Speaking Out
Yesterday the Feds shut down a very large charity organization here in Dearborn, Michigan. For those who are not from here, Dearborn, from my understanding, has the largest concentration of Arabs outside of the Middle East. Of course, not all Arabs are Muslim, but a significant portion are. Dearborn is one of the larger suburbs of Detroit and is about 20-25 minutes from me. With that cursory background out of the way, the Feds shut down a major charity organization that operated under the guise of funding orphans in Lebanon. In reality, they were funding Hizbollah.
The first reports from the Dearborn community was typical. The Arab equivalent of the Anti-Defmation League stated that we should not discriminate against Arabs and Muslims. Okay, my intellectual side says "okay, these are rotten apples." However, the pragmatist in me wants to see this. I want to see universal condemnation, not defensive posturing. I am sorry, but at this point when there are so many examples of extremist behavior within a given religion and a given region, it makes one take notice. I would have preferred the league to say "this is an outrage and only hurts our community, we, collectively, as a community condemn this action and it is not to be tolerated, we will work to do anything in our power to assist the authorities in bringing justice and shall provide education to our community to prevent such occurence from happening again." Basic PR 101. When you get defensive, you will only piss people off. Look, if I am starting to get fed up with these excuses, then Joe Blow American is probably seething. Thus, by saying "don't discriminate against us" you will only piss people off more. The Arab and Muslim population have a PR nightmare of monumental proportion on their hand. While this community is analogous to the Cuban population in Florida-that is they wield political power- I can tell you first hand that there is a growing movement, even among progressives that enough is enough. Clean up your fucking house, otherwise, you will see someone else who will. I am a champion of civil liberties and vehemently against torture; however, we live in the '24' era. Is this right? No. Torture and trampling on our constitutional rights only makes us become "them," but to the hoi polloi it seems not only reasonable but commendable.
Because of this community we have some of the best Lebanese food anywhere. There is a local chain, called La Shish that experienced part of this first hand. It seems that first the owners son was charged with a violent murder (non-terrorist related, but who cares, he's Arab thus there is a visceral response whether right or wrong). This murder coupled with the Feds charging them with tax violations as well as also funding (either directly or indirectly) supposed terrorists through charities made the local papers for over a year. In late 2005, just when this information was coming to light, Ann Arbor got its first La Shish. We were excited. We had a lot of local Middle Eastern restaurants, but they catered mostly to the university crowds. La Shish is elegant and their food is extraordinary (there are better in Dearborn, but for a chain it is fantastic). When it opened it was packed. However, quickly after the news about the owner's 'issues' came to surface the masses stopped going. This is interesting on several levels. First, this was a franchise, not owned directly by La Shish-but you would not know that by looking at it. Second, this is fucking Ann Arbor, where we have Jews marching for Israel out of Palestine. In other words, ridiculously liberal "progressive" folk and yet they were staying away in droves. The local owner, then changed it to "Mike's La Shish" (I know this is wrong, but I can't remember the actual name). However this did little to stem the tide of lost patrons. It was recently reported that they are going to completely change the name to something entirely different in breach of their contract. Personally, this is smart. Any lawyer with half a brain could get out from underneath the franchise agreement under the circumstances. But the central point is that if you have lost the Ann Arbor/university crowd on suspicion that they'd be somehow complicit in funding terrorists, you are truly fucked. Acknowledge the situation, deal with it, or you will suffer. It is that simple. Do I agree with this approach? I don't know. All I know is when I heard the reports on the charity and their community's first response, I was irritated and felt that they only have themselves to blame for this.
All groups have their nutjobs. However, as I have mentioned previously, when a nutjob anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist kills an OB/GYN it is universally condemned, even within their community. You do not hear a defensive plea "not all Christians are bad." Instead you heard anger and condemnation. Moreover, whether right or wrong, statistically speaking, the numbers are against the Arab and Muslim communities for being a source of recent terrorist activities. Why not address this?
