Global Policy Forum

By Akhilesh Upadhyay

When Manizha Naderi first heard of the Washington sniper, her mind raced back to the harassment she faced last year after the terrorist attacks. "I hoped, 'God, please don't let the sniper be a Muslim'," says the Afghan-born woman who has been living in New York since 1984.

That city was not the best place to be a Muslim, or a Sikh, last year. Even Naderi's eight-year-old daughter received death threats in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. "Then the other day I once again heard people talking about Islam and violence on the radio," Naderi says.

And on Tuesday, the US government introduced a requirement that all non-US citizens born in any of five Arab countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan or Syria - be fingerprinted, photographed and carefully scrutinized upon entry into the United States. In response, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs the same day issued a travel advisory warning Canadian citizens of Arab, Middle Eastern or South Asian descent "to consider carefully whether they should attempt to enter the United States for any reason, including transit to or from third countries".

To the chagrin of many, however, the public trial of Muslims had begun well before the arrest on October 24 of John Allen Muhammad, 37, a convert to Islam. "The unknown sniper became Muslim, Middle Eastern, Pakistani, with al-Qaeda links even before the world had found out who he was," says Muhsin Alidina of the Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center, which has several thousand members with Arab, South Asian and African-American backgrounds. "The attempt to link Islam with violence is deeply disturbing."

"When I found that the [alleged] sniper was a Muslim," says Alidina, "I said, 'Oh God, not again'." To thousands of New York residents of South Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds - of both Islam and non-Islam faiths - the sniper saga has revived ugly memories of race-related attacks after September 11 and the subsequent wall of racial paranoia.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, with some estimates putting the number of its followers at seven million.

Many are visibly relieved that the sniper is not of South Asian or Middle Eastern origin. But others say that makes little difference, arguing that most of the American media is fixated with the religion of Islam, and there are fewer attempts to focus on the sniper's nationality and idiosyncrasies.

"While Islam-bashing is nothing new in America," says Alidina, "the media's treatment of the sniper incident has again stoked the public paranoia against Muslims. Our community members feel that they are being singled out for irresponsible acts of an errant individual." In reference to the sniper's name - John Allen Muhammad - Alidina quipped, "No one is discussing 'John' and 'Allen', but focusing solely on 'Muhammad'."

Equally disturbing, he says, is the silence of US leaders. "By their silence they aren't helping us - and America as a whole. Isn't this a great nation?" he asks sarcastically.

Meanwhile, the US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has cautioned against speculation and stereotyping based on the name of one suspect. "We are concerned that because a suspect in this case has the last name of Muhammad, American Muslims will now face scape-goating and bias," says Nihad Awad of CAIR. "Police reports indicate the suspects acted alone, based on their own motivations. There is no indication that this case is related to Islam or Muslims."

Two days before Muhammad's arrest, hate literature was distributed at an Islamic center in Hawaii warning that Muslims there would be watched by "patriotic residents". According to CAIR, there have been several other incidents against Muslims in the past two months - a shooting attack on an Ohio mosque, vandalism at Islamic centers in Virginia and Idaho, and the discovery of a detailed plan to attack some 50 Florida mosques and schools.

A CAIR study found that a majority of American Muslims experienced bias or discrimination since the September 11 terrorist attacks. While the US has made inroads in its battle against global terrorism since last September, there is also a darker side to the success, argues Arun Sharma, a South Asian columnist.

Innocent humans have lost lives because they looked like Taliban in turbans - the Sikhs - and Arab Americans live in perpetual fear, he observes, but the American media typically ignore their sufferings. In a harsh indictment of the US media, a South Asian Association of Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) study last year found that the national news media had consistently failed to report incidents of hate crime against South Asians and Middle Easterners. "The perception among national media organizations was that the hate crime attacks were isolated incidents," said the study.

Combing through 10,000 articles published in over 500 daily newspapers, the study documented 645 bias incidents in the first week after the attacks. There were close to 20 homicides, according to Debasish Mishra, vice president of SAALT. "The anti-Islam feeling is again evident," says Mishra. "It remains to be see how the [sniper] incident plays out in the minds of the Americans. But it will be hard to conclude that a lot of Americans will not look at Muslims in a certain way now that the sniper turns out to be Muslim."

Arabs and South Asians have been routinely harassed in "random checks" at US airports, where their skin tones attract suspicious looks and intense inspections, says columnist Sharma, discussing the world after September 11. "America's trust, confidence and tolerance are compromised, possibly forever. One cannot even measure the impact of social, economic and employment discriminations, as they always are difficult to measure."

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