US voters must support the Greens on November 5

My reflections on my interview with Jill Stein

My interview with Jill Stein will be published imminently.

I know that not all Americans value what I have to say on the US elections. However, I do receive many emails and messages daily asking for advice, and my podcast, The Thinking Muslim, has been fairly instrumental in setting the correct intellectual parameters in parts of the US Muslim community when forming a conscious electoral decision on November 5^th.

My original position was to echo the views of many leaders within the US Muslim community who have said Muslim voters must disavow the two parties and opt for a third-party option, whoever that may be. But upon reflection, I think that advice, although in the right direction, will not procure the intended result – simply because it will diffuse the messaging of our vote. And thus diffuse its ability to make a statement. That’s why I have concluded that Muslims must vote for the Green Party on November 5^th, even if they disagree, as I do, with some parts of their policy platform and public positions.

Let me explain the aim of having one party that receives the anti-genocide vote. I think the best articulation of this came from Imam Tom Facchine, who, in his usual brilliance, pointed out that we need to tally our anti-genocide vote. You cannot achieve this if your vote is dispersed or you stay home. In this case, the Green Party becomes a vessel to contain our anger. It is a container to house our tears of this past year. It enables commentators to locate what went wrong with the genocidal Democrats. They will observe the electoral spike to the Greens, especially in the all-important swing states.

The Green Party has come out the strongest against genocide. When I sat down to interview its leader, Dr Jill Stein, I found someone who was thoroughly genuine and committed to advocating the Gaza cause. She was clear that her party would not win the presidency but that the electorate had to build up a capacity to dent the two-party nightmare. This is music to my ears. This is precisely what I argued in the context of the UK elections. She was also very cognisant of the power of Muslim mobilisation, unprecedented in recent months. She saw within the Muslim community a group who had first-hand experience of the brutality of the US empire through familial ties and ummatic consciousness. 

The intention, as I have argued before, is clear. We want the genocidal Democrats to lose the presidency. This is not a slaughter that happened at arm’s length, as some like Mehdi Hasan – sadly, a Democratic Party cheerleader would lead us to conclude. This genocide was commissioned in Washington. It was funded, armed, and given logistic assistance and diplomatic cover by the Biden-Harris Administration. And even if a future Trump Administration, the only plausible outcome if Harris is humiliated on November 5^th, is equally as culpable. We would have sent the message that supporting genocide comes at a cost.

The frankly ludicrous position of Mehdi is that you can reward mass murder at any cost. It cheapens our vote and undercuts any leverage we believe we may have. It keeps our community weak and needy, and Mehdi’s ambivalence, indeed support of Harris is truly scurrilous.

This does not mean that the Green Party is our natural ideological home, far from it. On a host of other foreign policy and domestic issues, the party remains somewhat vague, if not evasive, about its positions. I did question Dr Stein about Syria, a subject of some controversy. And she was clear that she nor the Green Party had ever supported Assad. She is a little more ambivalent about the Uyghurs, acknowledging that the Chinese government, like all great powers, will have persecuted its minorities. Still, her focus and study are more on the US imperium, so she cannot verify the claims about the intensity of this persecution.

This claim of ignorance is convincing to a point; the overwhelming evidence shows that the Uyghurs are being persecuted on an industrial scale, with concentration camps and forcible marriage and removal of children. I have interviewed eyewitnesses who attest to the daily horrors on my channel. You cannot brush it off as a lack of research. It reinforces my complaint against some within the anti-imperialist left that they are willing to overlook the atrocities of those who stand against America. Principled politics requires us to always be on the side of the oppressed. I do not for a second believe that Dr. Jill Stein is deaf to rights abuses. Still, she is well aware that many on her base have political and ideological sympathies with Russia and China, which is producing confusion and mixed messaging.

None of this should take away from our original aim as a community. We need a receptacle for our anti-genocide votes, and the Greens are better placed to carry this vote.  

Then there’s the vexed issue of progressive or socially liberal attitudes to sexual matters and drugs. The Muslim community in many of the blue states have railed against an unfair imposition of attitudes that we do not find religiously compatible. In an actual pluralistic society, this is what some liberals claim to support; this diversity should be acknowledged, and citizens should find a way to get along without having to compromise on deeply held first-order values. Most Muslims do not want to show intolerance but wish there to be less muscular impositions of values, primarily upon our children. The Green Party has yet to clarify its commitment to what Bikhu Parekh calls multicultural pluralism—a commitment to true diversity, not a superficial liberal articulation of sameness.

Again, to her credit, in our interview, Dr Stein implied that her newfound conversations with the Muslim community had made her more empathetic to our concerns, which is a good thing. However, more has to be done to give the Muslim community confidence that the relationship can be widened and deepened after the election in a way compatible with our sacred commitments.

I point these out because we must mature as a community. Our political alliances, whether to the left or right, must come with a coherent commitment to what Imam Dawud Walid calls sacred activism. If you haven’t watched my interview with the Imam yet, it is a refreshing take. This is the kind of sober realism our political activism requires—one where a blind, schizophrenic commitment to a single party or political persuasion is replaced with a more profound, meaningful reflection of what our faith places as higher-order objectives.

So, US voters who care about Gaza must vote Green on November 5^th. This is to register our anti-genocide vote. And we have to commit ourselves to punishing this genocide administration. Then, the hard work of rebuilding our political capacity starts.

The UK elections have passed, and the US elections are within two weeks. I am in contact with Canadian and Australian Muslims about how to best exercise the Muslim vote. We can learn from one another, and I invite Muslims to help one another think more strategically and to learn from our experiences. Let’s move beyond superficial politics as relationships and the illusion that sitting at the table gives us influence.