M.D.
Rabbi Alam was born
November 20, 1974 in Khulna, Bangladesh. He earned a bachelor's
degree in biology in 1996, and a bachelor's in political science soon thereafter—both
at the Bangladesh National University. He then worked for three years
as a science teacher in a high school and a divisional police
school in Khulna.
In 2000, Alam immigrated
to the United States and joined the U.S. Army, where he served on
active duty until being honorably
discharged in 2005. He then settled in Kansas City, Missouri,
where he taught mathematics and personal finance at the Islamic
School of Greater Kansas City and the Imagine Renaissance Academy, a
charter school. Alam also worked a year as director of international
business for P/Strada, a
local management-consulting firm, before becoming CEO of Minority
Directed Small Business in 2007.
Also in 2007, Alam earned
a master's degree in computer science at the University of Phoenix.
Three years later, he received both a master's degree in mathematics
education and a teacher's certification in secondary mathematics at
the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Alam founded
the Missouri Democratic
Party Asian-American Caucus (MDPAAC)
in 2007. Two years after that, he became national chairman
of the U.S. National Democratic Party Asian-American Caucus.
In
2008 Alam served as a “satellite campaign manager” for then-presidential
candidate Barack
Obama. His efforts on Obama's behalf
eventually earned
Alam
an invitation
to
the White House in December 2011.
Alam
launched his own political career in 2010. After losing
the Democratic primary for a seat in the Missouri House of
Representatives, he ran unopposed for the office of Democratic Party
committeeman for Kansas City's 26th Ward, and began serving a
two-year term in January 2011. On March 6, 2012, Alam announced that
he would run for Missouri secretary of state in the
November elections.
Alam has openly speculated about Jewish involvement in the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Most
notably, on February 19, 2009 he made a post
on a Topix.com discussion forum, asking: “Was 9/11 a conspiracy?”
The post, which contained several spelling and grammatical errors,
linked to a 9/11 conspiracy video titled Loose
Change
and continued:
“Now, I can say this much which is a big yes from my own understanding and own judgement. But there is always other side of the coin. Few question to my readers, Why 9/11 was a official holidy for all jewish people worked in the the WTC [World Trade Center]? Who can tell me how many of the Jewish people died on the 9/11 tragedy? Finally, who can tell me why there was a closed-end security and dog squad was implaced at the lower level of the WTC just a block before the 9/11?"
In
a subsequent
interview
regarding that post, Alam, citing “articles and research” that
purportedly buttressed his position, said: “My
question was, 'What’s the reason not a single Jew was killed on
that day? Was there a single Jew killed on that day?'”[1] Further, Alam declared that commercial airliners, by themselves, could not have toppled the Twin Towers. “I have 100
percent doubts. It doesn’t add up,” he said. “My bottom line is
the plane is not solely responsible for destroying the whole
building.”
In
February 2010, Alam stated
that the “catastrophic war on terror is nothing but a horror
suffering for us as an immigrant.” He added: “This country, it is
true, that when you are not involved in the mainstream, you are
nothing but treated yourself as a stranger.”
Later that same month, Alam attended
an American
Muslims for Palestine (AMP) event
titled
“One
Year Later: Besieged Gaza—Still
Standing Tall.”
AMP events commonly feature extremist, anti-Semitic rhetoric.
In
May 2012, Alam
attended a
presentation by
Sheik
Khalid Yasin, a
U.S.-born Muslim convert infamous
for supporting Islamic terrorism and the worldwide implementation of
Sharia law.
Alam is also on record denouncing
the
2003 arrest of former Palestinian
Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami
Al-Arian. In a 2009 address to the Islamic Society of
Greater Kansas City, for instance, Alam lamented
that
Al-Arian had been “falsely accused and victimized by [the] war on
terror”—even
though the latter
had already pled
guilty to
terrorism-related charges by that time.
Notably, a number of
Alam's
colleagues
at MDPAAC are supporters
of Viva
Palestina, an Islamist organization with
close ties to Hamas
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
In addition to his political pursuits, Alam also serves as president
of the North American Bangladeshi Association for Bangladesh, a
nonprofit organization that works closely with the U.S. Department of
Education.
NOTE:
[1] It should be noted that the State
Department long ago debunked
the
notion that Jewish employees in the World Trade Center, forewarned
about the attacks, had skipped work on September 11, 2001. Officials
estimate that 200 to 400 Jews died in the WTC that day.