Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2001, page 24

Special Report

 

Congress Suspends Arab-Bashing, Condemns Violence Against American Arabs, Muslims, South Asians

 

By Shirl McArthur

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress shifted gears from partisan bickering and pursuit of narrow interests to the broader concerns of dealing with the immediate crisis and taking care of urgent legislative needs. One result of this shift is that it will be a few weeks before it can be seen which of the Middle East-related bills previously reported in this column again become active. The ratification process for the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was accelerated, however, with the implementing legislation passing the Senate on Sept. 24.

Perhaps the most heartening development was the response of most legislators to the acts of violence against Americans of Middle Eastern or South Asian origin.

The day after the attacks, both houses of Congress passed resolutions that condemn the attacks, express condolences to the victims and their families, praise the actions of the rescue workers, declare that the U.S. is entitled to respond, and thank foreign leaders and individuals for their expressions of solidarity. During the “debate” on these resolutions most speakers gave stirring addresses that repeated or amplified on the points in the resolutions, with some adding expressions of anger and outrage. However, some took the opportunity to caution against acts of bigotry or violence against Arab Americans and Muslims.

In the House on Sept. 12, the first and most eloquent to express these sentiments was Rep. David Bonior (D-MI). Then, on Sept. 14, Bonior introduced H.CON.RES. 227, which had 116 co-sponsors and was passed by both houses of Congress, declaring that “the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, including Arab Americans and American Muslims, should be protected,” and condemning “any acts of violence or discrimination against any Americans, including Arab Americans, American Muslims and Americans from South Asia.”

Excerpts from some of the House speeches, including an unhelpful statement from Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), are reproduced below. Special dishonorable mention should be given to Rep. John Cooksey (R-LA), who was quoted by The Washington Post as telling a Louisiana radio network that “If I see someone come in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over.” Cooksey felt compelled to apologize for his remarks on the floor of the House Sept. 21.

 

“The civil rights and liberties of all Americans should be protected.”

In the Senate on Sept. 12, the first, most eloquent, and clearly most noteworthy expression of support for Arab and Muslim Americans came from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the Senate’s most fervent supporters of Israel. On Sept. 13, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), with Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ernest Hollings (D-SC), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Harry Reid (D-RI) as co-sponsors, introduced an amendment to H.R. 2500, the Commerce, Justice, and State Departments appropriations bill, with essentially the same language as the Bonior resolution, except omitting mention of Americans from South Asia. The amendment passed unanimously and was included as Section 631 in the final bill passed by the Senate the same day. (Unfortunately, H.R. 2500 as passed by the Senate also includes the three sections, Sections 406, 407, and 408, described in previous issues, that effectively amount to recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.) Excerpts from some of the statements in the Senate are also reproduced below, again also including less than helpful statements from Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Zell Miller (D-GA).

 

House Statements

Space does not permit quoting from all representatives who spoke out against acts of violence and bigotry against Arab and Muslim Americans. Those not quoted include Reps. Brian Baird (D-WA), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Tom Davis, (R-VA), William Delahunt (D-MA), Eni Faleomavega (D-AS), George Gekas (R-PA), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), and David Wu (D-OR).

Bonior: Mr. Speaker, I come from Michigan. It is the home of hundreds of thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims. Already, leaders in their community, patriotic Americans who give so much to this country, who have condemned these attacks and who are as sickened by the carnage as everyone else, have been receiving death threats, and their families live in fear. Such hateful prejudice offends us all…All Americans of all faiths, Christians, Muslims, Jews, we all condemn this cowardly act of terrorism…

James Traficant (D-OH): Yesterday showed the failings of American policy, folks…and it may be unpopular to say, but I believe America’s foreign policy in the Mideast is so one-sided that we endanger now American citizens. We must be fair in our policies…

Brad Sherman (D-CA): We cannot even talk about appeasing the murderers by abandoning our friends in the Middle East. We instead must wage a war against terrorism, all terrorist groups; and we must remember that our war against terrorism is not a war against Muslims…

Lantos: I call on the Taliban in Afghanistan to turn over Osama bin Laden and his gang for their proper punishment. I call on Yasser Arafat to put back in prison the terrorists he liberated so unjustly. I call on Iran to stop supporting the terrorists of Hezbollah who have brought death and destruction in their wake. I call on Syria to close the headquarters of the various terrorist organizations in Damascus…

Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA): I think it is long overdue that the United States of America reaffirm a policy of supporting those moderate, responsible, and, yes, democratically inclined Muslims of Afghanistan and elsewhere who are in opposition to terrorism, and in opposition to the fanatical Taliban government which represses its own people and provides a safe haven for terrorists like Bin Laden…

Brad Sherman (D-CA): If the Taliban government refuses [to extradite Bin Laden], we should go to war.…The Northern Alliance of Afghanistan…may have suffered the death or the severe wounding of its leader, General Masoud, at the hands of Bin Laden’s assassins just 2 days ago. However, the Northern Alliance is intact, and if the Afghan government does not surrender Bin Laden by the end of this week, then the Northern Alliance should be the best armed rebel army in the world by the end of this month…

Richard Armey (R-TX): These were people with hatred in their hearts. They are not all the people of a race, a religion or a creed. Indeed, most of the people in this country that are Arab Americans, most of the people in this world who are Arabs, most of the American Muslims, most of the people in the world who are Muslims, most of the people in the world who are South Asians, are as shocked and horrified as we are…

David Dreier (R-CA): Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, the leader of the North American Islamic Society, gave the opening prayer at the very moving service that most of the members of this body attended. I believe that his presence at that service that we attended was a very strong signal from President Bush and other leaders in this country that we are not going to tolerate that kind of discrimination which has been described already here…

Bonior: Like all Americans, Arab Americans, Muslims in America, and Sikhs have…joined in efforts to give blood; they have been parts of vigils around this country; they have conducted their own religious services. They were the firemen and the police that were involved in trying to rescue people in New York City. They are part of what we all are grieving and suffering from so painfully in these last three days, four days. So I would say tonight that in the wake of this attack, it is really most unfortunate and sad and outrageous that the Arab-American community and the Muslim-American community and the South Asian community, the Sikhs particularly, have been targeted with this bigotry.…I think not only did Muzammil Siddiqi speak today at the service, but Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, spoke as well.…He reminded all Americans in prayer that: “We must seek the guilty and not strike out against the innocent, or we become like them who are without moral guidance or direction.…”

Nick Rahall (D-WV): Let us not forget that Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asian Americans, are Americans first.…So I guess the best way to describe these attacks against Arab Americans or Muslim Americans or South Asians is, to paraphrase my hometown paper in Beckley, West Virginia, these are yahoos that are making these attacks, yahoos who happen to pose as great a threat to our American society, to our freedoms, and to our way of life as those perpetrators of those heinous crimes against our country last Tuesday.…

Darrell Issa (R-CA): When I was in high school, I worked for Rabbi Kasen in Cleveland Heights…by the time I was done working for him, I had discovered that his entire family had been wiped out in the Holocaust. He bore a tattoo on his arm, and he was a Holocaust survivor. But I discovered something else…He was a man of God because he bore hatred toward no one, including those who had so terribly disrupted his and his family’s life. Instead, he felt pity for them because they would know no salvation, they would know no rest.…That lesson is a lesson America has to understand. We cannot let our grievances, no matter how great, turn into acts of violence.…

Bob Ney (R-OH): I lived in Iran in 1978. I have been on the other side of this type of situation, and I was there during the turbulence during the fall of the shah.…I have been in those shoes, in a sense, and we have to just, I think as Americans, Mr. Speaker, put ourselves in the shoes of these Americans of Arab descent, and I think this message will go out.…

John Conyers (D-MI): My district is home to one of the largest Arab and Muslim communities in the country. It is vital that we distinguish the beliefs of these Americans from the perpetrators of Tuesday’s violence, and recognize that American Muslims share our values and contribute significantly to our communities.…

Bonior: Mr. Speaker, let me just end with this. The Prophet Muhammed has taught that God does not judge according to our bodies or appearances, but he looks into our hearts, he scans our hearts, and looks into our deeds.

The holy Qur’an teaches, “Oh, Mankind, we created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you peoples and tribes so that you may come to know one another…”

 

Statements in the Senate

Those not quoted due to space limitations include Sens. George Allen (R-VA), Joe Biden (D-DE), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Hatch (R-VT), and Gordon Smith (R-OR).

Schumer: Yes, this was a 21st century Pearl Harbor but a little different because they aimed at civilians.…I say three things in that regard.

First, we are a resilient nation.…

Second, we must keep our freedoms as we do this.…

Third, I say this to all Americans: let us not respond in a way that is unseemly of America. There are millions of Muslims and Arab Americans in America. They have different views than I do on the Middle East, staunchly different views. But they were not for this. Let us go after those who advocate terrorism and destruction but not after a whole people or nationality or religion. We have to avoid that. That is the American thing to do.…

Specter: I do suggest that consideration be given to a declaration of war against the political entity which harbors and has given aid and assistance to Bin Laden’s terrorist organization and Bin Laden and his co-conspirators.…Bin Laden is at war with the United States. It is time that we reciprocate. …

Harkin: Mr. President, when we do strike back, we must be very careful. We must ensure that when we train our sights on the enemy, we do not harm innocent people in the crossfire.…We must not use these events of yesterday to paint with a broad brush all Muslims, those of the Islamic faith or of Arabic descent.…The Islamic faith is a religion of compassion and mercy, of tolerance and justice, and we should not let those terrorists, those who kill innocent people, try to make the Islamic faith into something it is not.…Those who perpetrated these murders yesterday are not associated with Muslims or with the Islamic faith. If they claim they are on some kind of mission for Islam, that is just a lie. They are using the cloak of religion to justify the murder of innocent people.…

Richard Durbin (D-IL): As we identify the sources of terrorism, it is possible we will look to an Arab person, or a group of Arab people, or those of the Muslim faith. We should never allow those facts, if they turn out to be true, to cloud our judgment when it comes to our fellow Arab Americans and those who believe and practice the Muslim faith.…

Edward Kennedy (D-MA): I hope at this time we will not look for scapegoats. I hope that we are going to be careful, particularly with regard to our Arab-American friends. I hope that we will free ourselves from scapegoating and from the kind of conduct which would be helpful to terrorists who are interested in dividing this Nation in so many different ways.…

Russ Feingold (D-WI): We will not retreat from our commitment to peace in the Middle East and, more specifically, we will not reward these terrorists by reducing one iota our support for the State of Israel, which is the only democracy in the Middle East, which is our steadfast ally militarily and otherwise.…Finally…this should not be an occasion for ill-treatment of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, or others in this country.…

Miller: Our response should not only be swift but it must be sustained.…We must strike the viper’s nest—even if the viper is not there. We know that the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan have nurtured Osama bin Laden for years. The diabolical plot was probably hatched there. Certainly similar plots have been. And it is time for us to respond. I say, bomb the hell out of them. If there is collateral damage, so be it. They certainly found our American civilians to be expendable.…

Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): I am disturbed by reports from my home state of Michigan that Arab Americans have been victims of threats and hate mail and their businesses and institutions have been vandalized.…The Qur’an, just as the Bible, is a book of love, peace, and tolerance.…Arab Americans, as all Americans, have lost loved ones. They are part of the rescue crews, and they are the nurses and the doctors working around the clock to save lives.…It is important in our grief and in our anger that we not allow the terrorists to turn us on each other.

Shirl McArthur, a retired foreign service officer, is a consultant in the Washington, DC area.

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