Across America Lara MarloweThe fine print of the article revealed that a US judge last week threw out the convictions on terrorist charges of Karim Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi. Though they face a retrial on suspicion of involvement in an illegal immigration ring, they've been cleared of terrorist offences. But for US media, they'll be "terror suspects" forever.
When the three Arabs were arrested in south Detroit on September 17th, 2001, the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, trumpeted "a major blow against terrorism". Last week, Judge Gerald Rosen concluded that prosecutors hatched a theory about what the men were doing "then simply ignored or avoided any evidence or information which contradicted or undermined that view". Some 300,000 Arabs live in greater Detroit, making it the most Arab city in the US. Numbers are confusing, because there are more Asian than Arab Muslims in the US, and more Christian than Muslim Arabs.
In Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, one in three residents is Arab. The houses are the same tidy neo-colonial and neo-Tudor bungalows found elsewhere in Michigan, but shops bear names like Islamic Superstore, Al-Wissam and Al-Hallab pastries.
The "Detroit three" are one small example of anti-Arab backlash in the US since September 11th. The ADC has joined 20 other civil liberties groups in suing for information about Arabs and Muslims detained in cognito, to no avail. Hamad says Arabs have been the victims of verbal abuse in restaurants, shops and government offices. Many have been fired or questioned by their employers. Some factories have banned Arabs from speaking their own language to each other on the assembly line.
"When September 11th happened, we shared the grief and sorrow of other American citizens," says Hamad. "But this community was not allowed to express it, and if they expressed it, it was rejected. There's a never-ending test of our citizenship and loyalty."
In early 2003, the Arabs of Detroit demonstrated against the invasion of Iraq. But Detroit is also the largest Iraqi city outside Iraq, with the community divided between long established families and those brought to the US after the 1991 Gulf War. The latter demonstrated for the invasion. Now the presidential election presents Arab-Americans with a new dilemma. Most lean towards the Democratic Party, and many may vote for Lebanese-American candidate Ralph Nader "out of principle, knowing he cannot win", says Hamad.
"Until September 11th," he continues, "the main issue for us was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now people realise other issues, like civil liberties, affect us." Arab-Americans are trying to figure out where John Kerry stands on the question most important to them. "I met Kerry and I told him, 'We understand Bush's position on Palestine, but we don't understand yours'," Hamad recalls. Kerry replied: "I'm not the president. When I am, I will be engaged. I believe in a two-state solution. You have to trust me." Kerry recently named former congressman Mel Levine, a member of the board of the lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as his top adviser on the Middle East.
Had September 11th not happened, it's unlikely a dispute over the call to prayer in Hamtramck, another Detroit suburb now home to 6,000 Bangladeshis, would have become a national cause célèbre. Though worshippers at Hamtramck are Asian, not Arab, the ADC got involved because Americans rarely make the distinction.
By grouping all Muslims together, the US is forging links within an otherwise disparate community. There are more than 90 mosques and Islamic centres in Michigan, many of which already broadcast prayer calls over loudspeakers. Last year, Abdul Motlib, the president of Al-Islah Islamic Centre, a small tan building across the street from the far larger St Ladislaus Catholic Church, petitioned the city council under the noise ordinance for permission to make the prayer call. "The chuch bells ring five times a day, between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., so I proposed the same thing," he recalls.
The petition was turned down on the grounds the prayer call would distract children at a nearby school. Motlib waited until a new city council was elected, then petitioned again, this time succeeding. But a handful of neighbours and Christian fundamentalist groups, some from out of state, protested. Seven weeks ago, a special election was held in Hamtramck, in the presence of monitors from the justice department. The mosque won the right to broadcast its prayer call, by 1,365 to 1,295 votes.
Motlib hails the result as a victory for tolerance. "The Muslims had only 500 or 600 votes in Hamtramck," he says. "We got 1,295 votes because our Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters supported us." The elderly Polish ladies selling hand-crocheted shawls and pillows at St Ladislaus were divided. "They can't have it too loud because we voted against it," said an 85-year-old who gave her name only as Ginny. "Why we have to have it here in Hamtramck at all, I don't know." "Not all of us are complaining," interrupted Josephine Marasovich (80). "I live in the main street next to a bar, and the noise there is far louder. I say: live and let live." "Ain't that what they got watches for?" another Polish-American resident snarled. But most of the locals had no objection to the barely audible "Allahu Akhbar".
Abdul Motlib emigrated to the US 17 years ago and is a citizen. When he's not at the mosque, he makes auto parts at the Flexible Auto Factory. Motlib has left Bangladesh far behind, and says he's thrilled he ended up in the US, "because in America we have total freedom". In a visible, one-generation process of assimilation, his son was just accepted to study pharmacy at Wayne State University.
For Arab-Americans, even long-time citizens like Haitham Mashalah, a university-educated taxi driver born in Jordan, it's more complicated. "The Americans don't want us and the Arabs don't trust us because they think we're American agents," Mashalah says. "We're the people lost in the middle."
Tomorrow: At the exclusive Mission Hills Country Club in Kansas City, one of the wealthiest enclaves in the US, they're not all Bush supporters.