File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2001/anarchy-list.0109, message 251


Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:43:20 -0400
From: Paul Kneisel <tallpaul-AT-nyct.net>
Subject: The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tue, 18 September 2001 -- 5:75


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            The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 18 September 2001
                          Vol. 5, Number 75 (#600)
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Web Sites of Interest:
    01) Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee
    02) Tolerance Watch
News Of the Criminal Anti-Arab Hysteria
    03) ABC News, "Bus With Muslim Children Stoned," 13 Sep 01
    04) Michael Conlon (Reuters), "Attacks Against Arab-Americans Escalat
        in U.S.," 13 Sep 01
    05) Derek Thomson (ABC News), "Arab Americans Feel Backlash: Arab
        -Americans Muslims feel the anger," 16 Sep 01
    06) Joanna Bale, Russell Jenkins, and Gillian Harris (The Times of
        London), "Racists seek revenge around the world, 19 Sep 01
    07) Kareem Fahim  (Village Voice), "Arabs and Muslims Fend Off a
        Tragedy’s Aftermath: Backlash and Counter-Backlash," 19 Sep 01

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WEB SITES OF INTEREST:

01) Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee
     <http://www.adc.org/>

- - - - -

02) Tolerance Watch
     <http://www.tolerance.org/>

A Backlash Builds Against American Arabs and Muslims

In the wake of the September 11th tragedy, some Americans, perhaps
frustrated by the elusiveness of the actual terrorists, have chosen to
release their anger and grief upon their fellow countrymen. In Chicago, an
unknown perpetrator throws a firebomb at an Arab American community center.

In Tennessee, an anonymous caller directs two Arab American clinic workers
to "get out of our country" and declares them "foreign fags."

In Texas, shooters fire bullets into the Islamic Center of Irving.
Despite pleas for tolerance from President George Bush and others, violence
and incidents of harassment against Muslim citizens and those of Arab
descent continue to be reported.

Tolerance.org joins our nation's leaders in appealing for unity, not
division, during this time of tragedy.

In this special report, we offer you the facts, instead of stereotypes and
rhetoric.

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NEWS OF THE CRIMINAL ANTI-ARAB HYSTERIA

03) Bus With Muslim Children Stoned
     ABC News
     13 Sep 01

BRISBANE, Australia -- A school bus carrying Muslim children was stoned and
vandals tried to set fire to a Lebanese church in apparent acts of
retaliation for terrorist attacks in the United States, officials said
Thursday.

Queensland state Islamic Council chairman Sultan Deen said stones and
bottles damaged the side of the bus Wednesday in the northeastern city of
Brisbane. Nobody was injured.

"The children are quite shaken up," Deen said.

Three Australians are confirmed dead and a further 85 are missing in the
wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States, the government said
Thursday.

Deen said public outrage over the attacks had also led to abusive phone
calls to mosques.

"It is very disturbing. They are saying things like, `You will be held
responsible' and `We'll get you,"' Deen said.

Suspicion for the terrorist attacks has fallen on Saudi national Osama bin
Laden (news - web sites), who has been accused of numerous attacks against
U.S. targets, including the bombing of its embassies in Africa three years
ago. He is believed to be sheltered by the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan
(news - web sites).

In Sydney overnight, vandals attempted to set fire to the St. Mary's
Antiochian Orthodox church - which has a Lebanese congregation - and racist
slurs and swastikas were scrawled on the walls of another Lebanese church,
said police inspector Norm Russell.

Meanwhile, pro-Islamic slogans were daubed on a building in Melbourne's
central business district overnight, police said.

Australia's Islamic community condemned the terrorist attacks.

"Terrorism, the killing of innocent people, is a crime against God and
against humanity," said Yasser Soliman, chairman of the Islamic Council of
Victoria.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock urged Australians to not seek
scapegoats.

"One of the important values we have in a multicultural society is the
tolerance and outward looking view of people from a different background,"
Ruddock told Sydney radio 2GB.

- - - - -

04) Attacks Against Arab-Americans Escalate in U.S.
     Michael Conlon (Reuters)
     13 Sep 01

CHICAGO -- A building anger over the attacks on New York and Washington
turned into violence against Arab-Americans and Islamic centers across the
United States on Thursday as officials from President Bush (news - web
sites) on down pleaded for tolerance.

Reports of incidents grew as the investigation into Tuesday's mass murder
air attack pointed toward a Middle Eastern connection.

In suburban Chicago, several hundred people, mostly teen-agers, staged a
noisy pro-American demonstration on Wednesday night that wound up targeting
an Islamic center. There were three arrests for disorderly conduct, said
police in the town of Bridgeview.

But one Muslim woman said she, her husband and their eight children endured
a night of terror in the aftermath.

"This was a mob," said the woman, who asked not to be identified out of
fear. "We had people riding up and down our block shouting obscenities. 'Go
home you bleeping ragheads, bleeping a-rabs, we're gonna get you,"' added
the woman, who lives in the town of Oak Lawn not far from the Bridgeview
Mosque Center.

"My husband and I stayed up all night guarding the windows," she added. "My
husband is of Arab descent. He gave four years of his life in the U.S. Navy
(news - web sites) ... to have some skinhead with an American flag
screaming at your house."

She said the family was afraid to call the police because it would single
out their house, adding that other Muslim families in the neighborhood were
considering whether they should leave the area Thursday evening.

Reports of vandalism, threats and other kinds of intimidation were
surfacing from coast to coast.

BE MINDFUL

Mindful of the backlash, Bush said on Thursday:

"Our nation must be mindful that there are thousands of Arab Americans who
live in New York City, who love their flag ... and we must be mindful that
as we seek to win the war that we treat Arab Americans and Muslims with the
respect they deserve ... should not hold one who is a Muslim responsible
for an act of terror."

His father, former President George Bush, added in a speech: "We've got to
be tolerant ... we should be mindful that these were not the acts of all
Muslims who, like Christians and Jews, believe in a God of love and mercy.
Rather, these were senseless murders, committed by religious extremists who
kill out of hate."

Police in northern Indiana were investigating several apparent hate crimes.
A Yemeni immigrant operating a gasoline station said a man sprayed the
glass protective shield behind which he was standing with an assault rifle
on Wednesday. He fled and the gunman tried to shoot him again.

Damage was also reported at another Arab-owned gasoline station as well as
at a restaurant owned by a native of Jordan, where windows were broken and
the windows of a parked car appeared to have been shot out.

In Denton, Texas, a Molotov cocktail fashioned out of a beer bottle was
tossed at a mosque and Islamic school, a day after windows were shot out at
a similar Islamic center near Dallas. Only minor damage was reported.

An Islamic information service reported that a bag of pig blood was left on
the doorstep of an Islamic community center in San Francisco. The Toledo
Blade newspaper in Ohio reported an Islamic center there had received
menacing messages and a bullet was fired through one window.

Muslim schools in several areas canceled their classes as a precaution.

In Alexandria, Virginia, Hazim Barakat, a native of Jerusalem who came to
the United States 11 years ago, said he arrived to open his Islamic
bookstore the day after the attack to find windows shattered with note-
bound bricks.

"You come to this country to kill our people. We want to kill you" and
"Death to the Arab murderers," read the notes, according to Barakat, a U.S.
citizen.

He said he was shocked but also received strong support from his neighbors
and others in the community.

"A rabbi called me this morning, and offered to come and help clean up," he
said.

- - - - -

05) Arab Americans Feel Backlash: Arab-Americans and Muslims feel the anger
     Derek Thomson (ABC News)
     16 Sep 01

In New York, a caller threatened to harm hundreds of students in an Islamic
school. In Texas, a mosque was firebombed. And in Wyoming, an angry group
of shoppers chased a woman and her children from a Wal-Mart.

Days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, a nation's shock has
turned into an outpouring of hostility towards people of Middle Eastern
heritage. Around the nation, Muslim and Arab communities say they are being
targeted, and the anger is nationwide.

Hours after the attacks on Tuesday, the Islamic Institute of New York
received a telephone call threatening the school's 450 students, said
manager Azam Meshkat. "The gentleman was very angry and he started
threatening the children. He said he was going to paint the streets with
our children's blood," she said. The school is closed, but continues to
receive several threats a day.

On Wednesday, a well-dressed young Manhattan couple yelled insults at a
Lebanese-American who was desperately searching for survivors from the arts
center he had run on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center's north
tower. "They told me, 'You should go back to your country, you f--king
Arabs, we should bomb the s--t out of you," said the man, Moukhtar Kocache.

A mosque in Denton, Texas, was firebombed, and another in Lynnwood, Wash.
had its sign defaced with black paint. In Huntington, N.Y., police say a
75-year-old man tried to run over a Pakistani woman in a shopping mall
parking lot.

Khaled Ksaibati, the faculty adviser for the Muslim Student Association at
the University of Wyoming described the attack on the Muslim family at a
Laramie Wal-Mart. "The people who screamed in her face wanted her to go
back to her country," he said. "This is her country. She was born here."

And in Bridgeview, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, police stopped 300 marchers
as they tried to march on a mosque. Marcher Colin Zaremba, 19, told The
Associated Press, "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always
have."

In an ABCNEWS/ Washington Post poll conducted Thursday, 43 percent of
Americans said they thought the attacks would make them "personally more
suspicious" of people who appear to be of Arab descent.

Leaders Call for Restraint

Political and religious leaders have called for restraint. President Bush
(news - web sites) told the nation on Thursday: "We should not hold one who
is a Muslim responsible for an act of terror."

Organizations that represent Arab-Americans and American Muslims noted that
they had been quick to condemn Tuesday's attacks. "From the first hour of
the tragedy, we and the other national Muslim organizations have condemned
this evil and urged our community to offer every help they could," said
Nahad Awad, director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in
Washington. And Arab-Americans are anxious to point out that they are
Americans, too. In New York's Arab-American neighborhoods, shopkeepers hung
U.S. flags outside their stores.

They also note that many of them were touched by the tragedy in personal
ways. In Washington, the Council on American Islamic Relations was
preparing to compile a list of Muslims who died in the attacks.

"I had friends and family who worked in the World Trade Center," said Maher
Saleh, an Arab-American teacher in New York. Saleh said he had Arab-
American friends who were New York City police officers and firefighters
helping in the rescue effort, as well as a Marine who was called up for
duty today.

Even though he was born and raised in his Brooklyn neighborhood, Saleh
said, he found himself being shunned today by some non-Arabs. "A lot of the
people I usually talk to, they turn away their faces," he said.

There were, however, shows of support for the Muslim community. Outside the
Islamic Council mosque in lower Manhattan, passersby shouted down a half-
dozen demonstrators who were calling for the mosque to leave the
neighborhood. Neighborhood residents came in to the mosque to express their
support, one bringing flowers, said the mosque's religious teacher, Hafiz
Choudhury.

Oklahoma City Backlash Recalled

Many Arab-Americans remembered coming under suspicion after the Oklahoma
City bombing in 1995, which turned out to be the work of Timothy McVeigh
(news - web sites), a white American with racist views.

Some said they regretted that Islam and Arabs were so often associated with
terrorism in the news.

An ABCNEWS producer who is Iraqi-American said her first thought on seeing
the World Trade Center burning was, "Oh my God, I hope an Arab didn't do
this." She wanted to remain anonymous because, like other Arab-Americans,
she fears retaliation.

There are estimated to be as many as six million to seven million Muslims
in America, roughly the same number as Jews, making Islam the second- or
third-largest religion in America after Christianity.

"We don't want to fall into the same trap as the people who committed this
evil," said the CAIR's Awad.

"I believe it was designed to turn Americans against each other. We should
not be like them and be going after innocent people. It should not be
honored by associating it with any faith or ethnicity. This is evil and
should stand out as evil."

- - - - -

06) Racists seek revenge around the world
     Joanna Bale, Russell Jenkins, and Gillian Harris (The Times of London)
     19 Sep 01

Police and community leaders have appealed for calm amid concern at the
number of attacks on British Muslims since the atrocities in America.  In
the most serious incident, a 28-year-old Afghan minicab driver was left
paralysed from the neck down after he was dragged from his cab in
Twickenham, southwest London, and beaten up by three men who made comments
about the attacks in New York.

A 19-year-old Asian girl in Swindon is recovering after being battered by
two men with a baseball bat. Another Afghan, an asylum-seeker, was attacked
in Dover.

In South Shields, graffiti were daubed on walls urging people to 'Avenge
USA -- kill a Muslim now". The 6ft high, 8ft wide slogan was splashed in red
letters on a wall near a mosque in the heart of a Muslim community. In the
same town a 20-year-old Bangladeshi man suffered a broken jaw after being
beaten and kicked by a gang of youths.

In Bolton, 20 worshippers, some of them children, escaped serious injury
after a mosque was set alight with a petrol bomb.

Bricks have been thrown at mosques in London, Manchester, Southend, Glasgow
and Belfast. Many Muslims have been spat at and suffered verbal abuse.

Masoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said
that reports of abuse and harassment had risen tenfold in the past week. In
places with large Muslim populations, such as near his home in Wembley,
northwest London, many were staying at home. "People aren’t going out, and
that is part of the harassment."

Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, said: "We have been inundated with e-
mails and calls from Muslims who have been threatened over the past couple
of days."

Yousuf Bhailok, the general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain,
said: "We are saddened but not surprised because we have had saturation
coverage and there has been misquoting of Muslim views."

The British National Party has urged members to hand out new recruitment
leaflets condemning Islam as a religion that "spawns psychotic mass
murderers". Its members are urged to withdraw their children from
multicultural religious education classes and to protest to head teachers
about lessons teaching children that Islam is a peaceful religion.

Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said: "Racist
abuse or harassment which could lead to disorder would not help anyone."
Officers were liaising with potentially vulnerable groups and community
leaders and would increase security where necessary, he said.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, urged people to echo the view of
Rudolph Giuliani, the Mayor of New York, that any violence against Muslims
in his city "would not be tolerated".

A delegation of British Muslim leaders met William Farish, the US
Ambassador, in London yesterday. Mr Farish said: "These leaders expressed
their heartfelt condolences over last week’s tragic attacks. Terrorists do
not represent the true face of Islam. They are the personification of
evil."

British Sikhs said that they were becoming targets for those who mistakenly
associated them with Muslims.

In The Netherlands, a mosque and two classrooms at an Islamic school in
Nijmegen were set alight. At Zwolle, arsonists attacked a mosque.

In Copenhagen, a 28-year-old Dane was jailed for four weeks after he was
arrested while about to hurl petrol bombs at a mosque. A pizzeria owned by
Kurdish immigrants in the Danish town of Dragoer was attacked. In Poland, a
mosque in Gdansk was stoned by youths.

In America, two men were shot dead in what seemed to be revenge killings.
Waqar Hassan Choudhry, 40, was killed in Dallas, and Balbir Singh Sodhaid,
49, a Sikh, was shot dead near Phoenix.
- - - - -

07) Arabs and Muslims Fend Off a Tragedy’s Aftermath: Backlash and Counter-
        Backlash
     Kareem Fahim  (Village Voice)
     19 Sep 01

The black Bronco plastered with stars and stripes drove back and forth
along Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, blasting sonic revenge for all in the
mosque to hear. The driver glared at staring Muslims from behind Oakley
shades, singing "We will, we will rock you" along with Queen.

As the anthem filtered through the windows, Emira Habiby Browne of
Brooklyn's Arab American Family Support Center (AAFSC) condemned the
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and warned of the
coming backlash against members of her community.

"We are Americans, and we are New Yorkers," the blond, blue-eyed Browne
reminded journalists assembled upstairs from the mosque. An American flag
was draped on the wall behind her. "But our community is being targeted
because we are Arabs and we are Muslims."

Reports from across the country last week confirmed Browne's fears,
following the dual jumbo-jet attack on New York City. The American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) said it has been flooded with e-mails
and calls reporting bias incidents. The list is long, and details of
attacks, real or otherwise, are being circulated nervously among Arabs and
Muslims at a dizzying pace.

Among the notable incidents: An Indian Sikh, a Pakistani Muslim, and an
Egyptian Copt, all males, were murdered in three different states last
weekend in apparent bias attacks. Passengers sporting "excessive facial
hair" were detained at JFK airport, and then released, according to The New
York Times. An Arab American deli owner in Ardsley New York, was pepper-
sprayed when he identified himself as an Arab. Two Muslim girls were beaten
at a college in Illinois, and a mob marched on a mosque near Chicago. A
Palestinian-owned rug company in Maryland was set on fire. The windows were
shot out of an Islamic center in Texas. There are also reports that
undiscriminating "patriots" have targeted Mexicans as well.

"There was indeed a backlash," said the ADC's Hussein Ibish. "And it's
still going on."

In Brooklyn, home to many of New York City's Arab Americans, parents have
been afraid to let their children go back to school, especially those
easily identified as Muslim or Arab. "They are so scared—they don't want to
send girls to schools. Girls have been hit, kicked, touched in places they
don't want, and threatened," said Suad Abuhasna, a social worker at the
AAFSC, who said women wearing the hijab, or Islamic scarf, were especially
vulnerable. "They hit two women in Bay Ridge yesterday. But everyone is too
scared to call the police."

So community members do what they can to stave off hostility, hanging
billowing red, white, and blue amulets outside shawarma shops and on car
antennas, and condemning terrorism loudly and at every opportunity. Arab
American leaders also point out that Muslims and Arabs almost certainly
perished in the collapsing twin towers, and that their communities share
considerable grief with the rest of the country. And they are quick to
dismiss media reports of Arab celebrations as false.

"The Palestinians I know are completely horrified about the attack," said
Emily Jacir, a Palestinian artist who returned to New York from Bethlehem
last week. Jacir, who could pass for Italian, has removed the Palestinian
flags that normally adorn her knapsack. "It's because they go through the
same thing on a daily basis, although on a smaller scale, that their hearts
go out to the victims." Jacir added that many in the West Bank city of
Ramallah have family in New York, and that candlelight vigils were being
held there to remember the victims.

The atmosphere in the city reminded Catherine Fukushima of a different
time. "I am the daughter of a Japanese American who was interned during
World War II," Fukushima wrote in an e-mail to an Arab listserv two days
after the bombing. "I have heard that Muslims are fearful to leave their
homes, and with good reason. . . . I would be happy to accompany Muslim
women to stores and public places, run errands, help with the media
campaign. I don't know what to do, but I am willing to help."

The e-mail points to another story emerging from the tragedy, a more
hopeful phenomenon that Hussein Ibish calls the "counter-backlash."

"A lot of people have been lecturing their fellow Americans," he told the
Voice. "We've received at least as many calls of support as threats. And
most of the media coverage of bias incidents has been disapproving." Ibish
said that Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin
Powell both have made public statements warning the country against lawless
retaliation. And on Thursday, President George Bush echoed the sentiment,
saying that the nation "should not hold one who is Muslim responsible for
an act of terror."

Arab American leaders also hope the tragedy forces Washington to change the
way it deals with hate crimes. James Zogby, president of the Arab American
Institute, called his meetings in recent days with the Justice Department
positive, and said he believes that the attorney general for civil rights,
rather than the FBI, will become the first point of contact for reporting
bias. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights set up a hotline for reports of
bias: 1-800-552-6843.

"When my office was firebombed in 1980, I called the FBI," he recalled.
"Forty-five minutes into the conversation, all the man wanted to know was
who's who in the Arab community. It was unbelievable."

According to Zogby, recent immigrants from the Middle East feel
uncomfortable calling the FBI to report bias against them.

"We've had a history of hate crimes," Zogby continued, "and no one's ever
been indicted. I want to ask [the FBI] sometimes, why do you spend so much
time violating our rights, and so little time protecting them?"

This time, the official response to the threat of bias attacks has been
forceful and swift. A police officer watches the door downstairs from the
AAFSC, greeting nervous social workers wearing the hijab as they emerge
onto the street. A short distance away, officers are posted every couple of
blocks down Arab Atlantic Avenue, and in other Arab neighborhoods in
Brooklyn and Queens.

So the community, and everyone resembling them, endures the stares and much
worse, and silently contemplates the massive military adventure to come.

"There should be a vigorous response, there is no doubt about it," said
Hussein Ibish, who said he supports action against the guilty party. But
the difficulty, he mused, will be in determining what action would be
appropriate.

"We did lash out quickly the last time something like this happened, and we
managed to deprive a large number of Sudanese suffering from meningitis of
badly needed medicine," he said, referring to the Clinton administration's
bombing of the al-Shifa Pharmaceutical plant in response to the bombing of
the U.S. embassies in East Africa. "The Sudan action was ineffective and a
mistake. If our response is patient, and directed at the guilty parties, we
will support it strongly."

In the meantime, many Arab Americans and Muslims continue to shoulder
myriad burdens. Ahmed Samhouri, a Palestinian American, works for Morgan
Stanley, and escaped from his office on the 71st floor of World Trade
Center Two after the second plane struck his building. "We all suffered
that day," he said. "We were all victims." Members of his family were
harassed this week. He is understandably depressed. "A lot of things don't
feel right, right now. . . . Those people don't represent Muslims."

For Emira Habiby Browne, also Palestinian American, the load is especially
heavy. Her daughter, a sophomore in college, tells her the school's large
Arab population faces bias after last week's events. And Browne's son, a
U.S. naval officer serving on a nuclear submarine, was called up for duty
this week.

"I can't stand the thought that he'll have to fight," she said. "But if
this goes further, who knows?"

                                * * * * *

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.

__________________________________________________________________________

                                FASCISM:
    We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget.
       (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction)

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