It’s a damn shame

The 1980s were a difficult time for Arab Americans. Politicians returned our contributions, rejected our endorsements, and many effectively hung “No Arab Americans allowed” signs on their campaign doors. Back then, we wrote about this situation, calling it “the politics of exclusion.”
We fought back. We organised, worked hard, and we emerged victorious • or, should I say, somewhat victorious? I now feel a bit tentative about our progress because what happened to Mazen Asbahi has set off alarm bells, causing me to wonder whether or not “the politics of exclusion” might not once again be rearing its ugly head.
For those who don’t know, here’s what happened:
On July 25 the Barack Obama campaign announced the appointment of Mazen Asbahi to further their outreach efforts to Arab Americans and American Muslims. As a young and accomplished corporate attorney, Mazen was largely unknown to many in both communities. He quickly acclimated himself to his post, contacting leaders and activists nationwide both to introduce himself and to develop ways to include them in the Obama campaign.
I was delighted to meet him. He is the father of three, and I found him to be passionate about both his family and his new assignment. He had been successful in his short career as an attorney, but he told me that he felt that this new position provided him with an important opportunity to give something back to his country and his community. In the brief time he held his position, we spoke almost daily. He learned so much and did so much to make Arab Americans and American Muslims feel included in the campaign.
Then it happened.
A shady website Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report that monitors Muslim activism and organisations revealed that 8 years ago Mazen had been on the board of the Allied Assets Advisors Fund. Also on the board was Jamal Said, described as “a controversial imam in a fundamentalist Illinois mosque.” In fact, Mazen was on this board for only two weeks before his discomfort with some of the things being said about the group led him to resign.
This brief association appears to be the main “allegation” against Mazen. The other charge is that he, like thousands of other Muslim American students, was a student body leader of the Muslim Students Association • an established and respected religious/social group found on most US campuses. But because an anti-Muslim blogger with a marked penchant for exaggeration and error has called the Muslim Students Association a “wahhabist front” • this charge against Mazen was thrown into the mix.
In the days that followed, the charges became fodder extremist right wing bloggers, who began to write about Mazen, describing him as a person that neither he nor those of us who had come to know him could recognise.
As has become standard practice these days, the major media (in this case, the Wall Street Journal) picked up the non-story and began to prepare an “expose.” Concerned that this would escalate Mazen and the campaign agreed to terminate his position. Mazen issued a statement, saying “I am stepping down from the volunteer role I recently agreed to take on with the Obama campaign as Arab-American and Muslim American coordinator in order to avoid distracting from Barack Obama’s message of change.”

Courtesy: Washington Watch: By Dr James Zogby