Press Room

AAI in the News

American Arabs Must Step Up to the Plate

By Adele Azar Rucquoi
Orlando Sentinel
Posted on Tuesday March 25, 2003

Saturday night, I heard from a man who moved my heart. James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, D.C., addressed the Orlando American-Arab community with words of great comfort. Only days before, an Arab professor at the University of Central Florida was charged with immigration violations. No Arab-American I know wants to make front-page news. I had high hopes for Zogby. I was not disappointed.

Most of us sitting around the dinner tables, including—it needs to be known—a few of our Jewish friends, were born in America. We had always believed in the American dream. We had risen to noble professions, sent our children to colleges and thrived in America’s climate of opportunity. After all, as Middle Easterners, we are renowned for our business acumen. Yet, after 9-11, everything changed. The federal government, in its haste to protect all of us, suddenly turned its ire on American Arabs. No Arab felt safe. My 80-year-old quilter friend, an admired jewel in her circle, said, “I worry that now my quilters think differently about me.”

The son of an immigrant himself, Zogby held up the original American ideal and turned to Martin Luther King Jr. King’s real gift to America was not limited to giving his African-American brothers their deserved civil rights, but to remind all of us what America really means: the right to vote, the right to dissent, the overriding obligation of conscience. It was black America’s turn at the plate. It accepted the challenge, and, as a result, African-Americans made us better for it.

Now it’s our turn. Our pain—the discrimination against us—becomes our call to greatness.

I heard no name calling from that podium, just quiet outrage. Zogby spoke from a place of power. For all the darkness, he said, the light is always surprisingly greater. Shortly after 9-11, he, himself, received death threats. Then there was the call from Sen. Edward Kennedy: “These are tough times. Count on me.” Sens. Russ Feingold and Joseph Lieberman also called in support. So did Jack Kemp, former GOP vice-presidential nominee. Zogby then pointed to the faith of the North Carolina Baptist congregation whose members lit candles and circled a mosque to protect its worshippers.

Zogby’s talk was just the inspiration my heart needed. I had felt such darkness. I mourned the bombing of Baghdad, our cradle of civilization, the land where our ancestors lit fires at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates. I grieved ancient ruins being leveled once again. History destroyed, our history.

In a former profession, I had led many a church choir through that hymn that goes, “Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.” That hymn never touched me so much as it does now. Peace begins with one person? Can it make a difference if one person refuses to feed the war frenzy, abstains from watching pictures of power unleashed on a city? Maybe peace means lighting a candle in a window as a sign of hope.

I don’t know exactly what stepping up to the plate means, except now, for me, to pen a few words after an evening’s talk that filled my wounded Arab heart with a sense of hope.