In Tennessee, A Rising Star Targeted By Anti-Muslim Smears
Eric Lach July 19, 2012, 11:31 AM 11289
On September 13, 2001, Vanderbilt University held a “Come Together” ceremony on campus, as the community was just starting to process the horror of the 9/11 attacks. At the ceremony, a junior political science major stood up in front of thousands of her fellow students to deliver a speech.
“When I saw my country’s buildings come tumbling down with thousands of my fellow citizens on Tuesday, I felt angry as an American at whoever did this,” Samar Ali said. .. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/arts-and-science/archives/ASwinter02.pdf .. She continued: “The other part of me felt upset as a Muslim… I want everyone to know that Arabs and Muslims around the world condemn this act… We cannot let these terrorists succeed and ?ll our hearts with hatred. We cannot allow them to split us apart as Americans.”
A few months later, Ali was elected president of Vanderbilt University’s Student Government Association, making her the school’s first Arab-Muslim student body president.
Fast forward a decade. Ali has graduated from Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt Law School. She has been an associate with the law firm Hogan Lovells, where she helped set up the firm’s Abu Dhabi office. In 2010, she was named a White House Fellow. (Somewhere along the way she also found time to be a three-time Southeastern Tae Kwon Do Black Belt Champion.) In May 2012, Ali, now 30, was appointed international director of Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD).
A small but vocal number of conservatives and Tea Party activists in Tennessee and elsewhere have strongly opposed Ali’s appointment. Resolutions recently passed by several county Republican organizations have criticized Republican Gov. Bill Haslam for the appointment, and have ridiculously painted Ali as some kind of sleeper agent.
“One of the latest Executive Service Employees has included Samar Ali, an expert in Shariah Compliant Finance which is one of the many ways Islamic terrorism is funded,” a resolution passed by the Stewart County Republican Party reads in part, according to a copy obtained by The Tennessean. .. http://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/2012/county-gop-chapters-circulate-resolution-condemning-haslam/#more-17554 .. Ali’s attackers have focused on a line in her bio that describes how she counseled Hogan Lovells clients in Shariah compliant transactions — a common practice in business dealings in the Middle East. A June blog post .. http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2012/06/07/tennessees-republican-leadership-appoints-shariah-finance-specialist-to-key-economic-post/ .. at the Frank Gaffney-led Center for Security Policy — a hub of Islamophobia —said that, after Ali’s appointment, “it is reasonable to expect that the financial jihadists will soon be targeting the Volunteer state for infiltration and influence operations.”
State officials, including Haslam, have stood by Ali. Clint Brewer, assistant commissioner for communications for ECD, told TPM earlier this week that Ali is “one of the brightest leaders of her generation from this state.” And some of the people who know Ali best told TPM they are shocked by the smears.
“I think she’s one of the real stars who has graduated from Vanderbilt during the now 21 years I’ve been here,” David Weintraub, an associate professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt who served on a university committee with Ali, told TPM. “She’s a real mover and shaker. Doing all the things all of us would love young people in the country now to be doing. Positive things for our communities. Working with people. Bringing them together.”
According to Liz Katkin, a former partner at Hogan Lovells who was Ali’s boss in Abu Dhabi, Ali spoke often about her desire to go back to Tennessee. Ali grew up in the small town of Waverly, population .. http://www.waverlytn.org/community_data/index.htm .. 4,028, about an hour and a half drive west of Nashville. Her mother immigrated to the United States from Syria when she was 26. Her father left the West Bank when he was 17. Both are doctors.
“Samar is one of the most energetic, enthusiastic, hard-working people I have ever met, and she is a natural born leader,” Katkin said in an email. “[She] has a genuine love of helping people, and building bridges between different cultures.”
According to Marissa Shrum, who attended Vanderbilt with Ali and has kept in touch since graduation, Ali has a passion for connecting with people across boundaries, “no matter who they are or where they come from.”
Greg Smith, a Nashville lawyer who employed Ali while she was in law school, said the recent attacks make no sense to him.
“People who oppose Samar’s involvement with our state government have to be people who don’t know her,” Smith told TPM. “Because if you know her, you’re going to appreciate the talents that she can bring to us.”
Rep. Keith Ellison, one of two Muslims in Congress
by Garibaldi
Muslims make up 1 to 2% of the population in the United States, a number which is reflected in their limited political clout. This fact however does not hinder the Islamophobia Movement’s growing fear and anxiety about Muslim advancement in the political realm. LoonPolitics, as has been clearly demonstrated over the years, is a central feature of the surreal world of anti-Muslim bigotry.
One could be forgiven if while reading Islamophobic blog headlines one actually thought he or she was reading a chapter heading of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, or Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, or maybe even the Arabian Nights. President Barack Obama is still supposedly our first “Mooslim-in-Chief” according to AtlasShrugs’ Pamela Geller, JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer and a “healthy chunk” of Americans. Even after several House hearings on the subject, conspiracy theories about the insidious world-wide octopus known as the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating all branches of the government are regular political parlay with prominent politicians such as Michele Bachmann. Former terrorism supporter and current Chair of the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Rep. Peter King is due to hold his millionth hearing on the supposed “pressing” issue of the radicalization of American Muslims. I can go on and on but you get the picture.
So why are Islamophobes so anxious? Why do they feel the need to pre-empt Muslim political advancement in the United States–at any and all cost? Is it a fear of phantom Sharia’ Law replacing the US Constitution? Is it a fear of the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation of the Holy Quran replacing the King James Holy Bible as part of the canon of English literature? No, these are not the true reasons for their fear. As one of the godfathers of Islamophobia, Daniel Pipes put it at an American Jewish Congress convention, “the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims” is “dangerous.”
Pipes was speaking in the context of how such a scenario would “affect American Jews,” but his statement holds true with nearly all Islamophobes; they believe Muslim advancement in American life will challenge their agendas.
Almost anytime a Muslim is elected to congress, appointed as a judge, a city councillor and/or an advisor expect immediate Islamophobic backlash. Reverberating across the looniverse will be hundreds, if not thousands of blogposts and opinion articles, each one mirroring one another’s talking points.
Remember Rep. Keith Ellison and the manufactured “Koran swearing-in controversy?” Islamophobes were in a twist over Ellison putting his hand on the very same Quran Thomas Jefferson owned; un-American they claimed! Rep. Andre Carson recently faced a barrage of accusations about “stealth jihad” and slanders that he wanted public schools to teach the Quran–all because of a misunderstood and decontextualized four sentence quote ripped from a 15 minute speech. Who can forget when Judge Sohail Mohammed was appointed to a state bench and the immediate hysterics from Geller and company claiming Sharia’ Law had penetrated New Jersey–Gov. Chris Christie responded in bewilderment, “Sharia Law has nothing to do with this at all, it’s crazy!” There was also the ACT! for America campaign that targeted a Muslim Fulbright Scholar and Business professor, Parvez Ahmed appointed by Jacksonville’s mayor to a Human Right’s Commission–according to many the anti-Muslim bigotry was an embarrassing episode for the City of Jacksonville.
So it is not surprising that Islamophobes once again got bent out of shape when anti-Loon Ahmed Rehab was recently announced by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as part of an advisory committee on immigration issues (h/t: FernandoA).
The anti-Muslim Islamophobic websites would have us believe that Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former civilian volunteer with the IDF, appointed a “Hamas-linked” operative as an advisor! Most of the recycled headlines in the looniverse read, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Appoints Hamas-Linked CAIR’s Ahmed Rehab to Advisory Committee. Yes, you read that right, a former volunteer with IDF, now the mayor of one of the largest US cities supposedly appointed a Hamas-linked individual to his advisory committee. That’s as surreal as Islamophobic stupidity gets. I mean I know they pack a lot into those deep dish pizza’s in Chicago, but there ain’t nothin’ in those pizzas that would make Emanuel, ever, appoint a “Hamas linked advisor!”
The well worn anti-Muslim smear and slander campaign (they never provide real evidence of Hamas links) against Rehab seems to have fallen on deaf, or at least unsympathetic ears, as good judgement generally sees clear through Islamophobic BS.
The most ironic and surreal part of all this is the true missed terrorist link: Mayor Emanuel’s own father, Benjamin Emanuel was really a member of a terrorist organization, the Irgun, but for Islamophobes such a link would never be an issue.
Updated Edit 7/18/12: As commenters pointed out Mayor Emanuel was not a member of the IDF, but a civilian volunteer. His father’s name is not Ari (Emanuel’s brother) but Benjamin Emanuel, who was a member of the Irgun.
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