Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

Illinois likes politicians with weird names

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Illinois voters have gone and done something crazy once again. First they elected Ba-rack O-bam-a as a U.S. Senator, and now conservative DuPage County has gone and elected Moin Moon Khan and Esin Busche as township trustees. The Chicago Tribune (free registration required) reports:

No one would mistake a gathering of DuPage County Republicans for the United Nations, but the party took a significant step last week toward shaking its image as a party dominated by “old white-haired men” when Moin Moon Khan and Esin Busche were elected township trustees.

Party officials say as far as they can tell, Khan, an Indian-born longtime Chicago-area activist who works as a computer network administrator, and Busche, a Turkish-born chemist, are the first Muslim Republicans elected to public office anywhere in the state–and a symbol of the party’s new outreach effort in a rapidly diversifying county.

“This is a small office, and for me it may be a very small individual achievement,” said Khan. “However, I think it’s a giant milestone for the minority communities in general and the Muslim American community in particular.”

What’s even more astonishing is that Khan beat out someone named “Bob Wagner.” I found the following quote by Rasheed Ahmed, coordinator of the Illinois Muslim Political Coordinating Council, quite interesting:

Muslims don’t tend to naturally gravitate to either party, Ahmed said, because there are parts of both the Democratic and Republican positions that appeal to them.

There was also this little gem by Paul Hinds, chairman of the York Township Republican Party.

“We get pegged too much as 70-year-old white-haired men. That’s a stereotype we always have to work against,” he said. “That’s not what we are.”

Moon’s personal story is quite inspiring as related at NRI-Worldwide:

Khan, who came to the US in 1986 with, plans to become a journalist, switched to computers after getting a journalism degree from the University of Georgia, because being a scribe “was not financially lucrative”.

But politics was in his veins, he said, and when he moved to Illinois, he founded the Bihar Cultural Association and served on the boards of more than a dozen civic organisations in the past 15 years.

“Being a scribe was not financially lucrative?” Yeah, no sh*t. Continue reading →

Staying home from The Prom

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I keep hearing about the growing “dish cities” in Europe and especially in France. “Dish cities” are named as such because they are predominantly Muslim areas where the residents keep to themselves and have television programming from the Arab world beamed into their homes via a satellite dish. The danger here is that this leads to an extreme, often self-imposed isolation, and a local set of laws and norms that often ignores the laws and cultural norms of the adopted country. Is it possible that such “dish cities” might eventually form in the U.S.? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on some young adults whose religious views guide them to skip the prom.

With prom season in full swing, Najeeb and her Muslim peers are learning one of life’s lessons: Principles matter more when something is sacrificed to uphold them.

Each year, many teen Muslims choose not to take part in one of the hallmark social events of high school. For them, staying true to their Muslim identity is staying true to themselves, no matter how hard.

Proms – a ritual of dating and intimate dancing that for some is associated with drinking and sex – conflict with Islamic beliefs. Islam requires Muslims to dress modestly, abstain from alcohol and avoid close contact with members of the opposite sex. Such interactions are considered haram, or forbidden.

Meeting these standards can be an especially tall order for teens driven by raging hormones, intense curiosity and a fear of alienation.

“It’s a challenge,” said Naba Mallick, 17, a senior at Divine Savior Holy Angels High School in Milwaukee, who didn’t attend prom last year. “To be the one who has stayed strong in religious beliefs, it’s a big deal.”

Since I live in Los Angeles, I am always looking at stories in terms of a possible script for a Hollywood movie. I am thinking about updating Footloose, but with Muslim characters.

To be clear, not all young Muslims skip prom. And among those who do, they are not alone; many conservative Christian families also frown upon dancing and dating among teens.

Alas, it just isn’t easy for young studs to deal with this kind of thing:

Living in America and holding true to his Islamic beliefs are a delicate dance for Zeki Arain, a junior at Brookfield Central High School.

Arain, 16, sometimes struggles between being a teenage boy and a practicing Muslim. With thick dark hair, pale skin and a sharp wit, Arain knows girls have been sweet on him. He’s had crushes, too.
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Who writes the history books?

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Whoever holds the pen, that’s who. As we’ve all heard, there have been lots of protests (some turning violent) in China, over the version of history found in some Japanese school textbooks. As anyone who, like me is a fan of Zinn’s “A People’s History” knows, you must always remain vigilant against inaccuracies in history and social studies. Some desis in the D.C. suburbs have been doing just that. As reported in the Washington Post:

Fairfax County businesswoman Sandhya Kumar teaches her three daughters about other countries, cultures and religions. She wants them to take pride in their Indian heritage and Hindu faith — and to respect and understand other views.

But when Kumar of Lorton scanned several world history textbooks recommended for Fairfax County schools, she worried that students would come away with a distorted and negative impression of her homeland’s culture.

“I thought the American children will think India is some Third World country with pagan beliefs and backward thinking, not a forward-thinking country,” Kumar said.

She and dozens of other Indian American parents launched a campaign to change the way their history is taught in Fairfax, the nation’s 12th-largest school system. Their lobbying has prompted school officials to rethink presentations of India and Hinduism in classrooms and has sparked efforts to develop a more sophisticated and thoughtful curriculum.

So what in particular was inaccurate in the textbooks?

Balaji Hebbar, a George Washington University religion professor who was one of three scholars hired by Fairfax County to review the books cited by the group of Indian parents, said he and his colleagues found few factual errors. But he said the lessons boiled down a complex culture to “karma, cows and caste.”

“It’s as if I were making a picture book of the United States, and I took pictures of the bad parts of D.C., the run-down parts of New York City and the smoke stacks of Cleveland and left out the Golden Gate Bridge and the Statue of Liberty,” Hebbar said. “I would be telling the truth, but I would only be telling half the truth.”

The very open and gracious way in which the school district responded to the parent’s concerns is quite encouraging to me, especially in light of all the craziness that usually seems to undo the educational system in this country instead of helping it become better.

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Looking out for “A” & “T”

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Saurav, who co-writes on the new blog Detained, updates us on the situation of the 16 year-old Bangladeshi and Guinean girls that the FBI recently detained, ostensibly as potential suicide bombers. My original posting about this mentioned that the family was not economically capable of fighting the government and Detained elaborates.

As you may have read recently in the New York Times and a number of other publications, two Muslim teenage girls have been detained. One is from Guinea, and the other is from Bangladesh. The government is using immigration law to jail these 16 year olds without charging them with a crime, holding secret proceedings against them without giving them access to the evidence that is being used against them, and slandering them in the media as “suicide bombers” without providing proof.

In fact, an FBI official told The New York Daily News, “Nobody here believes they are wanna-be suicide bombers.” Another official at the Department of Homeland Security commented, “We’re not spun up about this case.” So why, then, are these young women in jail, cut off from their families? Why are their lives being ruined? This is an insane injustice.

Please open your hearts to both families. The family of A., the young Guinean woman, is in urgent need, and owes money to their lawyer. They have also lost their income, as the father has also been detained on immigration violations. As we learn more details about her situation, we may find they have other needs as well.

The young Bangladeshi woman, T., and her loved ones also face an enormous challenge. Her family needs to raise approximately $10,000 in the next three months just to get by. There are three children. The vast majority of the money would go towards housing, because the family has had to give up their apartment out of fear of surveillance or other threats to their safety. The remainder of expenses are for food, transportation and any legal expenses (although the lawyer is currently doing the case for free). Visits to the lawyer and to the detention center take 3 hours each way and cost money. It may also be necessary to fundraise for airline tickets for some family members in the future. There’s enough money available right now from various sources to cover them for a few days, but their situation could become dire very soon.

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A match made in marketing heaven

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Sanjay Kumar of UP is feeling very cool and refreshed these days. Grocer by day, this real life Apu has just won a unique prize. Tipster Deepa Menon forwards us this Times of India article:

When Kumar bought a bottle of Coke to quench his thirst he ended up becoming the regional winner for Coca-Cola’s under-the-crown promotion, Thanda Aish-Cash.

As the winner, Kumar takes the prize – a dream date with the beauty queen.

Wait, if Kumar is a grocer, why would he have to “buy” a bottle?

So what might Sanjay expect to do on his date? Well if this dream sequence (.zip file of commercial) is any indication, he is going to be having a memorable time.

The date will be in Mumbai, where he will spend an entire evening with Ash at the premiere of her upcoming movie.

For Kumar, who has idolised Ash for years, reacted in disbelief. “I just could not believe my luck,” he says.

And what’s more, Kumar could well end up travelling with Ash to a foreign location for the international premiere of the movie.

Who knows? This whole affair may end in an altogether unexpected way. The possibility reminds me of this General Electric commercial. If only…

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alt.muslim.com

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Although some of you may not realize it, one of the most popular brown “Mom & Pop” websites out there is alt.muslim.com, which was founded by a married Indian-American business student who grew up in California. From the Information Warfare Site:

“My name is Shahed Amanullah, and I created the Website altmuslim.com. I started the site because I wanted to see some more open dialogue and discussion and debate about things that are happening in the Muslim world.

“Before the Internet came around, Muslims lived in relative isolation and obscurity from each other. They never had to deal with Muslims of different colors, of different schools of thought, of different political persuasions. And when the Internet came about and these people had to find each other and see each other for the first time, it was really jarring. I mean, Muslim discourse on the Internet for the first several years was nothing but fiery debates and insults and things like that. Muslims need to learn together in cyberspace in a way that’s civil and respectful.

“Only now are people starting to get together as Sunni, Sufi, Shia, without it automatically meaning, ‘let’s have a theological argument.’ And that change has been happening slowly over time. Friendships have been happening between these different people, between Muslims in the West and in the Muslim world, between Shia, Sunni, Sufi, even between Salafis and progressives.

“I think one person put it that the Muslim community has an ‘irony deficiency.’ Because of that, we wanted to interject humor and wit into all the work we did, because we felt that it was a really good way to defuse tension and make the pill easier to swallow, so to speak. So one of the things we do, at the top of our Website, is we have little taglines that describe who we are, ‘cleared by Homeland Security,’ ‘no assets to freeze,’ ‘all the news that’s not fit to print.’

Ahhh. That’s just the type of humor that hopefully turns SM readers on (well most of them).

Going over to alt.mulsim.com we see that in addition to running the site, Amanullah and his wife are bloggers. His wife Hina, blogs about her recent experience with motherhood.

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Go check out the main news site. There are lots of good and often controversial articles posted. Great brain food.

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ModiGate

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I know, I know. I too hate it when lame journalists decide to add a “Gate” at the end of a story just to capture attention and show that the story is about scandal. I would not have succumbed to this type of journalistic laziness were it not for the wire tapping. The BBC reports:

A police officer in India’s Gujarat state says the government there authorised the killing of Muslims three years ago. RB Sreekumar made the allegation in notes he kept at the time while serving as Gujarat’s intelligence chief.

The Gujarat government says the charges are baseless and untrue, instigated because Mr Sreekumar was not promoted.

Personally I think it would have been more efficient if Sreekumar had stayed anonymous and led SM bloggers to the truth by arranging a series of meetings in dimly lit parking garages, but I suppose my life was not meant for such excitement.

Mr Sreekumar has submitted his notes to India Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) which investigates complaints by civil servants.

He brought a case against the Gujarat government, saying he was denied a promotion for refusing to act upon the “illegal and unconstitutional directives” of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as well as the state government and senior state police officers.

In the notes, Mr Sreekumar alleges that the chief minister asked him to tap the telephones of Shankersinh Vaghela, who was then president of the Congress party.

He said that he was also asked to tap the telephone of cabinet minister Haren Pandya.

In the notes, Mr Sreekumar also says that senior government officials sent messages asking him to kill Muslim extremists who were involved in rioting.

In other news it is obvious that Mr. Modi is still bitter about last months events. Rediff.com reports:

Law and order situation in Gujarat is far more satisfactory than other states and even some other countries, Chief Minister Narendra Modi said in New Delhi.

He was speaking at the Chief Ministers Conference on Internal Security and Law and Order on Friday.

“The number of murders in Gujarat is 30 per cent lower than the national average and rapes 70 per cent lower. Compared to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the crime rate in the state is negligible,” the CM said.

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Sanskrit Rocks!

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As summer fast approaches we are all eyeing those concert schedules to see which one’s we’d like to attend. Here is one for the mix that I ask you to consider: Sanskrit Rock [thanks for the tip Dinesh Rao]:

Shanti Shanti is a performing group consisting of two young sisters, Andrea & Sara Forman. They are gaining worldwide recognition for their Sanskrit chanting as well as for their unique approach to New Age music. Sanskrit is the ancient language of India and is known for it’s tranquil and harmonious effects.

Andrea & Sara Forman have been chanting Sanskrit since they were nine and seven years of age, respectively, and are now considered among the top scholars in the U.S. in their field. The girls have performed Sanskrit nationwide, including appearances on PBS television programs, and on various radio broadcast shows.

Andrea & Sara have just released their fourth album, which steps into a whole new level of enchantment as they chant, in Sanskrit, the traditional Vedas from India, as well as perform ancient Bhajans. You will also enjoy the magic of their new, original songs, which are causing such a stir in the World Music community.

You’ve got to see the clip for yourselves. If they ever decide to add a band mate, I have a great suggestion for them. If any of you live in Colorado Springs go check them out next Friday and report back to us your impressions if you can. MP3’s of more of their music can be found here. They aren’t the Corrs sisters but I’d watch them. Incidentally, I also highly recommend Sheila Chandra for those that enjoy “Indian Gospel” music. Continue reading →

Reddy for the job of Secretary of State

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In what seems (to me at least) as counter intuitive, the U.S. South has recently been fertile ground for ambitious young Indian-American politicians, many of whom end up winning. The next one to keep an eye on may be Shyam Reddy of Georgia. Late last month he announced his candidacy to run for Secretary of State of Georgia. The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports:

Reddy dubs himself as a “fiscally conservative, socially responsible candidate” whose platform includes fostering a business-friendly environment for the state, preventing investment fraud and promoting public health and safety by overseeing licensed professionals more effectively.

A native of Dublin, Ga., Reddy serves on the board of The Indus Entrepreneurs, which mentors local entrepreneurs, and the board of the Red Clay Democrats. Reddy is also an active member of The Technology Association of Georgia and The Georgia Bar and is part of the 2005 L.E.A.D. Atlanta Class of Leadership Atlanta.

I love the term “socially responsible candidate.” It’s purposefully vague enough to avoid taking a stand and using the dreaded “liberal” tag. This is a required trait in any good politician, especially a Dem running in the South. The Hindustan Times reveals more about Reddy:

His parents, he says, emigrated to the US in pursuit of a better life and raised him in Georgia, reminding him to be ever cognizant of the fact that he and others like them were fortunate to live in a country that allowed, fostered even, equality and opportunity for all.

As is the case with most Indian families that affirm ties to their roots, he says that he was ‘raised in a strict environment deeply grounded in strong principles and moral values.

Again, as is the case with most urban and economically mobile Indian families, he was encouraged to pursue and complete his education.

Becoming a public servant and serving fellow Georgians, however is something that he has wanted to do from the very outset.

With his expertise in business and legal arenas, he is expected to be fully aware of the Secretary of State’s office and the significant role it plays.

Reddy is a diehard Southern Democrat, fostering a business-friendly environment that will make Georgia the preferred destination for business.

If you live in that dirrtiest of the dirrty south states, and you have an interest in politics I suggest you get involved. Even if he loses, great strides will be made and grass roots connections will be formed. Continue reading →

Meet some friends of mine

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I am at a conference in Boulder, CO this week and unfortunately don’t have time for any relevant desi postings. I used to live in Boulder and so I originally recommended to the other Mutineers that we check out nearby South Park, CO as a potential site for our blogging world headquarters. South Park was going to provide us with a lot of perks and tax breaks. Eventually we established the home office in North Dakota for increased privacy and security. I was feeling nostalgic though so I thought I’d share this picture we took on a snowy field during our scouting trip out here.

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