20 - 26 September 2001
Issue No.552
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 September 2001 Issue No.552 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
The fear within
Being an Arab or a Muslim in the wild, wild West is a fairly dangerous thing these days, writes Amira Howeidy
An e-poster demanding that readers "Please stop the unjust hatred" has circulated furiously between mailboxes for days urging recipients to recognise the distinction between "known terrorist" Osama Bin Laden and an "innocent Sikh." The poster offers a photo of the turbaned Saudi exile Bin Laden next to a picture of an Indian Sikh, also wearing a turban. "This" -- arrows distinguish each of the images -- "is not the same as this!" Please remember, the message pleaded, pointing to a picture of Timothy McVeigh: "This man bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma. That doesn't mean that all whites are guilty of terrorism."
Once more, Islam is the "green peril" and Muslims in the West are living this nightmare minute by minute. Unease among the Muslim community in the US has became such a pressing issue that President George W Bush felt compelled to visit a Washington mosque last Monday and address the American public. "Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes," he said. "Moms who [are covered] must not be intimidated in America. That's not the America I know. That's not the America I value."
Since last Tuesday, the America Bush values has seemed quite unlike the tolerant safe-haven it likes to project itself as. By Sunday, five days after the 11 September attacks, 350 attacks on Muslims were reported in the US, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group. Last Saturday, an Egyptian-American grocer, Adel Karas (a Christian) was shot to death at his store near Los Angeles. In Texas, a Pakistani Muslim store owner was shot and killed. FBI officials said they are investigating both shootings as possible hate crimes. In another incident, a gunman killed the 49-year-old Sikh owner of a gas station in Arizona. Family members of the victim believe he was killed because he looked "Middle Eastern." Moreover, several mosques in the US and Europe have been attacked.
Hundreds of intimidated and panic-stricken veiled Muslim women have either sought shelter by hiding in their homes for several days or even removed their head scarves to avoid harassment or abuse. This prompted religious fatwas to disseminate quickly across the US and Europe, permitting veiled women to go uncovered. There are an estimated seven million Muslims in the US. To many, this is yet another crusade against Islam and Muslims, fuelled by the liberal use of these words by American officials and numerous journalists in association with the attacks.
It was only a matter of hours after Tuesday's events before hate, of anything Arab or Muslim, resonated in the entire Western world. There was nothing juicier than pointing fingers at "Middle Eastern" people as the primary suspects in the attacks and no one better than Arabs and Muslims residing in the West to vent widespread anger on. Pervasive rhetoric about all the world being one global village -- used so heavy-handedly in promoting globalisation policies -- disappeared in one fell swoop.
As Western-based Arab and Muslim organisations were issuing strongly-worded condemnations of the attacks on New York and Washington last week, they were soon faced with the odd situation of dealing with the re-activation of dormant anti-Arab and Muslim sentiment. Hence, another wave of statements condemning the attack on the other victims of 11 September -- Arabs and Muslims.
CAIR and other national Muslim and US-based organisations, such as the Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR), the Palestinian NGO network, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and the Belgian-based Arab European League (AEL), eventually responded with disturbed statements. A long list of Arab NGOs, such as the Cairo Institute for Human Rights and the Moroccan Organisation for Human Rights, also condemned the backlash.
"Terrorism's tragic fallout leaves Canadian Muslims feeling guilty by association," snapped CIC's newsletter. An angry AEL statement lamented that "We are now supposed to feel responsible for acts we did not do and we even solemnly condemn. This [anti-Arab and Muslim] campaign is being fuelled by some segments of the media and public opinion. It has all culminated in denying us of our constitutional rights, and we are expected to bow our heads and consider all this as obvious and justified."
On Tuesday, the AOHR abandoned its calm and carefully-worded approach since 11 September and warned that "these racial attacks can no longer be considered individual cases, as they look more and more like a trend."
Khaled Turanni, executive director of American Muslims for Jerusalem, agrees that the threats are "100 per cent real." "There is no doubt that this is the time for America to unite its internal front," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. This is evident, he argued, in president Bush's Washington mosque visit. " [Bush] is also trying to emphasise that Muslims are part of the American society," Turanni said. "The president and the American administration are sending a message across: that they are not [against] Islam as a religion, rather against terrorism and terrorists. This is why [Bush] made the mosque visit and I believe the Bush administration is serious about that."
In fact, Turanni attributes that this positive stance to "the success of the national organisations" in acting promptly following the attack. Also, he added, "the Muslim community is in a much stronger position than it was 10 or five years ago. And there is no doubt it has achieved several victories as part of the American society." But "let us not overestimate this power either," he warned.
Turanni does not feel that anti-Arab and anti- Muslim sentiment has reached an alarming stage as yet. "Compared to the magnitude of Tuesday's attack, I think the number of attacks against Muslims and Arabs is small compared to the event itself."
Although the Muslim community in both the US and Europe seems united in condemning both the attack on the US and that on their community, there is fear that this front will be divided, if not in conflict, then in its reaction to the US strikes in several Islamic countries that appear imminent.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page