MPAC: Who Will Be "Appointed" to Represent Us?

Today, while my mouth was dry and my stomach rumbling, I opened an email from MPAC (it does not seem to be up on thier site, yet). It was an editorial from one of the few national Muslim organizations that I trust, so I read it from start to finish. Salam al-Marayati wrote about the need of American Muslims to pressure the US Government to benefit more from American Muslim inputs when making policy. As I was reading, I thought that this was actually a good idea. It would finally put American Muslims in publicly prominent positions that help America. This would be a stunning public refutal of Islamophobic charges that Muslims are just freeloaders and freeriders in America. I have no doubt that Mr al-Marayati does not intend to achieve the typical Islamist goal of penetrating our government to assist fellow Islamists overseas like some immigrant Muslim organizations wistfully desire. Instead, I think he genuinely desires this as a public relations coup, one that our community badly needs.

However, once we agree that American Muslims should be a source of advice for US policy, we need to address the mechanics of how this proposal would actually work. Al-Marayati calls on people who may accept the Presidents Iftar invitation to do more than just eat and hobnob. Here is where we are going to get into the contentious details! Al-Marayati seems to be looking for someone who does not "lack the understanding and religious knowledge needed in connecting with Muslim masses abroad." This is sensible, but automatically limits his ideal candidate to the religious elite. If not, how can we guarantee that his ideal candidate would would have a sufficient level of religious knowledge to connect with other Muslims? Is this what we have been reduced to: people who can only be engaged on a religious level? Although it makes sense to suggest a person who adequately understands Muslim sensibilities, we've totally forgotten one thing: Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia and everwhere in between do not share monolithic "Muslim sensibilities". This brings me to first question: are we asking for representation based on an as yet undefined religious Muslim identity? And who will judge the ideal candidate's religious suitability?

My ideal candidate is someone who has the communicative and salesmanship skills to advise our government as well as represent the American people abroad to fellow Muslims. Such a person would actually be a team of citizens who have mastered not only Arabic culture and language (the Arab Middle East isn't the only place that matters to Muslim, you know), but also the Persian language and Irania-Afghan cultures, Turkic language and cultures, South Asian languages and cultures, African Muslim languages and cultures and Malayo-Indonesian language and cultures. Thus it should be someone who is a bridge between all of the above. Now, one might think that the supra-label of "Muslim" would cover all those bases and be the common denominator. But, how far would a generically Muslim person be able to advise the US Government on how to deal with the Achenese independence movement if he (she??) does not know the language or the local dynamics? Such a person would be of no better use than a white, black, latino or asian-american thrust into the same position.

But, does it matter what I think? Al-Marayati doesn't seem to think so since he wants "the President or any Cabinet official assign a Muslim American who is representative of the mainstream community, as an advisor on policy issues." Assign! Mainstream community! Am I mainstream or just certain people with certain credentials, be they activist or clerical? This is my second question about this: how will we choose such a person?

Now, I am feeling much less comfortable with this proposal, because it becomes quite essentialist, meaning that only Muslims can solve America's problems with Muslims, "It is Muslims themselves who are the only one's capable of defeating the ideology of al-Qaeda, not the U.S. government." But, which Muslims: Progressives, Salafis, Sufis, Hijab or non-hijab wearing Muslims, who? How will we do this where others have failed; just because of what or who we are? Can we not elect such a representative at least informally? What's wrong with the current system of lobbyists and political action groups? Are we really that special that we need to have representatives over and outside the congressional representation system just because some people hold thier so-called Islamic identity above everything else? If so, the government must create positions for 'Jewish advisor to the Secretary of State' not to mention 'Black Advisor to the President'. The American way will die and we will become nothing more than just another ethnic spoils system.

Now, if this policy advisement position is to advise on domestic matters, the ideal candidate must have been born here in the US. It simply will not do for someone who grew up in a foriegn land to  represent all Muslims in America, especially the half that was born here of any origins; it simply will not suffice. For foreign policy positions, perhaps the best candidates would be naturalized immigrants who hail from those places. But, tell me truly: will we see Americans of Indonesian origin representing the US to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei? Will we see a Swahili-speaking American advising the US on how to aid Zanzibar or Kenya? I think not! We will see, however, the same immigrant activists representing Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and pan-Islamist interests to our government, however sincere al-Marayati's proposal is; its simply naive to think that such representatives would not be captured by Islamist money or even that such a person would be inserted into such a position.

Al-Marayati is, after all this, still correct in at least proposing this. But, he needs to flesh this out quite a bit more and with more input from all sides of the community to make it work and be truly representative. I'll be waiting.