 US
elections and us
Questioning our standing in American
civic space
By Goudarz Eghtedari
May 27, 2004
iranian.com
Goli Ameri ran for and won the Republican nomination from congressional
district 1 in Portland, Oregon, during the primary elections on
May 18th. This success is a first for an Iranian-American
candidate in the US. Iranians have served in many prominent public
capacities, including some assistant secretary and city council
positions around the country, but they have never been this successful
in entering a final run for a congressional office. This is indeed
a great achievement by itself and warrants congratulations to and
support for Goli.
On the other hand, this event has finally brought us to a point
to question ourselves about our standing in American civic space
and forces us to take position on this issue from the viewpoint
of being an Iranian-American, whatever that may mean. We now have
to deconstruct ourselves, our heritage, our beliefs, our personal
and political connections to the country we were born in, our moral
attachments to the old country, and many other attributes that
make us Iranian-Americans. Then we have to reconstruct ourselves
within our life in this country we call home. We have to reassemble
elements that are in compliance with our new identity as Americans
and all the concerns that we face as individuals living in this
setting. At the same time we need to balance the weight between
our heritage and the new social and moral character we have adopted
here.
The two party system in the United States has created a 30-30-40
division of the population, which means 30% are voting for their
party candidate regardless of his/her personal tendencies. It is
only the 40% independent thinkers that cast swing votes between
candidates based on their platforms. I emphasize on independent
thinker, because in my opinion there are registered Democrats and
Republicans that are not voting exactly according to their voting
registration status. These swingers normally decide based on their
own identification with candidates and on the election day priorities
when they vote for a candidate.
Let me explain my position on this
a little more; In order to reduce the complexity let us say for
the sake of argument that for an
American there are only 2 categories of individuals; liberals
and conservatives. Further one can also assume that there are two
sub-categories
for each; financial and social. This would leave us with 4 groups;
fiscal conservative [FC], fiscal liberal [FL], social conservative
[SC],and social liberal [SL]. In order to make another reduction
let us assume
that there are two issues on the ballot; new taxes and gun control.
Clearly we can expect that a FC person will vote against any
new taxes while a FL would vote for it. Regarding the gun control
initiative
SC will cast a NO vote and a SL will vote YES.
Please note that
this is a very simplistic approach and there can be many more specific
situations in which these types of people can vote differently,
such as the question of war and peace, small government and its
control of businesses, abortion and other women rights, gay rights,
etc. Since there is a very good possibility that for example a
small business owner can be conservative in fiscal issues but liberal
in social issues, therefore there can be combinations of these
as well; FC/SC, FC/SL, FL/SC, FL/SL. I call these combinations
the primary attributes, because any American can identify her/himself
with one of them and also because it is used in the mainstream
media as the standard for labeling candidates.
In summary, an American
voter most likely asks him/herself which one of the above combinations
she/he can identify with and how
the candidate can be characterized as, so that they can support
each other for a common goal. Again, let me repeat, that this is
very simplified scenario, because obviously there are many other
personal characteristics of the candidate that can have an impact
on voter's decision such as likeability, humility,
look, confidence, college affiliation, trustworthiness, and career
to name a few. In addition to these personal attributes however
there are societal identities that can play a role transparent
to all previously mentioned adjectives. These are more important
issues and can help empower certain associations that voter and
candidate belong to or identify themselves with such as race, gender,
national origin, and nowadays more often sexual orientation. I
would call these later categories secondary attributes.
The question
is which one of these parameters would lead in making a decision
on the day-of-voting. Is it the fiscal, social orientation
that helps us make the call or is it the identification with gender,
race, and national origin, or a combination thereof? There is no
simple answer to this question, especially if the primary and secondary
attributes are at odds with each other, which appears to be so
in our Iranian-American case this year. Some existing examples
may help us understand the delicate situation we are facing now.
The
League of Women Voters (LWV) is a prime example of a vehicle for
empowering women in this country. The LWV is a national organization
with state chapters around the country and more than 130 thousand
members. The organization's name, like its mission, derives from
the proud legacy of the women's suffrage movement:
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization,
encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in
government, works to increase understanding of major public policy
issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.(mission
statement)
Although the mission statement does not specifically
talk about the women issues, a visit to the web site and a look
at their publications
make clear that they aim at many political hot topics from a
feminist (in general terms) point of view and issue position statements
based on that criteria. Note that supporting individual candidates
would be beyond the non-partisan nature of the LWV.
Nevertheless,
in order to officially endorse candidates, Political Action
Committees with similar interests have developed such as the National
Organization
of Women's PAC (nowpacs.org)
or the National Council of Women's Organizations (womensorganizations.org),
both of which are proposing questions to candidates and make
sure that only those who fit their criteria will be supported. NOW
PACs base their endorsements on a broad feminist agenda.
These issues include:
Reproductive
freedom without
restriction civil rights for all people -- with
emphasis on lesbian
and gay rights and racial justice
moving women out
of poverty through empowering, non-punitive
welfare policies a constitutional
amendment that guarantees women's equality, reproductive
rights and non-discrimination based on sexual orientation affirmative
action ensuring
equal opportunity for women and people of color
ending violence
against women.
After the elections, NOW follows up with the
officials who NOW PACs helped elect to make sure they are meeting
these commitments.
As we will see being a woman is not the only criterion for getting
support from the NOW/PAC, nor is it THE requirement. Generally
speaking men qualify for membership of LWV and some even qualify
for getting financial support from women PACs, as long as they
support the feminist agenda. Other Political Action Committees
have also focused on issues relevant to their agendas and not
just the association of an individual to their group. Getting back
to the issue at hand, meaning the Iranians participation in the
US civic life and their support of candidates; we need to
first establish our own criteria for support. We need to come
up with a common denominator of Iranian interests in the US
and develop
questionnaires for testing candidates on issues. Some may think
that having an Iranian in the congress would help us regardless
of that individual's political tendencies. This
is in my opinion a provincial approach to a modern political
environment and may come from a cultural background that assumes
for example
that an Iranian police officer would ignore an Iranian's
traffic violation, or a Shirazi judge would favor a Shirazi's
problem in court. I am further puzzled however, with an announcement
by the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) which
states;
"... the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC)
is a registered bi-partisan federal political committee that
contributes to candidates for federal office who are attuned
to the domestic
concerns of the American Iranian community. IAPAC focuses exclusively
on domestic policy issues such as civil rights, immigration and
civil liberties, and encourages Americans of Iranian descent
to actively participate in the electoral process, to vote and
run
for political office. In forming IAPAC, the twenty-two founding
trustees agreed that in order to provide a voice on domestic
issues that unify our community, IAPAC's bylaws would exclude
the organization
from engaging on issues pertaining to U.S. foreign policy towards
Iran." The final statement ignores the fact that all discriminations
based on the national origin of Iranians is based on US-Iran
relations.
Looking at the example of Libya shows that all restrictions applied
to Libyans such as travel regulations were dropped once the Lockerbie
question and WMD concerns were resolved. It is very immature for
example to expect IPAC to support a candidate without regarding
their position on Israel-US relations, or to expect Armenian lobbyists
to stay away from American relations with Turkey. The fact of the
matter is that if we do not consider Iran and how to deal with
it as an issue important to the community, what else would serve
as adhesive or the common denominator for Iranians in the US?
It
is obvious that the reason an Iranian scientist is barred from
attending his laboratory (Dr. Shahram Rahatlou at San Diego's
Stanford Laboratory) is not because he is Iranian, it is because
his country of birth is on the list of countries at odds with
the US administration. If Iranian scientists and students are
not allowed
to publish their papers in professional journals such as IEEE,
it is because Iran is under embargo by the US. If the exhibition
of art and culture from Iran is minimal compared even to the
90s it is simply due to US-Iran relations.
The only justification
for the denial of a US visa to Iranian relatives, parents
and grandparents,
after being forced to travel to third countries and waiting for
months for clearances, hide behind the lack of political relations
between the two countries. Similarly if an Iranian entrepreneur
can not import products from Iran and has to go through lots
of labeling scams to be able to sell Persian tuna or caviar
in the
States, it is because of the boycott of trade with Iran.
I cannot
imagine there are many issues that hurt us as Iranian Americans
but are not related to the US foreign policy towards Iran or are
not related to the attitudes of Iranian-Americans towards their
old country. I agree that this is the sticky point and divides
our people here in exile, but it is also important to realize that
this very critical issue should define who we are and how we want
to function as a political force. We have to ask ourselves whom
we want to identify with, i.e. with those who disrupt Shirin Ebadi's
appearances, showing of Iranian films in festivals, academic conferences
on Iran, and Iranian national soccer team games in the US or with
those who arrange these exchanges.
Clearly though these behaviors
are not unique to us, the Cuban expatriates in Florida have also
had objected to baseball games or music concerts by Cubans from
the island. In any case these different internal views have their
respective external allies in the US partisan scene and as such,
if one has nothing in common with a group one should not be expected
to vote for its candidate either. Hence, I insist that it is
premature to demand Iranian participation in this year's
elections without regards to the US foreign policy towards Iran.
 Note that I am not taking a position on which direction would
be more worthy of support, but I do encourage all of us to take
part
and show our strength in empowering different and sometimes opposing
segments of our community as we associate ourselves with the
political system in the US. An examination of Cuban-American
dynamics in
Florida confirms that at the end of the day they were the deciding
factor that selected the US president in 2000. I suggest that
it could be a chance for Iranian-Americans to play
that role in 2004 by winning California for one of the candidates.
In another piece I will talk about our first and only congressional
candidate Ms. Goli Ameri.
Author
Goudarz Eghtedari is a writer, radio producer, human rights
advocate, and peace activist by choice and an engineer and educator
by profession.
He resides in Portland, Oregon.
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