WAMU 88.5 to Convene Emergency Staff Meetings via Zoom Today.

For those of you not following the shocking developments tonight at WAMU 88.5, the NPR affiliate ordered its online presence frozen, and all of it staff have been summoned to an emergency meeting at 9:00AM tomorrow.

They are financially sound as an organization. Last year they had a 750k surplus, which was the best in several years. They continued to grow membership, and their car donation numbers have been steady for the past decade. Details can be found here.

However, 88.5FM is *technically* owned by American University, which houses the legendary news station and public radio outlet on its campus. American University, like many universities save for a tiny segment of elite schools, is seeing dramatically shrinking enrollment. The university has a serious budgetary shortfall resulting from want of tuition dollars. If I had to venture a guess, the announcement set for tomorrow morning likely has to do with that relationship, and how it impacts the future of the radio station.

You can read more about American University's finances in this article by The Eagle.

But, I could be wrong. While WAMU is in a healthy financial position, and is only 7 weeks into the new fundraising year, there could be challenges resulting from rumored layoffs by National Public Radio (NPR) itself. WAMU is an affiliate of the NPR network. Or, perhaps a review or audit of finances has shown WAMU to be in not the healthy financial picture it has reported in its annual reports. Those reports can be found on their website. In the meantime: NPR’s offices will be locked and closed tomorrow, and most their internal systems’ functionality has been locked for all NPR staff. Odd behavior, to be sure.

Either way, we’ll know tomorrow morning.

On Democracy & Governance

It has been over two years since I last wrote here. I am writing today to share some good news. I am now a Hoya.

The Hilltop at dusk

Earlier this month, I began my first semester as a graduate student at Georgetown University. Georgetown is the world’s preeminent school for the study for International Relations. My master’s degree will be in Democracy & Governance, a hybridized program that contextualizes the role of democratic government on a global scale. I was previously a visiting student with the program in 2019.

I decided to attend graduate school for several reasons. Having worked in electoral politics since I was a teenager, as well as legislative advocacy and governmental reform, I have become increasingly concerned with democratic backsliding and corruption here at home in the US. I believe the issues of political corruption, unethical judicial misdealings and political grandstanding with little meaningful policy progress are a clear and present danger to American democracy. Second, freedoms guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are in jeopardy across the world today. Third, I believe that to improve governance, one needs to study the art of governance. Together, those reasons brought me back to Georgetown.

To me, there is little doubt that democracy at home is in serious jeopardy. Abuse of power, corruption scandals and deliberate efforts to silence or intimidate the electorate have become the new political norm across the United States and even in my home state of Maryland. The very political prosecution of the exonerated Adnan Syed and the ongoing corruption sagas involving local governments across the state clearly make the case that democracy must be defended and protected, lest it be hijacked by dubious characters of ill-repute—a phenomenon called “state capture”. America’s place in the world hinges on whether we can master good governance and whether we can truly live up to the words “Land of the Free”. We have a lot of work ahead of us to restore our democracy and usher in good governance.

But, so too is democracy abroad. Earlier this year, Pakistan’s ineffective yet very popular prime minister Imran Khan was brought down and imprisoned by a cabal of Punjabi generals who were desperate to bail out their country’s economy. Several Western African democracies have fallen in recent months due to accusations of French imperialism and mounting domestic disaffection. Indian democracy has never been more imperiled as the ruling BJP continues its assault on freedoms at home, and now abroad (as Canada now alleges). Global democratic change all hinges on whether Americans can restore faith in our own institutions at home.

My brother Hassan is a major Georgetown fan.

He and my sister have insisted I go there for school for years.

I want American democracy to thrive. Here in Maryland, it is not, largely due to corruption. Last year, only half of Marylanders cast a ballot in our gubernatorial elections. Over the past summer, two Montgomery County Public Schools officials were convicted of theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school system. Just last month, the mayor of College Park (home to the University of Maryland) pleaded guilty to dozens of counts of child pornography possession. Less than a week ago, a Montgomery County Council staff person was put on administrative leave for theft of services and abuse of power. Meanwhile, an ongoing investigation continues into dozens of claims of sexual harassment and misconduct by a school principal who seemingly kept falling upwards in terms of promotions. Finally: nearly half of all of Montgomery County’s legislators have been appointed by a shadowy political body with a history of tax scandals.

I am of course leaving out several major scandals involving Maryland in the past year that have made national headlines, mostly because local reporting just doesn’t get enough coverage. The point I am driving at is this: a small, dangerously out of touch political elite is demolishing local democracy across Maryland, and are now bulldozing responsible governance, in order to maintain the illusion that they somehow have power. I believe I need an education in what a strong democracy and good governance looks like from Georgetown to help us right our listing ship back home.

And that is exactly what I intend to do.

This is what bad people do to coffee. #AllBlackMovement

I will be writing frequently going forward about Maryland, public policy ideas and the challenges we face to getting our state and country back on track. From time to time, I will also write about foreign politics and international affairs. I will try and not spend too much time talking about coffee and why Yemeni beans are the world’s finest, but it will come up.

I also will share more about my life, and case studies of my past work in electoral politics, media advocacy, and community organizing. Folks often ask “what is it exactly Hamza does again?” and “where the hell did Hamza disappear to?”. The answers my friend, are not blowing in the wind. They’ll be posted right here on my blog.

Before I go, a special thank you to my friends Asma, Bill, Rachel, Scott, Mike, Roni, Matt, Ashton, Rob and Yamil who have never stopped believing in me. I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you. And finally: Alhamdulillah.

A Reflection on Media Trends & Millennials.

TLDR: Another Hamza ("Hot Takes") Insights on the World Post.

I like to divide my generation, Millennials, roughly into two segments:

-The Ren & Stimpy Cohort

-The Avatar Cohort

Let's start with the first group, The Ren & Stimpy Cohort.

For those of you unfamiliar, The Ren & Stimpy Show was a cartoon rooted in gratuitous violence, desensitization to unsanitary behavior, and riddled with stereotyping, and normalization of bullying. There are people who like the show, there are *a lot* of people who do not like the show. Regardless, it set the tenor & tone of social behavior for many middle & upper-middle-class young people in the US (it was only syndicated on cable). It originally aired in 1991.

The show's impact was huge, and cannot be understated. While there is truth to the idea that the show also took on adult hypocrisy, and the Sallingeresque phoniness of product marketing and American popular culture, it inculcated an entire swathe of young Americans with a sense of gross entitlement, "me" culture, and acceptance of bullying. My *very strict* parents banned it in our household when I was five, but school friends often referenced the show, and acted out its emotional abuse on people around them. It also normalized the "whining" or "take out your rage in any way accept constructive self-improvement" that older Americans often like to grouse about Millennials.

Now, let's talk about the Avatar cohort.

The Opening Credits to Avatar: The Last Airbender

14 years later, Nickelodeon decided to take a gamble on Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was the only time since the "Chan Clan" cartoons by Hanna-Barbera that the entire main cast of characters was of Asiatic background. It was the *first time* ever a person with a disability (one of the main characters is blind) was featured prominently. The show focused on major life lessons: friendship, team work, test-taking anxiety, responsible and irresponsible adults and teens, family problems, and personal redemption stories (the bad guys often change their ways after traumatic journeys that mimic real-life scenarios -- if we could control air, fire, water and earth with our hands lol). It also fostered a strong sense of cross-generational tolerance and friendships, something that was deemed "weird" by older Millennials.

While I was starting college during the original run of Avatar, I grew up in a family-oriented environment. My sister, brother and I watched the show every single week when I would come home, and loved the storyline. We also appreciated that as minorities ourselves, the cast of characters had names or racial demographics that made us feel included (even if we are not East Asian). The show ended with the major antagonist, who had been acting out because of childhood trauma, teaming up with the major protagonist to do good. When you're late teenager in college, you identify a lot with that, and the show fundamentally changed the way I viewed how to forgive and how to redeem.

These two very different models of American socialization, the pro-bully, pro-violence, pro-othering through taunts and abuse approach of Ren & Stimpy, and the pro-inclusion, pro-redemption, pro-pluralism approach of Avatar, have come to symbolize the very different ways Millennials communicate and operate in the world around us. Those with an affinity for the latter show (or who grew up watching it), generally seem to have a much more robust sense of self-responsibility, proactive service to others, and forgiveness. Those who were reared on the latter by largely irresponsible parents who didn't bother to monitor what their kids were watching (yes, I'm judging you), well you can take it from there just from that loaded statement.

The major theme to take away from reading this blog post is the following: words matter, media messaging matters, and responsible parenting always matter. It used to take a village to raise a child. Now it takes a smartscreen, and a whole lot of discipline & example-setting by the adults in one’s life.

America is Going Blue.

This was originally shared on my Facebook timeline at 11:08 am yesterday, Wednesday, November 4, 2020. It is shared here for the purposes of record.

GA will probably flip.

MI is going blue

WI is going blue

PA is likely going blue.

NV is going blue.

AZ had a very bad break-up w/ an abusive GOP and is going blue.

NE is throwing in one chip to blue.

Calm down, Democrats.

This was originally shared to my Facebook Timeline around 1:30am on Wednesday, November 3. It is posted on my blog for record.

America is home to 3,000-some counties, each with their own peculiar way of doing things, like how often they update their ballot counts, who updates them and where they update them. One of the most fiercely fiesty jurisdictions in America is Delaware County of Pennsylvania. Indeed, all of Pennsylvania's counties have the tendency to just not follow directions well. It's why New Jersey's turnpike is so strict--they want to punish Pennsylvania joyriders for making their lives miserable all the time. This really bad tendency to not take directions well also drives producers at national news outlets insane every four years, because no one really knows how that crazy place will end up voting. I blame the Shoefly Pie.

But I digress. Basically, millions of the potentially 7 million ballots in the state that Maryland lost a war to *right before* independence (lolz) have not been tabulated. Many of those votes are in blue constituencies or constituencies that don't exactly leap at the idea of a man grabbing their cheerleaders by their genitals. The point is: there is likely a red mirage at work.

Look closely at vote totals and trends nationwide, they generally follow the pattern of 2018--that southern states that should never have been in play are much closer than usual, and that increasingly the paths for Trump to win are not materializing.

Take it easy, and please: *STOP* texting me for political updates. I am sleeping. I have gotten out of bed twice now, and found 121 messages (seriously, what the hell is wrong with all of you?!). I want to sleep. God didn't give me Brad Pitt's looks or Salman Khan's abs. I must sleep to earn either.

Georgia Election Update (10:55:45AM)

Georgia’s state election officials are holding a press conference right now, as we speak.

“An accurate & fair count is much more vital than having a fast count.” - GA election official

-This is the first time in 20 years that Georgia has used paper ballots.

-"Like all of you, [election workers] are tired." -GA state elections official

-There are absentee ballots from our overseas military voters and provisional ballots that need to be tabulated

-60,000 ballots remain uncounted.

-"No one is involved in voter fraud." -- emphasized with emotion by a very tired state director for elections right now in Georgia.

-"Accuracy matters. The only way any side will be satisfied is by us being as accurate as possible with these votes."

-Every county in Georgia has been supplied a "high-capacity" ballot scanner in anticipation of how much interest there has been in this election.

Elected Officials Call on Maryland Governor to Cancel Rent & Mortgage Payments

Just over a third of Maryland’s State Delegates have signed a letter organized by Silver Spring’s Delegate Jheanelle K. Wilkins calling for rent and mortgage payments to be suspended by Maryland’s Governor Larry P. Hogan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maryland is currently under a state of emergency thanks to the Novel Corona Virus, during which time the state governor (arguably one of the most powerful governorships in the land) has the authority to stay derogatory debts from causing real harm to tenants and homeowners.

Currently, foreclosure actions and evictions have been stayed by the Maryland Court of Appeals and a separate decree by the Governor, who is using his emergency powers as laid out by law to do so. However, staying these legal proceedings does not waive their due payment on the first of every month. In other words, rents and mortgage payments remain due, will compile with interest and late fees, with derogatory credit all but guaranteed. This situation is what has triggered the call by Delegate Wilkins and others for Governor Hogan to further use his emergency powers to waive the collection and due payment of rents and mortgages.

Progressives Lead the Call for Change

Nearly half of formerly prosperous Montgomery County’s state legislators signed on, with a number of signatories being from neighboring, economically ascendant Prince Georges County. Last year, Gorgeous Prince Georges County became Maryland’s dominant economic engine after 12 years of stagnant growth and mismanagement at the highest levels of Montgomery County’s government. The mismanagement of the county’s government led to the arrest and conviction of then-County Executive Ike Leggett’s Chief Economic Advisor for embezzling millions.

Past Foreclosure Crises & Political Indifference

Montgomery County’s economic future has been hazy for some time. Some 12,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the aftermath of The Great Recession. Moreover, during the same spell of time, Maryland was the country’s foreclosure capital as the O’Malley administration did little to assist struggling homeowners through administrative or legislative means. A second wave of the foreclosure epidemic struck in 2014, again with Governor O’Malley doing little to assist Marylanders as he tried to raise his profile for a run for president. Countless Marylanders lost their homes while elected officials looked on at posh fundraising dinners for the re-election campaigns.

Millennials & Diversity Rising

That all began to change in the wake of the 2016 election of Donald Trump. A new, diverse cadre of elected officials emerged victorious in the state’s 2018 elections with a mind to challenge the state’s image as an establishment heartland. Progressive voices in the House of Delegates like Joseline Pena-Melnyk, Wanika K. Fisher, C.T. Wilson, Jheanelle K. Wilkins, and Vaughn Stewart have begun an aggressive campaign to change the harsh unequal realities that Maryland has become known for throughout the country thanks to HBO shows like The Wire and Netflix documentaries such as The Keepers and Dirty Money, not to mention NPR’s Serial Podcast. Few states of Maryland’s population size have had that much continuous negative national coverage in so short a time.

Economic Malaise is now the Maryland Way

Maryland’s economic health is ranked 37th out of 50 in the country by Wallet Hub, and the state’s foreclosure rate was well above the national average months before the COVID-19 crisis. Per the federal government, nearly 5 in 100 homeowners with a mortgage were in foreclosure during the height of the Great Recession a decade ago. Mortgage industry data strongly suggests another foreclosure crisis far greater in scope than the 2008 one is on the horizon as we speak. That suggests that Delegate Wilkins and her colleagues have made the right call to put public interest above private profits.Millennials and Gen Z Marylanders have essentially never seen economic stability in their lifetimes.

Read the letter here.

Merry Christmas

Christmas—western and traditional (orthodox) is my favorite holiday of the year. 

The scant historical evidence strongly suggests Jesus Christ was born in springtime. Muslims believe the Anointed One was of a monophysite human nature (he wasn’t divine). The Quran states Mother Mary gave birth to him under a palm tree. 

What does not change from faith to faith, and culture to culture is the miracle that a young man taught the universality of God’s love, and the rejection of accumulating wealth without social and political justice.

The story of Jesus Christ is perhaps the greatest parable in the Western canon of the power of the oft-maligned professions of teacher (rabbi) and community organizer (messiah). Christ faced down corrupt social institutions, indifferent and unrepresentative government, crushing poverty and a broken justice system that penalIzed women and minorities out of spite and political convenience. Even after an unjust death sentence, he rose again to prove that the arc of history is long—but it will always bend to Justice.

In these trying times where a literal King Herod and Jezebel occupy the White House, we would do well to ponder how we will honor the Christian spirit of the season. 

Merry Christmas.

Montgomery County Has a Chance to Lead the Country on Comprehensive Police Reform

Despite the rather ominous title, the proposal I favor in this post is more or less conciliatory in nature rather than confrontational. As the grandson and nephew of policemen, I understand and value the role law enforcement play in helping keep everyday people safe. But we live in times where intentions, actions, missteps and reactions thereof can all have potentially deadly consequences for citizens. Some might say that has always been the case. However, as a democratic society, we are supposed to praise the idea that no one is above the law—including those who enforce it.

That is why I support the Young People’s Amendment to County Council Bill 14-19, which would ensure that at least two young people under the age of 35 would be included in any future Policing Advisory Commission (PAC), as proposed in the original bill. The fact is that in any given month, a majority of stops and arrests in the county by MCPD are of people belonging to that particular age range (under 35). As a millennial myself, I have a hard time believing that I am somehow more inclined towards criminality than someone over the age of 35. Therefore, I see the value in making sure people of my age and background have a voice in helping to advise our police force on how we can work together to both reduce crime and the likelihood of young people spending the best years of their lives behind bars.

While one elected official tried to make claims that young people should instead be placed on an imaginary youth council that does not exist, others like Tom Hucker and Will Jawando have been strong champions of the proposal. I think it merits our attention as county residents, and it would be a positive first step for Montgomery County.

Tunisia's Democratic Experiment

While in Tunis, I stayed in an old mansion owned by the former Bey of Tunisia, just footsteps from Ibn Khaldun’s childhood seminary.

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Tunisia along with a group of brilliant academics from the Democracy & Governance program at Georgetown University. The country has undergone some immense changes in the past decade, not the least of which is that it alone has emerged from the smoldering ruins of the “Arab Spring” as a democracy. The experience was incredibly rewarding for me personally, as I have been fascinated with Tunisia since my time at a journalism startup, called Cont3nt (pronounced “Content”), where I recruited and handled confidential news sources from within Tunisia during the Jasmine Revolution.

This week, the folks at Georgetown University were kind enough to allow me to publish my thoughts about Tunisia’s third election since becoming a democracy on the website of the Journal of Democracy & Society.

Earlier this week, the Arab terrorist known as Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was killed in the troubled region known as the Eastern Arab World. For the past 100 years in that part of the world, several millenarian movements have attempted to set up a universal Sunni Caliphate headed by an ethnic Arab to rule over all Muslims and do war with non-Muslims. That effort has largely opposed the idea of democracy, spurning it as an unholy form of government devoid of divine sanction. Baghdadi was famous for bringing together religious extremists with secular Arab nationalists known as the Ba’ath to further his goals for a Caliphate based in the Arab world.

Tunisia was once home to Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam’s greatest legal scholars and historians. He also happened to be one of the fathers of the Western Arab World (the “Maghreb”)’s philosophical tradition. While in Tunisia, I was lucky enough to pray daily in the mosque where Ibn Khaldun studied theology in the old medina of Tunis. While there, I spent a great deal of time chatting with the locals about the challenges the country has faced regarding the country’s democratic transition.

Arab Extremist Movements Don’t Reflect the Reality of Islam or the Arab & Muslim World

Extremists largely from the eastern regions of the Arab World have tried to steer Muslims away from democracy. They believe that only a pure-blood Arab can rule over Muslims as the Caliph of Islam. However, despite the success of extremists at global terrorism, most Arabs & Muslims across the world revile these extremists.

The battle between Islam and Democracy that Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and other Arab millenarians have sought to paint is a bit of a nothing-burger. In the 1940s, Islamic religious leaders in Indonesia (home to the world’s largest Muslim population) formed a union across the country’s 17,000-island archipelago which openly declared Islam to be in favor of democracy and social pluralism. In India, two major figures in the democratic movement to establish the country were Islamic religious scholars: the first Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah of Jammu & Kashmir and India’s first Education Minister & president of the Congress party, Maulana Azad. Turkish religious scholars have long signed off on democracy and political pluralism—including the exiled Fethullah Gulen as well as pro-government religious leaders. Before their overthrow by Arab nationalists, both Egypt and Syria experimented with democracy in the mid-twentieth century, with religious parties and figures vying for seats in their respective legislatures. All in all, more Islamic religious authorities of merit have supported democracy rather than have opposed it over the course of the past 100 years.

Tunisia’s Hopes

Many Tunisians expressed their hope that their country could become the “halal alternative” to the jihadism that is rife in Libya, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab World. On multiple occasions and across Tunisia’s very fragmented political landscape, Tunisians insisted their society and culture represented the guardianship of traditional Islamic jurisprudence and religious doctrine which favored democratic pluralism (as argued by Sacheddina, Ahmed and others).

However, there is also increasing frustration at the failure of successive parliaments to parley meaningful reforms into law. Tunisia’s welfare-stye economy is highly statist, and the currency has devalued as much as 1/3 since its democracy came into being. While corruption is down, European tourism vanished after terror attacks brought the country to its knees in 2015. Reforms allowing for limited federalism in the country have been pushed through—and were badly needed: Tunisia is physically the size of the entire Atlantic seaboard. However, the country still does not have any justices appointed to the constitutionally-mandated supreme court as a result of years of division and mistrust by factions in the previous parliament who agreed only to legislate through consensus. This has meant that while the country is stable, its economy is on life support.

Still, in comparison to a time where the former Ben Ali regime actively used rape as a sanctioned tool of government policy, things are looking much better. Despite a terror attack this summer only steps away from where I had gone for a stroll with a fellow American ex-pat in the capital, Tunisians seem undeterred in their attempts to consolidate their democracy. Time will tell if the rest of the Arab World will adopt Tunisia’s approach, but there are signs that Malaysia, Pakistan, and others are following in the footsteps of Ibn Khaldun.

Analysis: Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke & Joe Biden Clear Winners

Beto O’Rourke had his strongest night yet.

After deciding not to court voters in Spanish (thank you, Beto), the presidential candidate and skateboarder unleashed his RFK-esque passion for public policy through going unscripted on gun reform.

Elizabeth Warren said as much as she needed to, and not a word more.

Despite attempts to get her to go on record about the financial cost to taxpayers for some of her reforms, Warren remained disciplined and in her best form last night. She also spoke close to least last night as she allowed gaffes and wrong-headed jabs at age (looking at you, Castro) dominate the night. Her point that she’s met no one who so far loves their healthcare company resonated with a lot of Americans on both sides of the aisle.

Juan Castro tried to channel Kamala Harris’s love of being the Bully.

And it failed. Not only was Castro actually wrong in casting doubt on Biden’s memory which in turn makes us wonder if Castro has a memory or hearing problem of his own, he came off as unpresidential, desperately looking to insult an older, more credible public servant. Castro will not survive this, and if he does, if Biden wins the nomination, like Kamala he’ll face an unlikely future.

Sanders Still Resonates.

Younger Americans are increasingly dividing up between Mayor Pete Buttigeg, Beto O’Rourke, and internet sensation Andrew Yang. But the lion share of. younger voters I’ve spoken to across the country continue to favor either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren—reflecting national polls. In particular, Sanders direct challenge to the powers that be (big banks, soulless insurance companies, and pro-climate change interests) continues to ring as the truest of the platforms offered by any candidate.

Joe Biden is Not Going Anywhere.

Gaffes that date him, jokes about his age, claims by flagging candidates that he’s not racist, “but…” — they’ve all failed, again and again. Joe Biden still connects with a Americans across the board because they’ve come to either trust him or respect that he, along with Sanders and Warren, isn’t running for president to fulfill his ego. He cares about America, and wants to serve the country. Keep that in mind going forward.

3 Reasons Why I Don't Believe Kamala Harris Will Serve Americans

1. Dishonesty & Hypocrisy

You cannot throw people in jail for smoking marijuana, and then give an interview where you laugh about how *you* smoked marijuana for years.

2. "A Soldier's Story: Redux"

You cannot justify keeping an innocent black man in prison through misleading judicial procedure for committing murder he did not commit because it helps you look tough on crime.

3. Cannibalizing Spirit of the Law

The deliberate misapplication of the law in the matter of truancy during one of the worst economic downturns in American history demonstrates virtue signaling at its worst & most degenerate condition.

Let's elect a Real Democrat.