Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Pages 23-25

Personality

Dr. Agha Saeed: Dynamic Leader of Expanding American Muslim Alliance

By Richard H. Curtiss

Dr. Agha Saeed, founder and secretary general of the rapidly expanding American Muslim Alliance, has only one major regret from his first 49 years of life. He believes that America's six to eight million Muslims came tantalizingly close to emerging onto the U.S. political scene as a major voting bloc at the national level in the 1996 election, but lost the chance because of their own lack of preparation. He's determined not to let another such opportunity slip away.

Nearing Consensus

That year Dr. Saeed and other leaders of five national Islamic organizations negotiated as a group with both the Clinton and Dole campaign staffs, and came very close to a consensus on which candidate to support nationally. Had they reached agreement, imams (prayer leaders) in 1,000 mosques across the United States would have informed congregants of their consensus recommendation on the final two Fridays before the general election. The results could have changed the electoral vote in key states, including California, where the election was going to be close and where huge communities of registered Muslim voters could have swung that state's electoral vote either way.

At almost the last moment, however, the Washington, DC-based American Muslim Council (AMC) pulled out of the coalition, the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) wavered, and leaders of the remaining groups lost their nerve, worrying that their members might not understand that the goal was to demonstrate the community's ability to vote as a bloc, not to pick a winner.

The result was that the AMC and MPAC endorsed Bill Clinton, the New York-based National Council on Islamic Affairs endorsed Bob Dole, and the Northern California-based AMA, and Washington, DC-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) took no position. So there was no consensus to announce in the mosques, no bloc vote, and no history was made in that two-year election cycle.

It was an opportunity on the national level that may not come again soon. The next national election may not be close enough for the Muslim vote to make a difference, or the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates may be indistinguishable in terms of Islamic values. But the next time an opportunity does arise, Dr. Agha Saeed is determined that U.S. Muslims will be prepared to seize it.

Pointing to senatorial elections in North Dakota and New Jersey where Islamic bloc votes made the winning difference in 1996, he is convinced that Muslims can make a significant impact at congressional, state and local levels across the nation in 1998. All this he sees as preparation for accomplishing two goals in the year 2000.

The first goal is to help to support 2,000 Muslim candididates for elective office at all levels from city council and county boards of supervisors to Senate and House races in that year. The second goal is to be prepared as a community to cast a bloc vote in all 50 states if a clear difference in moral terms appears between the presidential candidates of the two major parties.

In the three years since the founding of the American Muslim Alliance, Dr. Saeed believes that as adherents of America's fastest-growing religion, the vast majority of American Muslims, whether of immigrant or indigenous stock, have demonstrated that they are ready for effective political action. Therefore nothing upsets this dignified, articulate and normally unflappable university professor more than fellow Muslims who insist that America's largest non-Christian community is not sufficiently prepared, or that it should limit its political efforts to purely local elections.

An author and political philosopher as well as a Muslim political activist, Pakistan-born, California-based Agha Saeed is impatient with those who, in his words, "can always find an excuse for inaction." He believes in political activism whenever the need and wherever the opportunity arises. And he is certain that the way for Muslims to make their growing presence felt in the United States is to start forming pragmatic, election-year coalitions according to local needs and circumstances with diverse groups ranging from the Christian Coalition to African Americans to get Muslim or like-minded candidates elected. "If we are to be effective in 1998," he exhorts local chapters of his American Muslim Alliance, "we have to start as early as possible in 1997."

A Galvanizing Message

That Muslims all over the United States are galvanized by his message is attested by the record. Founded in October 1994, the American Muslim Alliance had 40 chartered local chapters by the end of its second year, and 63 in July 1997 as it approached its third anniversary. Another 12 chapters were in the process of formation to bring the national total to 75 by Dec. 31, 1997.

No chapter receives a charter until it has at least 30 paid-up members. A chapter loses its charter whenever annual paid membership slips below that level. Chapters usually evolve from state organizational councils, and when a regional chapter grows big enough, it divides according to the place of residence of its members. The ultimate goal is a chapter in each of the 435 congressional districts in the U.S.—not an impossible dream given the wide geographic distribution of America's ethnically diverse Islamic population.

The hard work that goes not only into forming a chapter, but in keeping it active can best be ascertained by following Dr. Saeed's travel schedule, as did this writer during the month of July 1997. On three July weekends Dr. Saeed, who is a full-time professor at California State University at Hayward, visited Chicago, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Miami to address and recruit members at public meetings of approximately 100 people each. In all four cities enough former members renewed and new members signed up to ensure the opening of chapters by the end of the year.

Born Dec. 24, 1948 in Quetta, Pakistan, Agha Saeed's entire life seemed pointed toward his present catalytic role in making Islam a force to be reckoned with in the political life of the world's only remaining superpower. He says, with a mixture of pride and affection, that his father, a Pakistan customs officer who later went into private business, was a "political genius."

Among the many times that history proved his father right was when he began warning his countrymen in what was then West Pakistan that if they did not treat their compatriots in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, more equitably, the nation would split in half. Ten years after the elder Saeed's first warnings, exactly that happened. Agha Saeed's father actually went to jail for his public criticism of the autocratic ways of West Pakistan officials, whom he blamed for the split, and also for his opposition to West Pakistan's pursuit of the bloody civil war that followed, instead of letting the Bengali Muslims form the government at the national level after they had won a national election.

"I'm proud of my father for many things," Dr. Saeed says emotionally. "But I'm most proud of him for willingly going to jail for his beliefs." Agha Saeed earned a B.A. in political science and literature at Punjab University in Lahore and was working on an M.A. at the prestigious Quaid-e Azam University in Islamabad when he was notified of his acceptance in 1974 at Iowa State University. There he studied philosophy and subsequently transferred to Arizona State University, where he continued his philosophy studies but also took an M.A. in business administration before returning to Pakistan.

There he worked for 10 years for major companies including American President Lines and Health Trading Corporation. During this period he continued a writing avocation that had begun when he wrote a large number of published short stories in Urdu, reflecting the dreams and problems of young people like himself, with one foot in their traditional Asian culture and another in the Western-influenced modern world.

In 1971 he had met a Pakistani lawyer, C.R. Aslam, who greatly influenced his thinking. This was reflected in a shift in his writing from fiction to political analysis. He also became increasingly active in supporting the democratic movement in Pakistan, playing a role in seeking to influence Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (father of Benazir Bhutto) to respect the rule of law rather than follow autocratic and undemocratic procedures.

In 1984 Agha Saeed returned to the United States, where he took a second M.A. in rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley.

He then divided his time between Berkeley and Harvard University's Department of Government, serving as an instructor in political science and philosophy while working on a Ph.D. issued jointly by the two prestigious U.S. universities.

"For a system to be created, the whole community has to be involved."

While he was in the United States, Gen. Zia Ul Haq was in power in Pakistan, eventually executing the senior Bhutto on charges of ordering the murder of a political opponent. Pakistanis in the U.S. and Canada formed a major pro-democracy opposition group, the Pakistani Democratic Alliance, of which Agha Saeed was co-coordinator.

This involved him in two years of "high-intensity effort in support of democracy in Pakistan," he recalls. It also inspired him to write two articles which attracted wide attention among South Asian Muslims: "The Last Dream in Exile" and "A Debate Inside the Isolation Camp." Both dealt sensitively with issues of immigration, exile, and living in two worlds.

During this time he accepted his present position at California State University at Hayward, in the San Francisco Bay area, where he has remained. During this period he also married his wife, Amina, a Muslim from New Delhi whose distinguished father Agha Saeed describes as "a polyglot" speaker of nine languages.

It was the birth in California of their daughter, Miriam, in 1988, Agha Saeed says, that finally forced him to decide, despite his intense involvement in Pakistani exile circles, that he was in the United States to stay. Even before that, however, he had his first hands-on involvement in U.S. politics in 1984, working in the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. Dr. Saeed's U.S. political activism in turn led to an invitation from the Palestine National Council to visit occupied Palestine.

"The oppression I saw there traumatized me," he says. "It seemed to me to be far worse than anything my forbears had experienced in the subcontinent. That's where the idea of the American Muslim Alliance came from.

"I became convinced we needed a system of our own to fight a system of apartheid. But first of all we had to understand the American political system.

"I also became aware that there was no internal cohesion or clarity within the American Muslim community. For a system to be created, the whole community has to be involved. There must be fundamental thinking by the community about its own mission and its own vision."

Dr. Saeed's first effort to form an AMA chapter took place in Boston. There he was granted an opportunity to make a statement in a local mosque during Friday prayers. "I was given only five minutes but afterward three people came up to talk with me," he recalls. "I was invited to people's houses, and then to other mosques."

The organization that resulted was called the American Muslim Political Alliance of Massachusetts. Later, as additional chapters were formed in other states, the names were simplified and standardized. In 1996 the AMA Boston Chapter, which now has some 70 members, hosted the AMA's first national convention on the second annivesary of its founding.

Dr. Saeed recalls with a smile the very early beginning of another AMA chapter in New Jersey. He arrived there with introductions to two prominent Muslim residents, only to find that both were out of the state. Alone in a motel room, he began calling people with Muslim names in the local telephone directory. Today the resulting AMA chapter is extremely active. It attracted some 1,000 guests to an Eid al Fitr dinner this year which was addressed by Republican New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who acknowledged the importance of the Muslims in her state. (There are 400,000 Muslims in the tri-state Connecticut-New York-New Jersey area.) That importance was first demonstrated in the 1996 election, when Democrat Robert Torricelli acknowledged he owed his election to the Senate to the Muslim bloc vote, which resulted from a consensus among local leaders which then was announced in New Jersey mosques.

Agha Saeed says that creation of a successful local chapter generally starts with an appeal for assistance to one or two prominent local Muslims who invite friends and associates to initial exploratory meetings. Usually the pioneers are too busy to give the time required over any protracted period, but other leaders emerge who are willing to make the personal sacrifices to keep a chapter going. That the formula works is attested by the growth of AMA, which has only one paid staff member, a national headquarters office manager in Fremont, California, and depends upon volunteers for all of its other activities.

AMA dues are $25, of which $10 stays with the local chapter, $5 goes to the state council, and $10 goes to national headquarters. With the increase in income as new members are attracted, Dr. Saeed hopes to expand the paid staff by two people, one of whom would be charged with leadership training. The reason for this is that his own time now is about evenly divided between organizing new chapters and reviving older ones that have failed to keep up with membership requirements.

"My initial assumption was that once local leadership was established, they could run with it." explains Agha Saeed. "That proved wrong. Even the most dedicated leaders need professional training to keep a local chapter active and effective so that busy rank-and-file members, who have many other demands on their time, continue to support it enthusiastically."

He puts this dictum to work in his own dealings with a national board that is diverse both geographically and in ethnic backgrounds. Board members, who must approve all important AMA decisions, represent the South Asian (Indian, Pakistani) and West Asian (Arab, Iranian, Turkish) Muslim immigrant communities as well as indigenous Muslims, largely of African-American heritage. This diversity helps assure access to mosques representing all branches of Islam.

As it begins its fourth year, Dr. Saeed hopes AMA will be able to concentrate more effort on a national policy commission, which in turn will reflect the thinking of policy councils at the state level. "This will evolve into our own in-house think tank, consisting of academicians, former government officials, and some key activists," he predicts. "The policy commission will be the brains of the organization and discuss the philosophical bases upon which we plan. It will also consider where we will be in 10 or 15 years."

From AMA activists one hears anecdotes that explain the obvious respect in which members hold their charismatic leader. While leaders of other U.S. ethnic and religious groups sometimes vie to be photographed with political leaders from their countries of origin, the reverse is true with Dr. Saeed, an unassuming but charismatic six-footer-plus who unconsciously becomes the center of attention in any room he enters.

Visiting political leaders from Muslim countries, accompanied by their media representatives, often seek appointments with Dr. Saeed. But sometimes he declines, refusing to lend his prestige as a renowned advocate of democratic values to leaders he deems despotic or opportunistic.

Perhaps as early as two years from now, Agha Saeed would like to see AMA headquarters relocate to Washington, DC to underline the truly national scope of the organization. By that time he hopes it will have developed "mechanisms to enable people to work together on both small and large problems.

"Modern technology will be very helpful in this regard," he predicts, noting that to be successful in the U.S. the AMA and all Islamic organizations "have to be essentially democratic." He believes that evolving procedures for political and media effectiveness in the U.S. in turn will help American Muslims decide once and for all whether democracy, as practiced in the United States, is consistent with their own beliefs. Reaching this conclusion from their own experience, Dr. Saeed believes, "is necessary if North American Muslims are to put together a truly democratic and functional system."

"I believe we can be a major force first in getting Muslims to register to vote, then to participate in the American political system, and finally to become effective political activists." he says. "The obstacle is that members of our community still think in binary terms.

"We still are trying to find a way in which one can retain one's cultural identity, and make it compatible with one's human identity and affinity."

Surprisingly, few of the American Muslims attending AMA meetings for the first time express doubts about the readiness of North American Muslims for political action, or their ability to reach consensus decisions and stick to them. Instead, the most frequently asked question is why there are more than one national Islamic organizations.

Rather than cite the fact that there are 54 member groups in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the roof organization for pro-Israel groups, Dr. Saeed cites the record of national Arab-American organizations which share many of the same goals as national Muslim groups.

Shared Goals

The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) is a lobbying group comparable to the American Muslim Council, he says. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is a civil rights and media-oriented organization comparable to the Council on American Islamic Relations, and the American Arab Institute (AAI) is a grassroots political action group comparable to the American Muslim Alliance. Other national Muslim organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) concentrate on religious education, functions which have no counterpart in multisectarian Arab-American groups. What's important, Agha Saeed concludes, is that all of the Islamic groups demonstrate that they are capable of cooperative and effective efforts to bring American Muslims off the political margins and onto the political playing field.

"By now we've arrived at the same place as African Americans did with Jesse Jackson, who turned them into influential political activists on the national level," he says. "Right now I believe that there are many American Muslims who are qualified to move beyond America's problems and be part of their solution. It's time for us to start making our contribution to America's uniqueness, as have so many other groups that preceded us, and who now are indispensible components of the American tapestry. American Muslims have to realize that they no longer are local islands in the American stream, but have become an important, but still greatly underrepresented, national constituency."

Watching this intense, eloquent and tireless visionary in action is convincing evidence that not only America's deeply religious Muslims, but also their Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and other American compatriots, soon will agree with Dr. Agha Saeed that the time has come for Islam to make its immensely positive contributions to the American heritage.