Muslims Get Out The Vote

The Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation said Monday it is launching a national drive to register Muslims, give them a crash course on American civics and mobilize them for the 2004 election cycle.

"Campaign V.I.P: Voting is Power" is aimed at registering some 2.5 million Muslim-Americans, said Mahdi Bray, the group's executive director. Mosque surveys estimate 750,000 Muslim-Americans are currently registered, he said on the eve of the campaign's start.

"Many, when they come to this country, tend to become insular," Bray said. "We're trying to get people out in the communities and active in the civic process. We want them in parent-teacher associations, rotary clubs, public service organizations."

He said there are 7 million Muslim-Americans.

Bray said the timing of the campaign has a lot to do with a backlash that many Muslim-Americans have experienced since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"There are those who want to portray the Muslim community as not part and parcel of society, incompatible with American life, or suspicious," Bray said. "The only way to combat this situation, or civil liberties erosion of Muslims, is to get Muslims engaged and active."

The program includes online voter registration through the group's Web site, canvassing at grocery stores, malls and mosques around the country and offering seminars on American government, civics and coalition-building, Bray said.

Other groups have announced similar campaigns in the past, including one in February 2002 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations which sought to register more than 100,000 Muslim voters before the November 2002 elections.

Legal secretary Aishah Schwartz, 42, a Muslim-American born and reared in America, has not registered to vote in Washington since she moved to the capital three years ago from Virginia. She planned to do so during the launch of the voter registration campaign.

"The more visible we are, the more we'll get those people out there, who are just sitting at home, the way I was - active," Schwartz said.

"It's important for people to see us. It's important to vote, stand up and speak," she said. "It'll help relieve some of the misperceptions the general public has of us."

By Siobhan McDonough