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Muslims Hear From Candidates at Temple Terrace Mosque
As the November elections near, Emerge USA is working to make sure Florida Muslims are engaged in the political process.
On Saturday, the organization, which encourages the state’s Muslim, Arab and South Asian populations to vote and get involved in local elections, held a candidate forum at the Islamic Community of Tampa mosque so attendees could get to know the people campaigning to represent them.
“Politics is all about having a seat at the table,” said Laila Abdelaziz, the event’s organizer and the Emerge USA’s regional director in Tampa Bay. “It’s very easy to be overlooked, it’s very easy to be misunderstood and it’s very easy to be targeted unless you have a seat at the table.”
A dozen candidates seeking to be Hillsborough County commissioners, Hillsborough County School Board members, Florida House representatives and Hillsborough Circuit Court judges briefly explained their platforms to the audience of about 50 people.
They fielded questions about issues ranging from mass transit to school textbook selection to curbing violence in the community.
Emerge USA data shows there are 180,000 Muslims in Florida who are eligible to vote, Abdelaziz said.
“And their issues are the same as the issues any other voter would care about,” she said.
Muna Alaseer of Riverview came to learn more about the candidates before she casts her ballot in a few weeks. She always encourages other people to do the same, she said.
Part of the Muslim faith involves understanding who is governing and how individuals can influence those representatives, she said. And unfortunately the Muslim population here sometimes is uninformed about ballot issues and the candidates who are running for election.
“Islamophobia is on the rise,” Alaseer said. “I think one of the ways we can help people is to affect those who are running.”
Emerge USA held similar candidate forums throughout the state this weekend, Abdelaziz said. The group won’t hold another forum in Hillsborough County before Election Day, but will act as a facilitator for Muslims during early voting and Souls to the Polls events.
The group’s overall mission is to help Muslim Americans become more civically engaged, which some of them have not been able to be in the past, Abdelaziz said. Many of them came from a part of the world where they aren’t allowed to vote.
“A lot of these men and women, they voted for the first time in their lives when they became U.S. citizens,” she said.
Noor Salhab of Tampa said he will have to do more research before he decides which candidates to vote for, but he feels more informed after spending Saturday afternoon at the forum getting to know the candidates.
“We’re citizens,” he said. “We want to do our duties.”
Elizabeth Behrman
The Tampa Tribune