Then They Came for Me

By TAD BARTIMUS

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time watching cable news channels while waiting in airports. One particular layover gave me the opportunity to witness Florida authorities detain three Muslim medical students, in real time.

As this latest terrorist scare unfolded, I realized by the reaction of passengers around me how paranoid many Americans -- including me -- have become about young men who appear to be Middle Eastern. I know my reaction is absolutely wrong. I know that the way Americans look, what they believe in, the religion they practice, the language they speak, has nothing to do with their patriotism and loyalty to our country. Intellectually, I abhor prejudice and racism in any form.

Practically speaking, I can understand how Eunice Stone, eating in a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Ga., thought she overheard Kambiz Butt, 25, Ayman Gheith, 27, and Omar Choudhary, 23, making suspicious comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Sometimes we hear what we want to hear.

The three medical students were on their way to study at a Miami hospital before being released without charges in what later was described as "a misunderstanding." But after the incident, the Larkin Community Hospital, where the men were headed for training, said they were no longer welcome there.

Stone told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "I am not a racist, and I am not ignorant. I was just trying to do what's best."

Butt said that although he and his fellow Muslim medical students were "in a state of shock and we are scared," he thought Stone was trying to be "a patriot for America" when she claimed to police she'd overheard him and his companions making suspicious comments.

"Not once did we mention 9/11," Butt said at a press conference following the trio's release from custody.

We are in danger of becoming a citizenry wreaking bad results with good intentions. How can we be vigilant without becoming vigilantes? How can we avoid racial profiling when the FBI is arresting suspected terrorists who fit a racial profile, such as five U.S.-born terrorist suspects from the Yemeni community in Buffalo, N.Y.? If Congress approves Operation Tips, the John Ashcroft-supported program that asks civilians to systematically report any suspicious activities they see, they will be encouraging citizens to racially profile their neighbors. How can we protect our civil rights without violating somebody else's? I can start with me, by getting a grip on my own paranoia.

I will fly 12 air segments in the next two weeks. All sorts of folks will share my flights. What if a young man who appears Middle Eastern sits down next to me? What if he declines any meal service as suspected hijacker Richard Reid did on a trans-Atlantic flight last November, before he tried to ignite an explosive in his tennis shoe? How will I feel if he then pulls out a copy of the Quran and begins to read?

I will remind myself that my seatmate has not made a single threatening gesture nor uttered a single suspicious word, and has merely exercised freedom of choice and freedom of religion, both guaranteed under the Constitution.

Of the three Muslim medical students eventually released in Florida, two -- Gheith and Choudhary -- are American citizens. Butt is legally in the United States on a visa.

"They are Americans, just like any other American," their attorney, Brett Newkirk, said of Gheith and Choudhary, "who are proud to be American, who want to fulfill the American dream, and who were on the road to doing that when the American nightmare happened to them."

I now carry with me, and will read often, the words of the Rev. Martin Niemoller, who spent more than eight years in concentrations camps in Europe before, and during, World War II. On a trip to the United States in 1946, the Lutheran clergymen shared this message with his audiences:

"They came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I was not a communist; /

They came for the socialists, and I did not speak up because I was not a socialist; /

They came for the union leaders, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a union leader; /

They came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a Jew. /

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me."


© 2002 The Women Syndicate

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