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American ignorance isn't bliss -- it's a shame
© St. Petersburg Times, The woman wore a gold chain around her neck with a medallion attached. She was an Arab-American woman whom I interviewed last week at a small Islamic school in Temple Terrace. I started to ask about the medallion. It resembled a very celebrated American building. "Why, it looks like the U.S. Capitol," I said. The woman with the medallion gave me a long stare. Then she explained. I had failed to recognize that gold medallion as a replica of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of the holiest places in Islam, where Muslims believe Mohammed was taken into heaven. The best I can say is that I wasn't alone in planting my foot in my mouth. On Sunday, President Bush called the war to track down the terrorists a "crusade." Two days later, he was apologizing. The word "crusade" strikes the ear of an Arab like so much sand paper, heavy grade, rubbed close to the head. Crusade conjures up the Roman Empire marching east, with flags flying in the name of Christ, and destroying all in its path, including what was then Muslim-held Jerusalem. These are among the darkest moments of Islamic history and culture, taught to believers in Islam the way Christians learn about Christ's martyrdom on the cross and Jews learn about the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem and the Holocaust. I was forgiven this week for my gaffe from a curious corner: Sami Al-Arian, an imam of Tampa's Islamic community, a man once suspected of having ties to Palestinian terrorist groups. Al-Arian didn't find my failing to recognize the Dome of the Rock all that surprising. He is accustomed to American ignorance. "The U.S. Capitol is probably the most famous dome in the United States," he said. "So I don't find that strange, from your frame of reference." Frame of reference is just fancy talk for how you see the world. Citizens of several other countries -- England, Germany, China, among them -- also were killed at the World Trade Center, but this fight is nobody else's in the popular mind than our own. We consider ourselves the center of the world. Until last week, we were quite happily isolated. When you're on top, why should you bother yourself learning about people unlike you? Suspicion is so much easier. Downright cheap. I heard from a woman caller last week who was furious at me for failing to disclose that Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar are on the board of that school I visited. Al-Najjar spent three years in INS custody for alleged offenses and terrorist connections never made public, until the bad publicity -- we do have some niceties called civil rights -- became too much and he was let go. Where should the suspicions end? Is the Arab who runs the convenience store obligated to fly a flag at his front door? Are you justified in taking your business elsewhere if he doesn't? Should we go so far as to chastise big-name American athletes who have adopted Islamic names and beliefs? Or are they somehow different, apart, American beneath the skin? Should we trust only those Arab-Americans who demonstrate their patriotism by answering the FBI's call for volunteers to translate Arabic and Farsi, languages most of us have never heard of? That woman whose medallion I was too dumb to recognize had a friend with her. While the color of embarrassment rose in my cheeks, this woman was laughing hard. She gave her medallion-wearing friend an elbow in the ribs and a piece of advice. "Next time they ask if it's the Capitol, say so!" In other words, lie. It might be the best defense against Americans acting un-American. - Mary Jo Melone can be reached at mjmelone@sptimes.com or at (813) 226-3402.
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Times columns today John Romano Mary Jo Melone From the Times Metro desk Mary Jo Melone |
