Iraqi Immigrants in California Town Fear a Hate Crime in a Woman's Killing

28 March 2012

By Juan Cole

Shaima Alawadi's family says they found the first note taped to the front door of their house on a quiet suburban street here. It said: "This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist," according to her 15-year-old son, Mohammed.

Ms. Alawadi's husband, Kassim Alhimidi, says he wanted to call the police. But his wife said no, insisting the note was only a child's prank. Like many others in the neighborhood, the couple were immigrants from Iraq. In 17 years in the United States, they had been called terrorists before, he said.

But last Wednesday, Ms. Alawadi was found in the family's dining room by her 17-year-daughter, lying unconscious in a puddle of blood with a severe head wound. Nearby lay another threatening note, similar to the one the family found a week earlier.

Ms. Alawadi, 32, died three days later. The police caution against jumping to conclusions, saying they are still trying to determine whether she was targeted because of her religion or ethnicity, calling that just one possibility.

"At this point, we are not calling it a hate crime," said Lt. Mark Coit of the El Cajon police. "We haven't made that determination. We are calling it an isolated incident, because we don't have any evidence of anything similar going on at this point."

Whatever the police eventually determine, the crime has shattered the sense of security for Iraqi immigrants in El Cajon, exposing cultural tensions and distrust that have often simmered just below the surface since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Hanif Mohebi, director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that many Muslim women in the area were worried that Ms. Alawadi had been targeted because she wore a headscarf in public, as many observant Muslim women do.

"The majority of the community that wears scarves are concerned," Mr. Mohebi said. He cautioned against a rush to judgment before the police had finished investigating. Still, he added, "the community has gone through some hate crimes before, and the assumption the people have is that they're going through one now."

Two decades ago, El Cajon, just northeast of San Diego, was largely white and English-speaking. But as wars in their homelands pushed more and more Iraqis and others to emigrate, the Middle Eastern population here has exploded. El Cajon now houses one of the largest Iraqi communities in the country. Middle Eastern groceries and restaurants dot Main Street, while on the sidewalks, many families stroll by speaking in Arabic.

Ms. Alawadi and her husband moved to the United States from Saudi Arabia in 1995 after fleeing Iraq during the first gulf war. They then had five children, and for the most part, Mr. Alhimidi said, their neighbors here made them feel welcome.

Still, even before this month, he was already familiar with the kind of language he says was on the notes left at his house.

"Some neighbors, I say ‘hi' to them, and they just turn away," Mr. Alhimidi said in Arabic, with his son Mohammed translating. "More than 95 percent of the time, I feel welcome. But once in a while, people shout at you. They shout ‘terrorist,' or ‘go back to your country.' "

Most people in town lamented Ms. Alawadi's killing as a tragedy. Janet Ilko, a middle school teacher, said the news had come as a shock to students.

"It was upsetting to everyone," Ms. Ilko, 47, said. "Our community is very close-knit. Our students get along very well. People have been here a long time."

But tension between the newcomers from the Middle East and some of the town's other residents was also readily apparent on Main Street, even this week. One woman, 30, who was at a park with her children and refused to give her name, called the city's Iraqi residents "territorial," adding, "maybe because we are at war with them." She said her own background was Mexican, though she had grown up in Southern California.

US atheist group targets Muslims and Jews

CNN reports that the American Atheists organisation are targeting Muslim and Jewish communities with billboards in Arabic and Hebrew describing God as a "myth".

"We are not trying to inflame anything," American Atheists president Dave Silverman is quoted as saying. "We are trying to advertise our existence to atheists in those communities. The objective is not to inflame but rather to advertise the atheist movement in the Muslim and Jewish community."

Yeah, right.

American Atheists, you may recall, is the organisation involved in the "Zombie Muhammad" case, in which one of their members claimed that he was assaulted by a Muslim during a Halloween parade. After the case was dimissed because of lack of supporting evidence, American Atheists expressed outrage that the judge had refused to take the word of a white American over that of a "Muslim immigrant".

The American Atheists website features a long essay attacking Islam and Muslims which the authors state is "greatly dependent upon the excellent books written or compiled by Ibn Warraq". It contains passages like these:

Mohammedans prefer to be called Muslims – a term derived from the Arabic 'aslama, meaning ‘to resign oneself [to Allah]‘. They prefer their religion to be called Islam (from Arabic 'islam, meaning ‘submission') rather than Mohammedanism. Most western scholars have gone along with this, rather than risk the wrath of purportedly peaceful members of ‘the third great Abrahamic faith'. Nevertheless, Mohammedanism seems to be a perfectly appropriate name for a religion which currently poses so great a threat to secular civilizations throughout the world….

Despite the occasionally tolerant references in the Qur'an to "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians in addition to Muslims), the non-Muslims need to be eliminated. Convert them or kill them, or make them pay a religious ransom to continue the private practice of their religion. (Of necessity, Muslims must reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) Atheists and Agnostics, who deny the reality of Allah, are also wicked blasphemers. They need to be eliminated also. It is preferable to kill them.
True, the authors go on to state that intolerance is "a natural attribute of all monotheistic religions". However, no extended essay can be found on the American Atheists site attacking Christianity and Christians in equally vitriolic terms.

But this has become a distinguishing feature of the so-called "new atheism". The legitimate secular objective of separating church and state has been sidelined in favour of attacking minority ethno-religious communities, and Muslims in particular, often employing language which is indistinguishable from that of the racist right.

 

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