Washington, DC — On Wednesday, two West African students approached Fanta Aw, director of International Student Services at American University, and also a Malian. They asked her: "Are we going to be targets?"
Though hardly likely to be considered Palestinian, or even Arab, these two students share with thousands of foreign students -- especially non-white foreign students -- a fear that rising anger across the United States might be taken out on them. Federal authorities have focused on the Afghanistan-based Saudi Arabian exile, Osama Bin Laden, as their prime suspect in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As FBI agents have fanned out across the country, and the rhetoric of 'war' has escalated on the Internet, in newspapers and political circles, vitriolic anti-arab threats and racial slurs have also been spilling across the land.
In Alexandria, Virginia, two bricks were thrown through the window of an Islamic bookstore. In New York, two men were arrested for beating a turbaned Indian Sikh with a baseball bat.
For many Americans 'Arab' means anyone from North Africa, or Iranians and Palestinians as well as the populations of the Red Sea nations. It can even include Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese, Ethiopians, Tuaregs, Berbers, the Hausa of Northern Nigeria and anyone else vaguely considered 'Muslim' or 'Islamic,' which often includes any male wearing a robe or turban.
U.S. campuses are full of members of all of these groups and while there have been very few violent incidents over the last three days, all of them are worried. More than 300 voice messages of verbal abuse and reports of some sort of taunting were recorded at the Arab-American Institute Tuesday.
"I've advised Arab and North African students to stay home and stay safe," says American University's Fanta Aw.
"I see rising jingoism," said Kassahun Checole, an Eritrean who is publisher of African World Press and Red Sea Press in New Jersey. "Arabs are no good; people who have accents are suspect." Complains Kamal Hadidi an MIT researcher from Algeria who is Berber, "Just because you were born with a name that sounds Arabic you are put in the same basket as the people who committed this terrible act. I try to keep a low profile."
But many think the issue should be confronted head-on. "We held a teach-in Tuesday evening," said Ms. Aw. "There were diverse views. Some students thought this was an 'Arab' thing and students from North Africa and other places were able to respond. 'We can't all be put into the same boat,' they said. I think they got some understanding."
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The attacks were seminal moments for America, says Kamal Hadidi. "Things will change," he says, but he's not so sure what that will mean for him. Recalling a recent visit to Algeria, "When I was ready to return we were stopped and searched on the road to the airport before we got there, searched when we got to the airport and then had a body search at the gate. We had to stand next to our luggage at the plane while it was searched. I'd rather do all this than have some crazy guy blow up the plane. But when somebody treats you as a terrorist at the airport because of your name, then what are you going to do?"
President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell as well as various members of Congress have all warned against casting a net of blame over the entire Arab and Muslim communities here in the United States. Friday,former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, perhaps the most prominent of the more than seven million Muslims in the United States, called for citizens not to condemn Muslims or Islam for the attacks in New York and Washington. "I am Muslim. I am an American," said Ali.
Says Kassahun Checole: "The people they are going to dig up will be of many races, many ethnicities, many religions. The trade center was a global center. But people will be blinded by anger."
