As the eldest child she consciously changed her behaviour, in the presence of hard times, to fill a social role in raising her siblings while her parents worked. Her father worked on an assembly line in a Ford Motor Company plant. As a child of working-class Palestinian immigrants, Rashida Tlaib learned early in life the lessons of hardship, faced by the immigrants in these United States and in Palestine.
Rashida, being a very strong and a courageous woman, worked hard in school and university and graduated from Southwestern High School in Detroit in 1994, then completed a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Wayne State University in 1998 and finally earned a Juris Doctor from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School in 2004. She began her political career as an intern with a Michigan State Representative and later became a member of his staff. In 2008 she contested for a seat in the Michigan State Assembly, winning the general election with more than 90% of the votes; in 2010 she won the election with almost 92% of the vote, and won the re-election again in 2012. However, in 2014 she could not run for the 4th time due to a term limit and ran for the Michigan Senate and lost to incumbent Senator.
After leaving the state legislature, Rashida worked at a Law Centre, a Detroit non-profit that provides free legal representation for workers. In December 2017, Congressman John Conyers, who served as a U.S. Representative for Michigan for more than 50 years, tendered his resignation before the end of his term. Being a very courageous woman, Rashida Tlaib, who believed in Be-Brave-And-Keep-Going policy, announced in 2018 her intention to run for John Conyers’s congressional seat. She filed in both the Democratic primary in the special election for the balance of Conyers’s 27th term and in the general election for a full two-year term.
In the Democratic primary for the general election, Rashida Tlaib defeated her opponents by receiving 31.2% of the vote. She faced no major-party opposition in November 2018, and won the election. She became the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress and simultaneously one of the first two Muslim women in Congress along with Ilhan Omar. On January 3, 2019, she took the congressional oath of office, swearing in on an English language translation of the Qur’an.
Even before coming to Washington representing her district in Congress, she protested against Trump in 2016 at a Detroit Economic Club meeting. At that time she was working as a public interest attorney at the Sugar Law Centre for Economic and Social Justice. Being a Palestinian, she always expressed her feelings about the tragedy of the Holocaust and remembered the lost land, lives, livelihood, and dignity of Palestinians and her ancestors. She always said that the Holocaust and its horrific persecution of Jewish people should be remembered while upholding the dignity of Palestinians; this being the hallmark of her speeches and comments.
The Republican Party and President Trump engaged in false attacks while misquoting her. While twisting and misconstruing Tlaib’s comments and words to spread falsehoods deep rooted in hate, the right-wing extremists, GOP leadership and President Trump engaged in inciting hate and violence toward her. Rashida Tlaib strongly believes in taking a stand and speaking against hate and violence. She knows that this is an attempt by the administration and the Republican Party to distract Americans from their horrible policies, lawless acts, and actual anti-Semitic rhetoric. She once said, “Anti-Semitism has no place in our society and any effort to try to sow hate and divisiveness into our political discourse must be stopped immediately in its tracks.”
Rashida Tlaib and three Congresswomen got together, made a bold statement saying they would not be silenced and will continue to challenge the callous, chaotic, and corrupt administration. These four members of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) came to be referred to in mainstream media outlets as “the Squad.” Their courage helped them in drawing support on social media, which in turn put pressure on Democratic Party leaders to take them and their message seriously.
Rashida Tlaib’s activities as a Congresswoman include representing unseen Americans left out in the bigger arena of American prosperity. She committed herself to creating a more equitable and just America by introducing legislations in Congress that would provide more relief and help for the poor. She is cognisant of the right trying to demean the seriousness of what she is doing. She became a convenient target for Trump and his supporters because she is a young, progressive non-white woman representing a progressive district.
Rashida Tlaib, being a Palestinian-American became an outspoken critic of Israel, and in particular, its occupation of Arab Jerusalem and the West Bank and the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in her speeches and discussion, she said her criticisms of the Israeli government are based on policy differences. She wholeheartedly supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel.
In August 2019 Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were scheduled to visit Israel, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem on an official visit. All arrangements were complete when President Trump applied intense pressure forcing Netanyahu’s government to deny both from entering Israel. Trump campaigned against both, saying that they hate Israel and all Jewish people. This represents Trump’s insult to democratic values and a white supremacist response to US Government officials making a trip to Israel. Later, Israel relented and said Rashida Tlaib could visit her 90-year-old grandmother who lives in the occupied West Bank if she agrees not to promote boycotts against Israel during the trip. She rejected the offer, saying she could not make the trip under these oppressive conditions. “Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me,” she said of her grandmother. “It would kill a piece of me.”
Rashida Tlaib has a profound influence on the Muslim and American-Palestinian communities after becoming a member of Congress. She exercised the power she acquired to make a change in the United States that by extension had a significant impact on the Muslim world.
The publication ‘The World’s Most Influential Muslims -2020’ selected the American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib as this year’s Muslim 500 Woman of the Year. It declared that in choosing her the Woman of the Year, consideration was given to the dominant and lasting influence she used in the US as a trailblazer. The traits and qualities she acquired earlier in life assisted her in dealing with stress in the US Congress when she became the most publicised member of the Congress largely because of President Trump’s public accusations who inadvertently put her on the international scene, forcing the world to look at her achievements and well-developed blossoming personality. She is an inspiration across the globe not only because she is a very outspoken woman who cares about humanity, peace, and justice in the United States, but also because she has and shown great strength and dignity under pressure.
[MOHAMMAD YACOOB is a retired Industrial Engineer and Engineering Proposals Analyst, lives in Los Angeles, California.]