On December 14, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) held their annual convention at the Long Beach Convention Center. A friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, attended and took notes. This person wrote the below report and has given me permission to post it.
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MPAC 2013 Convention
Long Beach, CA
December 14, 2013
For the last few years, the Muslim Brotherhood organizations have really been sugar coating their events which are open to the public. It is rare nowadays to attend one of these meetings and hear a Siraj Wahhaj spew his vitriolic comments towards the United States. And sugar tongued speakers were in the line up at MPAC’s 13 annual convention in Long Beach. They are finally realizing the fact that 3 out of 4 Americans who convert to Islam end up leaving it after a couple of years. Once “inside” the ideology they start learning little by little that it is not the peaceful, loving ideology they were told that it was when they were being proselytized.
MPAC Director Salam al-Marayati started off the convention by telling everyone what a great job MPAC had done throughout the year. He then read a letter from Barack Obama congratulating MPAC on 25 years and wishing them the best for their convention.
One segment of the population which is of big concern to Islamic leaders is the 16-30 year olds. Living here in America they enjoy their free speech and freedom of expressions. They would much rather listen to hip hop music than someone reciting the Quran. Having Muslim hip hop artists speak and perform at the convention served a twofold purpose. First, to tell the mainly Muslim audience that it is OK if your son or daughter wants to listen to this music. Secondly, to tell the small in number non Muslims in attendance that we are just like you. We like to listen to and perform the latest trends in music. Not only music, they are putting a push on in all the arts and entertainment fields. A Muslim poet went on about expressing oneself through poetry.
The next session actually had a couple of good presentations. Khadijah Abdullah, founder of “Reaching All HIV Muslims in America”, (RAHMA). There is an epidemic of HIV Muslims here in America according to Khadijah. Her organizations reaches out to HIV patients since imams and Muslims in general do not want to have any contact with these people. She is on a mission to try and get Muslim leaders to become more compassionate with sufferers of AIDS. She told the story of one patient dying in the hospital whose only wish was for his imam to visit him. Not only did his Imam never go to comfort him, a priest did and consoled the young dying Muslim. One of Khadijah’s priorities is to get to MSA chapters as according to her they are in great need of education on AIDS and HIV.
Next to speak was a pretty interesting Muslim female, Samia El-Moslimany. She was introduced as an activist in the Saudi campaign to allow women to drive. Living in both Washington State and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia she spoke on the women driving campaign and the divorce she is going through in Saudi Arabia. Without going into detail, I found her to be a very entertaining and a good speaker. She was arrested on the day set aside for women to drive. Somehow her estranged husband was able to get her released from the local jail. Going through a divorce in Saudi Arabia is not like the western world envisions it, according to Samina. The proceedings are still ongoing, but the magistrate is listening to her side of the story, according to her.
The daylong session ended with the session, “Is There a Future for Political Islam“. This session for the most part was boring. Anytime you put together three people from the world of academia, you are in for a long uneventful time. And that is what happened here with Dr. John Esposito, Dr. Hamid Mavani and Haroon Mogul. I will leave you with a few quotes from them.
Dr. John Esposito:
-Young folks don’t want anything to do with Islam
-MB is mainstream movement and they screwed up, but so did GW Bush
-Islam and politics are going to be around for a long time. If they have another chance they can get it right (referring to the Islamic Spring)
-The status of women is not caused by political Islam. It’s caused by centuries of patriarchal Islam.
Dr. Mavani:
-There is no such thing as true, unadulterated Islam. That died when Mohammed died.
I was disappointed in this last segment. Far from the way it was advertised.
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