By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Sacramento: Ras H. Siddiqui has got this year’s Council on American Islamic Relations or CAIR (Sacramento-Valley) “Fairness and Integrity in the Media Award” at their annual event in Sacramento on Saturday November 23.
Introduced by Phil Pasquini of the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, Ras was recognized for his many years of contribution to Muslim-American journalism in Northern California and especially the Sacramento area.
L-R: Mehdi Hasan, Ras Siddiqui and Wajahat Ali.
In his acceptance speech before almost 1000 people in attendance Ras thanked CAIR (Sacramento) for the pleasant surprise and honor which he shared with his wife because his journalistic endeavors would not have been possible without her support.
He said that he started writing about the American-Muslim experience about 20 years ago and that it was much easier then because he still had his youth (and his hair) at the time, and it was pre-9/11 America. But everything changed and the level of difficulty increased since that horrible day when the twin towers were destroyed.
Ras added, “Let there be no question that Muslim-Americans are net contributors to this great country. The violent people you read about in the headlines are the exception and not the norm. We are the norm. Thank you and have a great Thanksgiving everyone.”
Due to time constraints he could not publicly thank three educational institutions which have made his journey as a writer possible. First Aligarh Muslim University in India from where his father graduated (which deeply influenced his home life), second, Saint Joseph Higher Secondary School in Dhaka, Bangladesh where he actually caught this writing bug. And last but not least Karachi Grammar School in Pakistan.
Present at the CAIR event were many members of the state, county and city government including California Assembly member Mariko Yamada. And from amongst the Muslim media, Mehdi Hasan from the United Kingdom (whose speech at the Oxford Union recently went viral) and Wajahat Ali both from Al Jazeera headlined the event.