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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Arab Muslim Mayor: Serving America or Allah? |
| 2007-01-02 |
| Khairullah, 31, set a precedent in November by becoming the state's first elected Arab-American Muslim mayor. Now he's all about proving that, like any good politician, a Muslim can serve the public without mixing religion into it. Separate Islam from politics. Doubt that. You'll find the Quran in his office. But it's wedged between essential reading for this job: a municipal manual and a flood insurance study. Deliver the goods to everyone, and then you can exert personal perspective. It's a strategy he imparts to other Muslims and Arabs. "You need to be sitting at the table with the decision makers; that's how you get involved," he tells them. "But we should never forget that we are Americans before anything. We work through the larger community first." Leaders say that more Arab-Americans are starting to get involved in politics, but the large percentage are non-Muslim. In this year's elections, 54 Arab-Americans ran nationwide, 40 won primaries and 24 won general elections. Two candidates with Arab heritage ran in New Jersey, Mayor Randy George of North Haledon, who is Christian, and Mohamed Khairullah of Prospect Park, who is Muslim. Both won. But to get to where he is, Khairullah weathered trouble specific to being an Arab Muslim politician after 9/11. He has been called a "betrayer" and had his remarks on the Palestinian situation come back to bite him. Of late, he says, he's learned to temper public stands on hot topics, especially after seeing Sami Merhi of Clifton, a Lebanese American, dumped by Democrats as a 2006 freeholder candidate. Merhi had reportedly said at a function that he couldn't see the similarity between Palestinian suicide bombers and the 9/11 hijackers. And I can't see the difference. "For me and for anyone else of Middle Eastern descent who wants to get into politics, it comes as a learning experience," Khairullah said. "Politicians need to watch what they say -- it's plain and simple." As mayor, though, Khairullah can't help but operate beyond faith. Besides the residents' pleas this particular day, there are checks to sign for a seniors' luncheon, and a streetscape project in danger of going over budget. Khairullah's family came to town after living in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Queens. He was 16, and he worked hard at assimilating, always carrying an English phrasebook. After his father, a body shop owner, died of a heart attack, the family struggled. But, borrowing money from an uncle, Khairullah managed to go to William Paterson University. By then, he already knew he was destined for politics. His epiphany had come as a highschooler when he saw a council campaign sign for Khalil Kasht. Khairullah recognized the name as Muslim and thought, "If he could do it, maybe I could." |
| Posted by:Sneaze Shaiting3550 |
| #9 I hope the trailing daughters are good shots, also. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-02 23:28 |
| #8 There's no correct or incorrect spelling of taqiyyah, JustAboutEnough, because it's transliterated from a non-Latin alphabet. ;-) It may well be that Muslims cannot live even here peacefully, which is about as ideal a society in terms of multiplicity of beliefs -- but all personal and private rather than the one State religion plus others more or less tolerated, the situation Muhammed set up up his followers to exploit. Separate but equal was an unthinkable concept back in those days. Muhammed's techniques were aimed at the reasonable autocrat, which just isn't the case here -- CAIR, et al don't have to pursuade just the ruling class to grant them priviledges, but also all us peepul to not only go along, but close our eyes to their be-hijabed wimminfolk shouldering my darling mother-in-law off the sidewalk in Lackawanna, about which she is not at all happy. Bottom line, if they can't live peaceably as citizens in the US, without the excuse that the majority society discriminated -- as they do so blatantly in Europe -- they can't anywhere. Similarly, if they can't pull themselves together in Iraq to take advantage of the world's intervention to make of themselves a peaceful society living at peace with its neighbors, then it seems likely we are going to have to work on eradicating Islam altogether. Which I've no doubt has already been gamed wherever the Pentagon cogniscenti do such things, and filed alongside plans for the invasion of Canada and New Zealand. Or so it seems to me from the wilds of the Midwestern suburbs, while the trailing daughters recover from the fatigues of homework by practicing TaeKwanDo with their father. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-02 19:51 |
| #7 Yes, but history has shown that you can't "ban" a cult or religion any more than you can ban thought. Thanks Geek but I have to beg to differ. Haven't seen to many Aztecs around lately. William Sleeman let loose on the Thuggees, they're history. I know that's just two examples but yes you can ban a cult. But back to Khairullah. Why is anyone thinking we have to wait to see if he "plays good"? Ah, some Muslims good but Islam is bad so why the fuk bother even trying to deal with this death cult? It's going to take a nuke here isn't it... |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-01-02 19:40 |
| #6 Steganography is the business of hiding things in plain sight. Through taqiyya (sp?) and kitman, islam does precisely that, and noting could be more confirming of this than these statements from the elected muslims. Were this nation and our fellow citizens less ignorant and slothful, this dangerous political movement invading the last bastion of the West would be either expelled or monitored aggressively. I think that reasoning is behind the emerging movements like 910 and CAN, and we shall see if their overt monitoring pinches....CAIR will squeal if it's working, and if it does, more of us need to put a shoulder to the wheel. If the government can't or won't monitor radical mosques and clandestine madrassahs here (Jamaat al Fuqra for example) then private citizens need to, using the legal means at their disposal. |
| Posted by: JustAboutEnough 2007-01-02 18:21 |
| #5 Why should we give them a chance instead of banning this cult altogether? Yes, but history has shown that you can't "ban" a cult or religion any more than you can ban thought. What you can do is make practicing it so intolerable that, to paraphrase Sherman, "generations will pass before they once again resort to it". It's not a "ban", but it'll do in a pinch. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2007-01-02 14:39 |
| #4 It's time we viewed Islam as being as much of a political movement as a religion, and revise the religious legal protections granted it by encompassing it's political operations. |
| Posted by: USMC6743 2007-01-02 14:17 |
| #3 Right, so on public he is all American, eats hot dogs and keeps a quran. Basically Keith Ellison lite in drag. In private he follows the teachings of a desert cult started by an Arab terrorist who promoted political assassination, theft, mass slaughter not to mention rape and pedophilia. The only time Muhammad had his Mooselimbs "play nice" was when they were in the minority and would have gotten their asses kicked had they tried to instill some kind of Sharia on the local humans. Explain to me again why we should give a shit about so called moderate followers of Muhammad with his teachings of dominating every nation with Islamic law? Why should we give them a chance instead of banning this cult altogether? The better question if why do we keep having these kind of conversations. I know the answer, it is going to take a Muslim nuke going off in this country (and it's going to happen) before the "moderate Muslim" tolerating Americans wake the hell up. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-01-02 14:14 |
| #2 If he has indeed learnt to separate his personal faith from his job as a professional politician, then good for him. There are two experiments currently on-going to test whether Islam can play nice with the outside world, and Mayor Khairullah is part of the second one. It is here in the US that the ideal conditions exist in which to see whether Muslims in the minority will accept moving their religion from the public to the private sphere, thus changing the Muslims from ruling Master Race to participants as equals, winning or losing as individuals rather than front men for religion, tribe, clan and family. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-02 13:07 |
| #1 So he's saying you have to be very carefull what you say in public so that we don't learn his real opinions. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-01-02 12:26 |