By ALAN FREEMAN
Members of the small mosque located behind Porter's Paint store in a strip mall along 167th Street come from a string of countries and speak several languages, but most agree on one thing: voting against U.S. President George W. Bush on Nov. 2. "With the Democrats, we would not have this chaos we have all over the world. When [former president Bill] Clinton was there, we felt as if we were all equal," said Mustapha Lymouri, a Moroccan-born businessman who blames Mr. Bush for creating divisions in American society.
"I'm going to vote for John Kerry. We need some change," said Jamal Hagos, a 42-year-old airline worker who is a native of Eritrea and who opposed the war in Iraq. "I feel for the young American soldiers who are dying every day for nothing."
Sofian Abdelaziz, director of the American Muslim Association of North America and a leader of the mosque, said everyone he knows voted for Mr. Bush last time. But most have turned against the Republican President, upset by the invasion of Iraq, by what is seen as the administration's bias in favour of Israel, and by moves they interpret as a concerted attack on their civil rights. It is a pattern that is emerging across the country among Arab-American and Muslim voters. |