Whole Life Times: Local Arab Woman Unveils Her Political Dream

August 2004 | Feature

Local Arab Woman Unveils Her Political Dream

She hails from Mecca, but if all goes well, Ferial Masry’s pilgrimage will take her to Sacramento this November.

by James Greenberg

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in Agoura. Ferial Masry is explaining to a small group of supporters at a backyard fundraiser why she is running for the California State Assembly in the heavily Republican 37th district that includes Thousand Oaks. Masry is a Democrat and was born in Saudi Arabia, making her campaign one of the most intriguing storylines in American politics today. If she wins, she will be the first Saudi native and first Muslim woman to hold elective office in the United States.

An elegant and energetic figure in a red silk top and immaculately pressed black slacks, she is disarmingly direct, speaking passionately about representing her district and being a positive role model for Arab-Americans. But when she gets to the point about how her candidacy is so important to women back home, the immensity of what she is attempting momentarily overwhelms her. “I hope I don’t cry,” she says, struggling to contain the feelings of a lifetime.

Masry, 55, is not your ordinary politician; in fact, she’s not a politician at all. She teaches American history and government at Cleveland High School in Reseda. Her heroes are Jefferson and Madison and she can cite chapter and verse of not only the Koran, but also the Constitution. Although she has participated in all sorts of community activism—from the National Woman’s Political Caucus to Americans United for Separation of Church and State—Masry had never been involved in organized politics. That changed when America invaded Iraq.

“I said to everyone around here, ‘We have to go and change from within the party. The party is not a building; the party is people.’ I told them, ‘Instead of complaining, we have to have the guts to do something.’”

She started hanging around the Conejo Valley Democratic Club and considered running for the assembly seat, then stepped aside when a more experienced candidate declared his intention to run. When he became ill, the party scrambled to find a replacement and called on Masry with less then a month to go before the primary. She had no name recognition and no money.

“I told the kids in my class, ‘I’m running and my opponent is going to spend over half a million dollars.’ And they asked me, ‘How much money do you have?’ I said, ‘$140.’”

As a write-in candidate, Masry needed 1,200 votes to make it onto the November ballot. Much to everyone’s surprise, except her own, she received more than 3,800 votes in a district encompassing parts of the San Fernando Valley and almost half of Ventura County that is 46-percent Republican and only 34-percent Democrat. What made it even more extraordinary was that write-in candidates rarely, if ever, succeed in getting on the ballot. With that, the Democratic establishment had to sit up and take notice.

“It’s the Perfect Storm Theory,” says veteran campaign advisor Jim Miller. “Everything has conspired to come together at the right time. She transcends being a Republican or a Democrat.”

Masry’s story started gaining attention nationally and internationally. Reporters wanted her to fly to Paris for interviews. When her oldest son Omar, an army reservist called up for active duty in Iraq, told local Arab journalists that his mother was running for office in America, she started getting calls all hours of the night. “They couldn’t believe it. ‘You sure you’re Saudi? What’s your family name?’ You have to understand this is something strange to a lot of people. They cover women there; they can’t even get a driver’s license.”

The fact that Masry was born in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, further confounds people’s expectations “because I am completely opposite of what they might think. And then when they see me they go, ‘Oh, my God.’ This has happened all my life.”

Masry was the oldest of seven children in an upper-middle-class family. Her father, whom she rarely saw, organized pilgrimages to Mecca, but her mother, like many Saudi women, uneducated and married at 13, had higher goals for her children. In a move almost unprecedented in the country, she sent Ferial off to school in Cairo when she was 9, along with two of her sisters.

“The women in my family were very strong,” says Masry. “My aunt, my mother and women around me were very determined and very shrewd in spite of their oppression. That’s what I learned from them—never give up. My mother always said that among her children I was different: ‘You are like a bird because nobody can cage you.’”

Spending her formative years in Mecca, where people came from the four corners of the world on spiritual journeys, had a profound effect on her. “I saw people from all over,” she recalls. “It really opened my eyes to see something different. That enriched me a lot. I saw the love and kindness, and all that stayed in my mind. I think my experience has really touched my humanity, and when you get to that, you see people differently.”

After graduating with a degree in journalism, Masry moved to London, where her family was now living. She worked with immigrant children and, for a time, avoided the entanglement of marriage. “I remember every time someone proposed to me I thought he was going to imprison me. I didn’t want to accept a life of just growing up, getting married, having children; that was not the life I was seeking. I always felt there is something I have to achieve, something that is bigger than me, but I couldn’t figure out what it is.”

Eventually she did get married—to Waleed Al Masry, a Nigerian electrical engineer of Armenian and Lebanese descent. After living in his homeland for five years, her husband wanted to go back to London, but Masry insisted on moving to America. They settled in California in 1979, raised three children, and for 10 years Masry ran an Islamic school before getting her teaching credentials and a master’s degree and going to work at Cleveland. “Coming to America,” she says, “it was like, at last, I can find my freedom and speak my mind.”

In a district that strongly supports the war in Iraq, Masry does not hesitate to express her own strong opinions. She questions what the war is achieving, and as someone who knows the fragmented history of Iraq, wonders how America blundered into a situation without understanding the language or culture.

“The Middle East has always been about violence,” she explains, “and we are trying to solve the problem with more violence. First of all, look at our policies: We are supporting dictators. The only democratic system we had was in Iran and we managed to destroy it. So the people in the Middle East look at that and see we are backing tyrants. We never really care about anything except our benefit and our interests. So how do you want the people in the Middle East to perceive us?”

Although she thought the war was crazy from the start, she did not feel it was contradictory to support her son’s work there. As part of a Civil Affairs unit, he was helping to rebuild schools and hospitals. “The army is the tool of the politicians, but the soldiers in the army are just doing their job,” declares Masry. “What Omar is doing in Iraq represents the other side of our power and our ability, and is supporting the beautiful side of the United States.”

Just as her son has tried to deliver that message to skeptical Iraqis, Masry has never lost sight of the idealism and positive aspects of America. At the request of the State Department, she addressed a group of Saudi journalists who could not fathom that Americans would actually vote for a Saudi woman. “I told them America is not what the Neo-Cons vision is. Of course, they asked me if I was being used for propaganda purposes. I said that I’m happy to be used to build bridges.”

How her message will be received by her largely white, upper-middle-class constituency remains to be seen. The district has not had a Democratic assemblyman for more than 50 years. Masry’s opponent is Audra Strickland, wife of the right-wing incumbent who has reached his term limit. Masry anticipates a hard-fought and perhaps nasty campaign. Some insiders in the Masry camp believe Strickland could play the terrorist card in the general election, based on the combative tenor of her primary campaign. At the very least, the Republicans are said to be prepared to spend $1 million to keep their seat. As David and Goliath battles go, this is a whopper.

But what Masry has going for her is an honesty, warmth and likeability that can potentially disarm any grenades lobbed in her direction. “I’ve been active all my life and I’ve always been outspoken,” she says. “But I try to include all the people, even the ones I don’t agree with.”

When she recently went to a Muslim group to ask for their backing, she was told they couldn’t support her because she didn’t wear a hijab (head cover). “So I said, ‘Who are you to define me or judge me? It’s something between me and God and not between you and me, so butt out of it.’ And they wound up supporting me.”

Masry believes, even if voters are against her position on the war, they will respond to her stand on local issues, such as education. “My opponent wants to destroy public schools, and I think that’s a crime,” she says of Strickland’s support for school vouchers. “Public schools are the most wonderful system humanity has given itself. It’s what America is all about. You don’t have to agree with every issue, but if you believe in public schools, you’re going to vote for me. I’m appealing to Republicans and Democrats.”

The other galvanizing local issue as she sees it is health insurance, which, she says, could cost each of us as much as $40,000 in 10 years time. “Health insurance should be a right, not a privilege. We’re the richest country in the world, yet we’re so stingy.”

Armed with the convictions of the just and the idealism of the political novice, Masry is prepared to go after any sacred cow, including Gov. Schwarzenegger, whose budget she calls a recipe for disaster. Favoritism for the rich at the expense of the middle class is not new to her. “I’ve seen this all my life. I come from a country where the middle class is very small and not powerful, so you have the very rich and the very poor, and look at what’s going on there. For me, it’s really scary. If you weaken the middle class, you’re going to have a banana republic.”

Ultimately, what raises Masry above a novelty act on the political stage and makes her unique as a candidate is her ability to see the concerns of a small district in California in a global perspective. “I have a worldly view because I’ve been to oppressive countries and I’ve been to democratic countries, so I know what’s beautiful about the world,” she says. “It’s a holistic view and not just, ‘we are the best and that’s it.’ I think that’s what interests people in my campaign—they think I’m inclusive because I look at things from the big picture. The more experience and understanding you have, the more mature your view is going to be. I look at the problem locally and I see also the world.”

For further information about Masry’s campaign, visit www.masryforassembly.com.

James Greenberg is a registered democrat. He lives in Santa Monica with his wife and has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Yoga Journal and many other publications.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: