as well,” he said.
During the
2018 midterm elections, about 76% of Muslims who cast ballots voted for a
Democrat, while only 13% voted for a Republican, according to a 2019 study by
ISPU. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that all Muslim voters
automatically lean to the left, Chouhoud said.
The
53-year-old software engineer, who lives in Sierra Madre, first began working
for get-out-the-vote campaigns when she supported Barack Obama’s re-election.
This year, she organised for both Emgage and other civic engagement campaigns,
calling potential voters in Nevada and Arizona and helping them register to
vote.
“All I want
is respect for me and my family,” Manaa said. “My daughter is in college. I
want people to respect her. I don’t want people to attack her because she is
Muslim or her mom wears a headscarf.”
The Muslim
community also would like to see the Biden administration change refugee limits
to allow more people into the country after the US reached a historic low under
Trump, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Greater Los Angeles
office — something that he hopes Muslim Americans themselves will be involved
with as part of Biden’s team.
Under
Trump, 85% of the “countering violent extremism” grants awarded by the
Department of Homeland Security explicitly targeted Muslims and other minority
groups, including immigrants and refugees, more than under the Obama
administration, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, a
nonpartisan policy institute at the New York University School of Law.
“We are
hopeful that this injustice will be over,” Ayloush said. “It should never be
linked to any one specific community.” — Tribune News Service
https://www.gulf-times.com/story/678026/What-Muslim-voters-want-from-Joe-Biden
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