By IPS Correspondents
NEW YORK, Mar 24 2004 (IPS)

Although xenophobia has ebbed somewhat in the 30 months since the terror attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, some rights groups are worried that Arab and Muslim Americans are once again being demonised as national security takes centre stage in the nascent U.S. presidential campaign.

They point to a new George W. Bush televised campaign ad accusing his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, of trying to "weaken the Patriot Act used to arrest terrorists and protect America".

As the female narrator utters the words "war on terror", several images float across the screen, including one of an olive-skinned, dark-haired young man squinting menacingly into the camera.

While the individual in question is, it turns out, an Italian American actor, Arab and Muslim organisations say the obvious intent is to stereotype those of Middle Eastern descent as "terrorists".

"I think we are going to see a lot more of this kind of tactic," said James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, who unsuccessfully lobbied the Bush campaign to remove the offending image from the ad. "It’s their strong suit to play off the public sense of insecurity about 9/11. Unfortunately, fear trumps all."

"This is going to be an unusual election," he added in an interview. "Past campaigns focused on capturing the centre, but this election will be fought on the margins, since a very small number of people don’t know who they’ll vote for."

A recent poll of Arab American voters in the swing states of Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania – which Bush won by relatively narrow margins in 2000 – found that nearly two-thirds planned to cast ballots against the president in November.

The respondents, representing a likely turnout of more than half a million voters, said their three areas of greatest concern were civil liberties, the war on Iraq and U.S. support for Israel.

If the election were held today, the poll found, Kerry would beat Bush among Arab American voters in those states by a margin of 54 to 30 percent.

"This is a very diverse community of many different national origins," said Zogby, whose group commissioned the poll. "But there has been a convergence of concern about the lack of balance in our policies, abroad and at home."

"Many are second, third or fourth generation, and they are not personally affected by Bush’s actions overseas, but they feel that what they’re seeing happening in the Middle East is just plain wrong."

Arab Americans are not the only group with whom Bush has lost favour. A recent national poll of Chinese Americans found that just 15 percent approved of his performance, even though Asian Americans were the only minority to back Bush by a majority in 2000..

Some see this shift as stemming in part from high-profile – and ultimately misdirected – prosecutions like that of U.S. Army Captain James Joseph Yee, a Muslim chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre who was just exonerated of spying after spending 76 days in solitary confinement.

"This officer is the victim of an incredible drive-by act of legal violence," said Yee’s attorney, Eugene Fidell, who argued in a statement that the case was fuelled by anti-Muslim and anti-Asian bias.

The perception that the "war on terror" is a code phrase for racial and religious profiling is common within the Muslim and Arab community, who have seen family and friends detained, deported, and generally treated with suspicion.

"The biggest problem with the Bush administration is the question of civil liberties," said Hussein Ibish of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "Lots of Arab Americans voted enthusiastically for Bush in the last election because he made a direct appeal on the question of racial profiling. With the post-9/11 crackdown, people were grossly disappointed."

"In any election, there’s a great temptation to demagoguery," Ibish told IPS. "Voters hear about the problem of immigration, foreigners infiltrating the United States, all of that stuff is very easy to do and it will probably have some appeal".

"However, it’s possible for the president to overplay the 9/11 card. I think there is a newfound interest in other issues, especially the economy."

"The whole experience of Sep. 11 has had three primary effects on the Arab community," he added. "The first group has been galvanised to greater activism, the second group has withdrawn and become frightened and more reluctant to get involved, while the third – by far the largest – is highly politicised but inactive."

It is this last group that a new alliance of Muslim groups is hoping to energise ahead of the November election.

Called the American Muslim Taskforce, its nine member organisations have drafted an agenda focusing on peace and civil rights, and set an ambitious goal of registering 85 percent of an estimated 3 million Muslims who are eligible to vote in the presidential election.

"We will mobilise American Muslim voters at the local, state and national levels, with a primary focus on those states and races that may have the most impact in the coming elections," said taskforce coordinator Agha Saeed in a statement. "Our vote is the best guarantee of our civil rights and the best expression of our citizenship."

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