Through our silence, we have sent a message to the Democratic Party, that this was a wake-up call for them. They cannot take for granted the Arabs, the Muslims and the minority citizens of the country. Effectively, we did a BDS on the Democrats.
I write here as an 81-year-old female academic in an American university. I’m a Pakistani citizen, now naturalised in the United States. In this election, I did not vote. I was a non-committed voter, although basically a Democrat. By being noncommitted voters in election 2024, we voted through our silence. This is a new category of voter in the American political system.
Most of us, non-committed voters are highly skilled technicians, artists, thinkers, educators, authors, doctors, researchers, attorneys, innovators, engineers, accountants, businesspeople and a lot more. Many of us are citizens of exceptional proficiencies and have been granted citizenship based on our service to our adopted country, ie the United States. Our contributions are immense.
We knew exactly what we were doing. We rejected voting for Kamala Harris out of fear of the prankster, Donald Trump – “A Clown in The King’s Court.” For 65 years of my life, in Pakistan, I’ve lived under martial law dictators or civilian governments that the military has puppeteered. So, why would we be afraid of another four-year Trump presidency? I also speak here of the many postcolonial states where citizens live in a perennial situation of martial law and still thrive.
Am I speaking here of the new world order where the Rest are standing up against the West? Are we in a new reality?
The non-committed voter has influenced not only the American 2024 election, but also American foreign policy. Can the US continue to be the hegemon it always has been? It professes democracy which is only for its own citizens, but what about the endless wars it has initiated overseas in the name of democracy, to only bring in ruthless dictators and monarchies?
Trump’s claim that he will end America’s overseas wars, was, in fact, delivered through the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan. It was America’s longest war, that lasted for 40 years. Albeit the withdrawal was chaotic and shameful. And I am no admirer of Donald Trump. President Biden’s claim was that the United States spent trillions in Afghanistan to show nothing for it. For your record, Mr President, the trillions of dollars went into the pockets of American-appointed leaders like Hamid Karzai and his family, Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan warlords, American contractors and finally, the Pakistan Army and its intelligence services that the CIA trained. It was a covert operation delivered through the ISI, contracted out to the Mujahideen now the Taliban. Hardly anything was spent on Afghan citizens.
A second Donald Trump presidency is the equivalent of Oliver Cromwell’s rise in England. And it eventually led to the further growth of the British Parliamentary democracy
Afghan women are in the worst ever prison of the Taliban. Who created the Taliban but the CIA through its goonda-mulla, rogue clerics from the madrassa seminaries? And the so called shari’a laws or Islamic laws in once secular societies like Afghanistan and Pakistan are possible through the collusion of CIA. Many of us, scholars and sheikhs, call the new-fangled Islamic laws, the “CIA shari’a.” And we laugh. This shari’a has nothing to do with the Qur’an nor the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) practices. Read Steve Coll’s book: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden and my book, Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban.
To be short, the recent Gaza genocide with brazen American support did not warrant a vote for Kamala Harris. She not only refused a Palestinian speaker at her Chicago Convention, but she also even refused to meet any representatives of the Palestinian community except the ones who sided with her out of a Donald-Trump-phobia.
Trump, I again assert, is “A Clown in the King’s Court.” American democracy, its rock-solid institutions and its judicial system are so strong that the day Donald is out of office, his home will be in prison.
Regarding the Gaza genocide, we all strongly condemn Hamas’ irresponsible and brutal massacre of innocent Israeli citizens on 7 October 2023. We also condemn the kidnapping of 250 innocent Israeli citizens, including children, the infirm, women and men.
However, who created the monster Hamas? Was it not Israel itself? Did it not midwife a Hamas to fight off the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) that Yasar Arafat led? Your own snake came to bite you, I say to Israel’s leaders.
I am absolutely sure that a second Trump presidency is an opportunity for the Democratic Party to look within, and straighten out its Qibla, direction-altar. A second Donald Trump presidency is the equivalent of Oliver Cromwell’s rise in England. And it eventually led to the further growth of the British Parliamentary democracy. A second four-year Trump Presidency is a speck in the history of nations that have endured many, many years of autocrats before freedom could be gained.
The 2024 Election is a learning experience for the Democratic Party. Our optimism – that of the noncommitted voters and their silence – is that it will bear fruit, not just for the Democrats but also for the Republicans. You cannot take the voters for granted.