USA: Texas lawyer Shaarik Zafar takes over as special representative for Muslim communities

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Many feel dismayed that the Obama administration no longer gives high-profile priority to Muslim outreach compared to early in his presidency, when he made key speeches in Turkey and Cairo.

Shaarik Zafar speaking at Ahmadiyya Jalsa Salana - 2014

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Gulf News
By Gulf News | August 30, 2014

WASHINGTON: Is there a tougher job description than Shaarik Zafar’s?

As the State Department’s new “special representative for Muslim communities,” the boyish-looking Texas lawyer is America’s ambassador to Muslims around the world during a summer of non-stop grim headlines from Gaza, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

Having just spent a decade working for domestic federal agencies primarily with fellow Muslims on topics that include civil rights violations, police surveillance and Transportation Security Administration screening, Zafar knows the deal.

His work will be done, often, through others.

“It has to be a bank shot,” says Zafar, whose appointment will be formally announced on Wednesday. “A Muslim guy with the US government is going to have limited credibility.”

The sensitivity of the topic — how Muslims interact with the US government — flared just this past weekend. Prominent Swiss celeb-professor Tariq Ramadan announced he would skip the biggest annual gathering of US Muslims — the conference of the Islamic Society of North America in Detroit — to protest what Ramadan sees as a Muslim-American leadership silent or deferential to US power brokers on domestic and foreign issues.

“In bending over backwards, in saying ‘Yes sir!’ they sacrifice not only their dignity, but forget and betray their duty,” Ramadan wrote earlier this month, prompting prominent responses. A similar discussion erupted in July when a large Arab-American group called on Muslim leaders to boycott government Iftars to protest US policy toward the Israel-Gaza war (few did).

Thirteen years after the Sept. 11 attacks prompted a major rethinking of the US government’s outreach to Muslims, Zafar’s appointment reflects a new phase that may be less apparent but deeper and more effective.

Many feel dismayed that the Obama administration no longer gives high-profile priority to Muslim outreach compared to early in his presidency, when he made key speeches in Turkey and Cairo. Years of headlines on things such as US law enforcement mosque surveillance, failed Mideast peacemaking and anti-Muslim comments on the GOP presidential campaign trail have strained relationships.

But Zafar’s entire career reflects a lower-level infrastructure that’s been growing steadily across the government, creating partnerships on topics that are not all terrorism-related. And many more Muslims are part of these efforts, compared with the first engagement office in 2005 that was staffed entirely by non-Muslims. Government Iftars, for example, have flourished.

With Zafar, the position of Special Representative to Muslim Communities will move into a new office at the State Department aimed at faith outreach that is rapidly expanding. That office was created last year and will soon have 25 people with specialities such as religion in Europe and training overseas diplomats to engage more with religious figures. The State Department for years has offered courses on topics such as religious freedom and religious persecution. But current and former department staff and advocates say many in the foreign service are fearful of crossing church-state lines or aren’t knowledgeable about religion.

Some advocates say they are hopeful that the growing network of connections across government and the selection of someone with policy experience in counterterrorism and hate crimes may help.

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