While the nation waits to hear whether Zacarias Moussaoui will spend his life behind bars or be executed for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many local Muslims and Arab-Americans are not watching so closely.
“In our experience, when there is some type of incident that happens overseas, American Muslims brace themselves for some kind of backlash over here,” said Rabiah Hmed, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. “Most American Muslims don’t associate themselves with [Moussaoui], so they haven’t been following his trial very closely.”
The council will release statistics on anti-Islamic hate crimes from 2005 in the next week, she said, but recent polls show anti-Islamic sentiment has risen in the past four months.
Montgomery College is holding a series of educational events in April in honor of the county’s Arab-American Heritage Month. On Wednesday students and local residents discussed the portrayal of Arabs in American media.
Gill Haddad, 41, of Silver Spring, said he does not feel much pressure. “I deal with it. It’s been going on [for] more than 2,000 years,” he said of anti-Arab sentiments.
But student Ruqaiyah Alkibsi said she has many cousins here who have put away their hijab, or head scarves, out of fear they will be singled out. Though she was born in the Potomac area, she spent several years in her parents’ country, Saudi Arabia.
“It was kind of strange to me,” she said. “I learned my own roots.”
She said she also learned most Arabs are not like those portrayed on the news or in popular media.
Arab and Muslim facts in America
» There are 8 million Muslims in the United States.
» 3.5 million Americans trace their ancestry to an Arab nation.
» About three in four Arab-Americans are Christian.
