Tag: Arab diaspora

In Raed Jarrar’s own words:

Then I once again asked the three of them : “How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn’t this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?” so inspector Harris answered “you can’t wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads “I am a robber” and going to a bank”. I said “but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says “we will not be silent”. I got this t-shirt from Washington DC. There are more than a 1000 t-shirts printed with the same slogan, you can google them or email them at wewillnotbesilent@gmail.com . It is printed in many other languages: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, English, etc.” Inspector Harris said: “We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don’t have a translator. Maybe it means something else”. I said: “But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English”. He said “maybe it is not the same message”. So based on the fact that Jet Blue doesn’t have a translator, anything in Arabic is suspicious because maybe it’ll mean something bad!

Meanwhile, a third man walked in our direction. He stood with us without introducing himself, and he looked at inspector Harris’s notes and asks him: “is that his information?”, inspector Harris answered “yes”. The third man, Mr. Harmon, asks inspector Harris : “can I copy this information?”, and inspector Harris says “yes, sure”.

Inspector Harris said: “You don’t have to take of your t-shirt, just put it on inside-out”. I refused to put on my shirt inside-out. So the woman interfered and said “let’s reach a compromise. I will buy you a new t-shirt and you can put it on on top of this one”. I said “I want to keep this t-shirt on”. Both inspector Harris and Mr. Harmon said “No, we can’t let you get on that airplane with your t-shirt”. I said “I am ready to put on another t-shirt if you tell me what is the law that requires such a thing. I want to talk to your supervisor”. Inspector Harris said “You don’t have to talk to anyone. Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area”.

it was then that I realized that my t-shirt was the reason why I had been taken to the secondary checking.

I asked the four people again to let me talk to any supervisor, and they refused.

The Jet Blue woman was asking me again to end this problem by just putting on a new t-shirt, and I felt threatened by Mr. Harmon’s remarks as in “Let’s end this the nice way”. Taking in consideration what happens to other Arabs and Muslims in US airports, and realizing that I will miss my flight unless I covered the Arabic script on my t-shirt as I was told by the four agents, I asked the Jet Blue woman to buy me a t-shirt and I said “I don’t want to miss my flight.”

She asked, what kind of t-shirts do you like. Should I get you an “I heart new york t-shirt?”. So Mr. Harmon said “No, we shouldn’t ask him to go from one extreme to another”. I asked mr. harmon why does he assume I hate new york if I had some Arabic script on my t-shirt, but he didn’t answer.

The woman went away for 3 minutes, and she came back with a gray t-shirt reading “new york”. I put the t-shirt on and removed the price tag. I told the four people who were involved in the conversation: “I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don’t want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon”. Everyone said okay and left, and I went back to my seat.

There’s more there…

So dangerous, in fact, that you can’t board airplanes wearing a T-shirt with an Arabic slogan:

Arabic T-shirt sparks airport row

A demonstrator wears a similar T-shirt at a New York protest in July
An architect of Iraqi descent has said he was forced to remove a T-shirt that bore the words “We will not be silent” before boarding a flight at New York.

Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August.

Mr Jarrar said he was shocked such an action could be taken in the US.

US transport officials are conducting an inquiry after a complaint from the US Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

JetBlue said it was also investigating the incident but a spokeswoman said: “We’re not clear exactly what happened.”

By the way, isn’t Raed Jarrar the famous counterpart to Salam Pax on the original Iraq war blog “Where’s Raed”?

Interesting post at Aqoul on the fury of French Arabs at Nicholas Sarkozy’s pro-Israel comments during this war:

So Sarkozy bridged part of the gap between conservatives and xenophobes that weakened the classical French right. By doing so, he’s built a voter base large enough to make him the likely next conservative president. And unlike Jospin who lost Arab votes precisely after infuriating them by his statements against Hezbollah – the Sarkozy right-wing base is strong enough not to need Arabs as referees and there will probably be no conjunction of factors which could make Arab votes such a key factor again for the 2007 elections. All the talk about an Arab voter base which suddenly appeared in the aftermath of the 2002 election and on which Arabs could have capitalized is gone. Despite more Arab-related arguments against Sarkozy in 2007 than against Jospin in 2002, Arabs will be virtually powerless. Probably a proof that a spontaneous success gotten by luck more than by political organization and maturity dies away as quickly as it comes.

I tried to leave a comment but got an error message, so here it is (it makes more sense if you read the full article):

I am not so sanguine about the CFCM – it puts Islamists and people who are essentially agents for the Moroccan and Algerian governments in charge of representing the entire Maghrebi-Arab community.

I interpret Sarko’s pro-Israel stance not as an appeal to the far-right (which is not necessarily pro-Israel, sometimes for anti-Semitic reasons) but rather the mainstream Atlanticist right and part of the hawkish left. Basically his position dovetails nicely with the growing number of French intellectuals who are taking a pro-American stance, such as BHL, Alain Finkelkraut, and others. This is the fundamental split between the Chiracquistes and Sarko: it’s about their position on the US as an ally and as a model to change French society.

As for an “Arab vote” in France, as far as I can see it is not organized, so it’s hard to predict its impact.

The Muslim minorities of Europe are a problem. It’s a problem of integration, culture shock, social policy and radicalization of small but vocal groups of Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as political mismanagement. This kind of analysis, though, is just pure racism. It posits a world where all Muslims are radical, none want to integrate, and glorifies the agenda of the far-right. In this world, Europeans live in constant fear of Arabs and other Muslims who conspire with multiculturalists to impose totalitarian rule. And this is a popular website! I travel to Europe several times a year, my family lives there, and never have I come across this kind of crap apart from advertisements from the former Vlaamsblok in Belgium. It insults the hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants who have earned an honest living in Europe in often difficult situations simply to make life better to their families. It insults the hundreds of thousands who are just ordinary people by trying to portray unusual incidents as routine. This is Mein Kampf, just more dangerous because it disguises itself as conservative libertarianism. They don’t even make sense because they are against making racist public statements an offense on the pretext of freedom of speech but complain of offensive material being distributed in mosques. I know where I stand: neither of these things have a role in any decent society. Close the radical mosques down and send the racists to court. But do show me those banned South Park episodes.