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Mideast, Civil Liberties Concern Arab-Americans

By James Q. Lynch
The Gazette (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City)
Posted on Sunday July 20, 2003

Zeineb Mehdi voted for George W. Bush because she was impressed by his efforts to bring the nation together.

Now the Tunisian native participates in a vigil each Friday afternoon in downtown Cedar Rapids, her adopted hometown of 23 years, calling for the president to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Scott Easton, also of Cedar Rapids, whose mother’s family came to the United States from Lebanon in the early 1900s, says his family is split on the war in Iraq.

“There are some who are red-white-and-blue patriots who support it, and others who don’t think we should be there,” he said.

Mehdi, a registered Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton, and Easton say their situations are representative of a political dichotomy in the Arab- American community: Typically social conservatives, the nation’s 3 million Arab-Americans find themselves at odds with an administration they believe has paid scant attention to the Mideast and is attempting to limit their civil rights.

Bush outpolled Al Gore 45 percent to 38 percent among Arab-Americans in 2000. But a Zogby Poll earlier this month found the president’s support had slipped to 33 percent among Arab-Americans, in large part because of his lack of attention to the Mideast peace process and his support for curbs on civil liberties that Arab-Americans believe unfairly target them.

“If you took a poll of Arab-Americans and Muslims, it would be the first item on their agenda – the Patriot Act, the Patriot Act, the Patriot Act,” said Mehdi, who wears a traditional hijab, or scarf, to cover her hair.

The USA Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) was adopted with bipartisan support by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The act has been sharply criticized by civil liberties organizations, which say it grants police unconstitutionally broad powers to monitor and search civilians and to detain non-citizens.

While there is no Arab-American voting bloc, Easton said, the Mideast and civil liberties are the overarching issues that unify Arab-Americans, Muslims and Christians alike.

That was clear in the Zogby Poll released earlier this month that showed that 68.5 percent of Arab-Americans believe a candidate’s Middle East policy is very important in determining their vote, and 53 percent believe that civil liberties and the treatment of immigrants is similarly important.

“I think Arab-Americans will pick a candidate that is addressing the issues rather than by their political party,” said Mehdi, 47, who voted but otherwise was never active in politics until helping form Women for Peace after Sept. 11.

That may create an opening for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 who is willing to address those overarching issues, according to James Zogby, the pollster and founder of the Arab American Institute. Because the country is so evenly split, Muslim groups believe the Democratic nominee will need their support to defeat Bush.

Republicans believe Bush can hang on to Arab-American votes by emphasizing his national security accomplishments and efforts to bring freedom and reform to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Beyond Mideast peace and civil liberties, however, “the reality is that Arab-Americans are all over the place politically – just like everybody else,” said Joe Aossey, a Cedar Rapids engineer whose family immigrated from Syria a few generations ago.

Many are social conservatives who hold views not much different than the Christian right, said Aossey, 67, who has long been involved in politics and has been known to grill presidential hopefuls on their Mideast positions.

“At international conferences,” he added, “the Sunni women tend to vote with the Catholics on many issues.”

Some political differences, he said, may trend along generational and educational lines, especially for Arabs who came to this country since the 1980s.

“If you know less and have fewer friends, if the image is that you are somehow inferior because you don’t speak the language well, how many years is it going to take to come up to speed?” he said.

Many first- and second-generation Arab-Americans have been so busy building a life in the United States that they haven’t been involved in politics, Easton said.

He thinks the third generation may be beginning to realize the benefits of organizing when it comes to addressing issues such as the Mideast peace process.

So Easton, 37, a college admissions counselor who grew up in Cedar Rapids and describes himself as a “student of politics,” was encouraged when the Arab American Institute, based in Washington, D.C., conducted a Civic Empowerment Workshop in Cedar Rapids last month.

Abdallah Al-Zuabi, the national field organizer for the 18-year-old institute, said the workshop was designed to provide people who have not been involved in the political process with the information they need to be heard and become politically active.

The idea was “to define ourselves and not let anyone else define us,” he said.

Mehdi was impressed that about 75 people of all ages participated in the workshop. She believes many came out of concerns about their civil liberties.

“It’s a great concern,” said Mehdi, 37, who worked at Midamar Corp. in Cedar Rapids. “We came here because this is the greatest country on earth. It always has guaranteed the pursuit of freedom. But if the government quiets the people, takes away freedom of speech and dissent, then we are no better than Iraq.”

Civil liberties is a more recent issue for Arab-Americans, but Easton, who lived in the Mideast after graduating from Harvard, believes their concern for Mideast peace is motivating many to enter the political process. That concern is neither Democratic or Republican.

“Democratic and Republican labels are not large enough to include all the issues that are important,” Easton said. “There needs to be room under the Arab-American umbrella for people to make individual choices, but at the end of the day, there is a commonness that binds us together.”