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 __________________________________________________________________________ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 18 September 2001 Vol. 5, Number 75 (#600) __________________________________________________________________________ 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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) - - - - - back issues archived via: <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/>
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