Q: Since we’re going to be discussing about elections can you as a Pakistani voting American, talk about the Muslim women in this country and who they voted for and what were their choices?

ANEELA ARSHAD: It was all about hope for us.

Q: When you say we, you mean Muslim women?

ARSHAD: I mean the Muslim women. Everyone is talking about Muslim terrorists, Muslim fundamentalists –– fear of Muslims and the Muslim voice is lost. The lost voice of this minority within the minority as you said is not being heard.

Q: But there must be some specific issues that they voted on. Muslim women have suffered much more than the rest of the women in my understanding and that is the plight that has obviously moved you. So its interesting to know that they are here –– Pakistani Americans and Pakistan is a U.S. ally –– and at the same time Muslims are viewed as suspects so can you give us the complexities of the choices?

ARSHAD: As far as women a lot of women, they really didn’t come out and talk about it.

Q: You mean their political beliefs?

ARSHAD: Yes after 9/11 the veil of fear is thickening by the day.

Q: When you say thickening, why?

ARSHAD: People feel threatened, they feel at an edge, people feel that they have been compromised, women in particular and there are so many case histories of women that I know personally who have been victimized because their husbands were plucked and they disappeared –– and no one knows where.

Q: So that is one of the things that made them choose Kerry? What is the position that Kerry gave that attracted them?

ARSHAD: Hope and survival –– hope to be heard, hope to be equal.

Q: Is it because generally the Democratic Party is supposed to be perceived as more embracing of ethnic population or Kerry gave any specific areas of hopes that they latched on to?

ARSHAD: No. It was basically just the party. Not the candidate so much.

Q: I believe –– or at least one of the polls said that Gore got more women’s votes than Kerry did. So what do you think happened to the Pakistani votes? I’m talking about women.

ARSHAD: They were mixed.

Q: But do you have any statistics that you can throw at me?

ARSHAD: I really don’t have the numbers on me. I wish I did.

Q: But anecdotally you must have spoken –– did you speak to a lot women?

ARSHAD: It was a mix. Let’s say 50/50.

Q: Ok let’s take the Republican perspective now. If any Pakistani American women voted Republican, why did they do it?

ARSHAD: From what I know the common concern was that Kerry is not good for Pakistan. So lets not vote for Kerry.

Q: So they were really not looking at women’s issues, they were looking at the country. One last question, can you talk about the plight of women in Pakistan?

ARSHAD: Going from bad to worse. Honor killing is something that I am targeting, which is becoming more rampant in the tribal areas and now even in the smaller cities.

Q: Why I am asking you is because of those issues they would be more comfortable with being American and not worry about what is going to happen to Pakistan. So I am a little confused here.

ARSHAD: Places can change. Venues can change. Mindset does not change.

Q: That’s very well said. Women’s issues are so important. We can go on and on. Even in the United States they got their voting rights only 80 years ago. But unfortunately we have to break for the commercials.

Q: Zarine the question is for you. This particular election, dubbed the most important for swing votes and among them was a segment of women who was being wooed by both the parties. What do you think was achieved? I believe Kerry got 11 percent less vote than Gore. Can you give your analysis and tell me where your heart took you?

ZARINE NANDAN: The important segment of the women’s vote was the so-called security moms. They were the ones who were worried about their children’s future. They were the ones worried about more terrorist attacks. Bush came out stronger on the war on terror. They tended to vote more for Bush than Kerry.

Q: What about pro-choice, Roe vs Wade. Do you think that did not play part?

NANDAN: But with the segment of the population it did not weigh as much as their children’s future.

They were also women who were worried about their children being called to the draft. So it cut both ways. And of course they voted more for Kerry than for Bush.

Q: But where did he lose the 11 percent?

NANDAN: It depends on what you believe was stronger –– the war on terror or the war on Iraq...

Q: You mean the fear was so great that other issues were left behind?

NANDAN: Fear was deliberately manufactured to a certain extent and it was great enough for women to worry about their children and families and therefore vote for Bush.

Q: Let’s take a younger perspective. Do you feel more secure with Bush or do you feel your friends felt more secure with Bush?

THEVAKI CHRZANOWSKI: No I don’t believe I feel more secure with Bush. I feel young voters in New York feel that we have less security under Bush...

Q: Under Bush there is less security? Can you explain? Why do you feel that?

CHRZANOWSKI: Especially as a South Asian I feel more segregated, I feel....

Q: Profiled.

CHRZANOWSKI: Profiled.

Q: But there is no direct profiling as such. Do you feel it is in your mind? Is it the Patriot Act that bothers you?

CHRZANOWSKI: It is a combination of things. It is what is covered in the media, how Bush describes situations, the terminology...

Q: That means Kerry did not lose your segment.

CHRZANOWSKI: I don’t think he lost that segment. I believe that his message was unclear so that those on the borderline did not get a clear message from him. I believe other issue health care, education, all those domestic issues, which are affecting us, like job situation people did not vote on them significantly.

Q: Are you feeling slightly biased being married to a doctor?

CHRZANOWSKI: No our family are doctors but I think for a young professional in business who wants to be entrepreneurial we think about health care...

Q: So Kerry’s message was more clear to you.

CHRZANOWSKI: I thought it was more clear because we have four years during which the Bush administration did not address those issues.

NANDAN: And yet Bush was the one who was always talking about small business.

Q: Am I correct in saying that if Kerry got your vote it was not women’s issues? They were more job creation, health care...

NANDAN: I would say those issues influenced about 60 percent of my voting decision. The other 40 were....

Q: I believe 15 percent of the votes went to Bush, and I am not talking about just women, on morality issues and sometime morality gets mired in religion. But you said the Muslim women preferred Kerry. Am I correct? Can you say in one line what it is that Kerry said that?

NANDAN: Hope.

Q: What would be your perspective in terms of morality, the whole issue has been so overbeaten this time and since 15 percent of the vote did go there, as a journalist what do you think?

NANDAN: I think some of the exit polls were not correct. People were asked in a very vague way like did you vote for moral issues.

Q: Let’s say for a minute that the polls were correct. How do you personally see morality or do you think women see morality differently?

NANDAN: To me morality is my private business. Religion is my private business. I do not wear it on my sleeve. And I don’t think anyone else should. There is a distinction between church and state in this country. It was very fudged in this campaign. We should go back to having a broader distinction and trying to keep religion to one’s private life.

CHRZANOWSKI: But the Republican campaign did not seem to separate them. That’s what I thought. To me it was one opinion was going to be dominant. I think after the elections that is one of the fears is that this separation is not going to happen.

When we talk about morality the definition has to be clarified when we see human rights violations left and right.

Q: I don’t know if you heard Barak Obama on ‘ABC News This Week’ with George Stephanopolous. He said he would like to broaden the meaning of morality and include human rights and civil rights issues.

NANDAN: To me one acid test is if you are against abortion because the fetus is alive, should you also not be against death penalty? You are killing another being. It is state-sanctioned. It is a contradiction for religious right to be against abortion and not against death penalty.

Q: Can we come to the center and try and understand this 15 percent who voted for morality? What do you think attracted them in the Republican platform?

NANDAN: I think it was ban against gay marriage. A lot of people are against gay marriage. They would not mind gay civil unions.

Q: How did you feel?

NANDAN: It does not bother me. I am not going to be involved in it. If two decent loving, caring people live together, they should get married if they want to. But that should be their personal decision.

Q: But are you talking about living together or marriage? Talking about changing the constitution.

NANDAN: We don’t need to change the constitution. It is a state issue and each state has the right to define for itself. But I feel there is so much divorce in this country between men and women...

Q: I was going to come to that. There is such moral bankruptcy that we are going through. In which case do you feel that morality was and important issue and did the Republican Party have something to offer there.

NANDAN: I think they exploited the issue more than anything else.

CHRZANOWSKI: I think that the lack of clarity, it is not just a Republican issue, I think even the Democrats did not clarify what they felt. I do think a majority of people do think of morality also as a family. And that was not expressed so clearly.

Q: The point that I would like to look into, the fact that in the northeast corridor we are all such die-hard Democrats and some of the centrist may have felt looked down upon., may have felt disenfranchised. How do we bring them into our fold because I don’t think we disagree with them completely.

NANDAN: I think communication is very important. We have to reach out to those people, try to understand their point of view and conversely they should do the same with us. After all we are one country. We cannot afford to be polarized like we were in this election.

Q: As much as the Democratic Party is supposed to be more embracing of ethnic communities, at least Indian Americans are polarized. During the Democratic convention we had 55 South Asian delegates and the Republicans had 34, which is not so bad. As the immigrants get settled, they make money, they do sort have a pull towards the Republican Party. But that is not the only thing. What I heard from the delegates was that they share the Republican values. Let’s analyze that from our women’s perspective. What are the values that we do share sincerely with which party?

NANDAN: I think a lot of Indian Americans feel that the Republicans have stronger family values. Rightly or wrongly I don’t know. But I think a lot of people voted for the Republicans on that issue.

Q: I am talking specifically now of South Asian Americans who felt they shared values strongly with the Republican party.

NANDAN: Of course, a lot of Indians are conservative. They are against abortion. So that was another reason to vote Republicans. And they are also very religious. So they accepted Bush’s faith-based initiative and moral values.

Q: Do you see a similar polarization in the younger generation?

CHRZANOWSKI: I think they identify with... I think as our generation gets older they look at families. They get more settled in life they see some of those themes, similarities or beliefs in some of the same. But I think it is getting confused because the Republican party is using general terms like family values and so forth.

Q: But in the northeast as being liberal Democrat do you feel kind of marginalized or separated from the rest of the country?

CHRZANOWSKI: I think in the northeast we were most affected by 9/11. When we think of the states that went to Kerry, they hold the largest cities in the country.

Q: But that is analyzing. Where do we go from here? Are we going to do something about it because the election is finished now?

CHRZANOWSKI: I feel totally disheartened and upset. It is not even the fact that we have the re-election of the president but there is no balance in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

I feel the whole atmosphere has gone very distinctly right. There is no check going on.

Q: In the judiciary we know, there are at least two or three judges that would be replaced. How do you feel about the current administration and what’s going to happen?

NANDAN: I think perhaps President Bush will use those majorities and impose a right wing Supreme Court Chief Justice but the Democrats will not fall for it.

Q: But during the debates both the candidates almost ducked the Roe vs Wade issue. How do you see this panning out?

NANDAN: I am still bit depressed but recovering. I feel one should fight. One should not lie down and let others walk all over us.

Q: What should the strategy be now?

NANDAN: I think the Democrats have very good family values. It is just that they did not explain them to the heartland. The war on poverty –– is that not a family value? Health matters. Helping the uninsured –– is that not a family value? Helping poor people and their children. These are all family values and why did we not explain to the heartland that it is in their interest to have all these things.

Q: What will Muslim American women do with this administration in the sense that some voted for them and some did not?

ARSHAD: First of all they will have to overcome the fear factor. That underlying fear –– if we speak we will be prosecuted.

Q: But that fear is regardless of the party. They seem to be fearful of speaking per se.

ARSHAD: Yes but now more, definitely more. As far as morality and other issues which have been exploited. However, I feel that at this point we just have to carry on being strong and hope for the future.

Q: I continue to repeat this line and I am going to repeat it for the last time that we are a minority within a minority. A very silent minority –– South Asian women. I have three dynamic women sitting in front of me. Does anybody have an idea as to how we can make them speak, our voice more audible?

NANDAN: I think set an example first. Here are three women discussing this issue. Perhaps a lot of women in the audience will hear us and feel inspired to start their own little discussions within their families or social circles. What the Republicans succeeded in doing is to make liberal a dirty word. I am a liberal and I am proud of it. Liberal stands for liberty and we should be proud of being liberal. That is something that the Democrats will have to work on to change.

CHRZANOWSKI: I think there needs to be more of an initiative to push South Asian women into the forefront politically.

ARSHAD: Definitely women should be given more chances to come forward and have their voices heard.

–– Transcribed by M. Chooki