Thursday, September 08, 2005

History of MYNA - Part 1 Premordial Sludge

research done by Fawad Siddiqui

Primordial Sludge

1950s-60s-70s-80s - Youth Camps are a standard part Islamic Movement programs in the Muslim world, particularly done by the Ikhwan-al-Muslimoon which starts in Egypt and is strong in many Arab Muslim countries. Muslims start to immigrate to America as students and form local associations. They become the MSA of US and Canada in 1963.

1963-1970s - The MSA begins to hold regional conferences and national conventions which bring together Muslims-immigrants and indigenous-from all over North America. It is infused with movement-associated students from the Muslim world and goes through presidents Medhi Bahadori, Ahmad Totonji, Ahmad Sakr, Hussein Shahrestani, Yunus Mukhtarzadeh (Succeeded by Ilyas Ba Yunus), Osman Ahmad, Ibrahim Kellizy (succeeded by Mozaffar Partowmah), Ahmad Sakr, and Jamal Barzinji.

1973-74 - The now late Tijani Abu Gedeiri is president (his children will be members of the revolutionary Youth Committee of 1984-85) followed by Mahmoud Rashdan. Two separate committees work on plans to reorganize the MSA’s structure.

-Up till this point the MSA organizational structure consists of an executive committee, a couple specific secretaries based at the headquarters, and a regional structure, with regional representatives.

People to talk to about it: Ilyas Ba-Yunus. The Elder Barzinji.

MSA Restructured, Indianapolis chosen as HQ, Youth Committee Created?

1974-75 - Mahmoud Rashdan is president, followed by Iqbal Unus.

1974-1975 - NEW STRUCTURE. At the beginning of the year the Executive Committee appoints a new Planning and Organizing Committee to continue the work of the two committees working on those areas last year [says the 1974-1975 Annual Report, released presumably in Aug. of 75.] After intensive and detailed study by the committees, the Executive Committee approves a new MSA organizational set-up to be submitted to the General Assembly for adoption. The newly proposed MSA structure has zones and regions and the executive structure is rearranged to include a General Secretariat. It is eventually approved. This organizational set-up will set the stage for the later organization of MYNA, as the youth group will be structured to mimic its adult parent group, with zones and regions, and many prominent MYNA activities will simply be continuations, extensions, or adaptation of existing regional and zonal ISNA youth camps. [The new amended 1974-1975 - constitution features two main units: The executive committee and the general secretariat. The Executive Committee consists of seven members: The President, the Vice President, the past President and four zonal representatives. The US and Canada are divided into four zones, each to be in turn divided into several regions depending on concentration of members and geographical boundaries of the zone [a vagueness of local organization that carries over into MYNA]. The Canadian zone-divided into four (or three? typo?) regions, 1) the eastern zone-divided into four regions-2) the mid-western zone-divided into five regions, and 3) the western zone, divided into three regions. Each zone will have a zonal council consisting of the zonal representative [[coin termed here, later used in MYNA]] as its chairman and the regional representatives [[also eventually repeated in MYNA structure]] as members. "The Executive Committee will be assisted by a General Secretariat consisting of five full-time workers who will implement the decisions and policies made by the Executive Committee. They will also "be concerned with the short and long range evolution of the Association as it adapts itself appropriately to its constantly changing needs within the framework and the guidelines set by the General Assembly,” says the Annual Report.

[[Re: FULL TIME STAFF. This, a general secretariat, or paid-full-time staff, is something that will be missing from the MYNA structural picture until it is finally started to be called for in the late 1990s (perhaps it was called for before that as well, but if so it isn't apparent in the records). There were however some people who would maintain and MYNA office at ISNA headquarters in (and possibly up to) at least 1996, specifically early MYNA leaders based out of Indianapolis, as there is discussion of a "MYNA Continental Office" from early on at ISNA Headquarters, which would possibly have been in the space previously used by the MSA/ISNA Youth committee as the last ISNA Youth Planning Committee head is also said to have had a "desk" that he sends communiqués out. Though, his "desk" could just have been a figure of speech, he was local to Indianapolis, so it's very likely he had a desk there. Eventually, the MYNA office at the headquarters-which appears to have been intermittently staffed by summer interns in 1996, was then reduced to a cubicle and finally, in 1997, a cabinet, which is what it is today. The search to fill the position of a "MYNA youth coordinator" at ISNA Headquarters was first called for in the 1998 "Reviving MYNA" plan outlined by Aiman Mir, Waheed Mustafa and Jawaad Abdul Rahman, a job description drafted by Riyad Shamma and Ahmed ElHattab and advertised in Islamic Horizons in 1999, became dormant, and was then reactivated in 2002 following a the formation and sanctioning of the new MYNA advisory board in Oct. 2002 and energized by the impetus of the March 2002 Strategic Planning Retreat. The effort reached completion with the hiring of three full-time staff in 2003, one independently and improperly by ISNA General Secretariat at ISNA HQ, and two part time till Dec. 2003 by the MYNA Advisory Committee. As of Aug. 2003, Taneeza Islam, the new ISNA/MYNA Youth Coordinator, now has an office dedicated to youth work at ISNA Headquarters, and has started to access the MYNA Cabinet for information and reference, but it is still unclear whether or not she is a MYNA staff-person or an ISNA one. As such, official MYNA presence at the ISNA Headquarters is still reduced to the MYNA Cabinet at present.]]

-After an extensive search, a planning committee picks Indianapolis to be the site for the new MSA headquarters. [MSA/ISNA HQ will go on to be the site of the first youth conference and many MYNA conferences camps, activities, and meetings.]

-And Shaukat Ali Khan (1), the then current MSA West Coast representative, presumably an MSA adult, is listed as chairman of the MSA Youth Functional Committee and the MSA Executive Committee officially endorses and calls for the establishment of Muslim Youth Camps in different regions in the U.S. and Canada. A permanent committee for organizing and supervising these camps is said to be "being formed." It is not indicated if Ali Khan’s Youth Committee chair position existed before the creation of the permanent "committee to organize and supervise youth camps," or if they are the same committee being referred to here. If they are the same, then MSA’s Youth Committee is born here. If not, it has existed before. Either way, it is safe to say that Youth programs were a common part of MSA conferences and conventions up till this point--though how well organized they were is another matter--and that Youth Camps will start to have a more prominent role over the next ten years as the Functional Youth Planning Committee develops into a strong and increasingly active one, toward eventually becoming an independent, and primarily youth-run body.

[side note: Also of note is that a woman serves as a “Coopted member” of the executive council at this time, too.]

People to talk to: Shaukat Ali Khan

First of the OTHER ISNA youth groups

1976 - Ezzat Jaradat is president of MSA (succeeded by Yaqub Mirza). MAYA, the Muslim Arab Youth of America, is founded as an MSA constituent organization-it is actually an adaptation and conglomeration of existing Arab students associations, primarily the Kuwaiti Students Association, according to Ahmed ElHattab, who was active in the previous organizations, as well. ElHattab is MAYA's first president. Their programs are primarily in Arabic with overlapping speakers from MSA programs, but also others who only speak Arabic from overseas. [Much later there will be a Malaysian Islamic Studies Group under the MSA/ISNA umbrella for years, as well. Both will decline in the 80s (check)--and indeed die out--before MYNA's similar decline in the late 90s, but then MYNA is starting to be revived while they are not. But as MAYA and MYNA--and probably MISG in some form--were very successful for very many years, people who went through their programs are now prominently placed in Muslim American community leadership and Islamic activism via various organizations and efforts throughout the country. When in 1994, ICNA seeks to start a youth wing, they approach MYNA leaders who advise them in the creation of ICNA's YM, or Young Muslims, a more ICNA-movement-oriented and indeed smaller scale version of MYNA, basically, which continues to operate till today, as does a 90s-formed youth wing of the Muslim American Society (MAS), known as MAS Youth, as the only Muslim youth organizations with functional structures. They are picking up steam today while MYNA goes through reorganization.]

1977 -Yaqub Mirza is MSA president.

1979 - Rabie H. Ahmed is MSA president.

Late 70s or Early 80s - Youth Committee complains to MSA leadership about lack of attention/resource allocation, Dawood Zwink assigned to deal with Youth Committee. [In the days before MYNA, or even "ISNA," Dawood Zwink says that the youth programs were thought of as deficient by the youth themselves and that it had led to resentment amongst the now college-aged youth who had gone through the shoddy youth programs and lack of being taken seriously within the ISNA structure. After one last particularly bad conference experience, where girls and boys programs were kept separate and where girls had a program but boys didn’t, and (maybe the same conference) where an MSA speaker totally disregarded a youth session he was signed up for and didn’t even bother to tell them, the youth decided to get together, girls and boys, and start their own efforts to organize sessions, programs and eventually an organization, “by youth, for youth.” They complained to the MSA leadership in Ansar House (this was before the MSA HQ building was built) downstairs where MSA leadership used to work out of and were subsequently turned over to Dawood Zwink, who worked out of the upstairs, to advise and come up with programs/activities for. He says off-record that it was because they didn't want to deal with the youth.]

People to talk to: Ezzat Jaradat, Yaqub Mirza, Rabie H. Ahmed, Ahmed ElHattab (first president of MAYA), Dawood Zwink

Art: None

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home