Arabs still reeling from 9/11 backlash - Growing Fears

Chicago Reporter, The, Dec, 2002 by Mary Abowd

On a chilly Friday evening in November, after prayers at a local mosque, Mamoun Alrifai and his brother, Reza, relaxed in the basement of the Southwest Side home where they live with their parents. Observant Muslims, the brothers like to share the faith: In the driveway, their car was plastered with stickers proclaiming, "Islam is the way" and "No one is perfect, but God forgives."

But moments later, around 9 p.m., the calm was broken. "My brother and I noticed flashlights and commotion in the backyard and went out to see what it was," said Alrifai, 22. "We were greeted by police who showed us their badges and said they needed us to go upstairs."

By then, Alrifai said a federal agent had knocked at the front door and crossed the threshold as it opened. The agent announced that he wanted to search the house. But when Alrifai and his father, a 30-year Chicago resident, asked to see a warrant, the agent said he didn't have one.

"I asked him to leave, and he said, 'No,"' recalls Alrifai, a Chicago-born Palestinian American. "I told him, 'I know my rights. You have to leave."' But the agent's response floored him: "He told me, 'As of right now, you have no rights.'"

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment about the incident.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, stories like Alrifai's have rippled through Chicago's Arab community; stirring a deepening well of fear and intimidation. Reports of visits from federal agents have been accompanied by a spike in hate crimes, verbal abuse and federal anti-terrorism measures that community members believe are aimed at them.

"Since 9/11, this community has become a target for harassment," said Mahmud Ahmad, a local community activist. "It's been nothing more than a fishing expedition." Ahmad and others say the sole fact that Arabs share the ethnic identity of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers has cast them under a cloud of mistrust that has persisted even as the first anniversary of the attacks passed without incident earlier this year.

All of it came as a blow to a community with a century of history in Chicago. The 2000 census counted nearly 45,000 Arabs in the six-county area, concentrated on the Southwest Side and in southwest suburbs such as Bridgeview, Oak Lawn and Burbank. However, estimates from community-based experts put the number at 150,000--one of the largest concentrations nationwide.

The community has followed the same well-worn path of other immigrant groups. It is largely Muslim, with a smaller percentage of Christian members who share the same culture and speak the same language, Arabic.

After decades of insularity, the community had begun to emerge from its shell, establishing mosques, schools, newspapers, businesses, a bar association and several charitable organizations.

Nothing typified its growing economic foothold like the 87th Street strip mall just west of Harlem Avenue in heavily Arab-populated Bridgeview. Developed three years ago as a "one-stop" shopping center for all things Middle Eastern--from groceries to clothing--the plaza has become a community epicenter.

But in the wake of Sept. 11, that relaxed social setting has eroded. And a community that saw itself finally becoming a part of the local fabric witnessed that weave unravel, thread by thread.

Within hours of the terrorist attacks, 22-year-old Manal EL-Hrisse, in her black headscarf, was shouted at by a woman who said, "I wish I had a gun. I would shoot you right now." Such reactions led some women to exchange headscarves for hats--or simply stay indoors.

American-born Arab Muslim teenagers fielded painful questions from their peers. "People asked, 'How do you fit into America?'" said 19-year-old Salma Nassar of southwest suburban Burr Ridge. Even the community's younger members felt the backlash: A 7-year-old named Osama was so taunted by classmates that he started going by Sam.

Hundreds of Arabs across the country reported that they were spit on, threatened and attacked with weapons. Some were even killed, according to news reports, police statistics and interviews with community members. Hate crimes spiked in Illinois and in Chicago, particularly on the city's Southwest Side.

Ahmad said the widespread unease among local Arabs has been further fueled by accounts of visits from federal agents to the 87th Street strip mall, and the federal government's shutdown of two local Muslim charities--the Global Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation--amid accusations that the groups funded terrorism.

"This is a war on Islam, not a war on terrorism," said Seema Imam, vice chair of the Hickory Hills-based Muslim Civil Rights Center. Imam said she has donated to Benevolence International for years, as a way of fulfilling the Muslim requirement of charitable giving.

For her and many others, the crackdown on the charities smacks of the type of surveillance they've become accustomed to, one that stretches back more than 30 years. The feeling is compounded by the events that have unfolded in the wake of the terrorist attacks--a string of detentions and deportations, questioning by government agents and federal legislation passed as part of the war on terrorism. It has left many Arab Americans feeling that the war being waged on groups like ai-Qaeda is also a war on them.