by Larry Miller NNPA News Service
PHILADELPHIA – When Islamic extremists piloted passenger jets into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, it changed the way many Americans viewed people of Middle Eastern descent and Islam as well. In the years since, more American Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants have reported harassment, hate-motivated crimes against them and discrimination.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
After the recent incident in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, was charged with attempting to blow up a plane, some recent African immigrants are worried they, too, will become targets of hate.
Bernard Bility, who is from Liberia, said he is concerned about the negative image portrayed by media regarding Abdulmutallab and how it reflects on African people.
“Of course, it is negative,” Bility said. “He should be held responsible for his actions, but the action of a single individual reflects on all of us, there is a certain stigma on all of us being West African. It’s not fair to us. We live in this society and it can make it difficult for all of us – we can be joined to that crime and we should not be held liable. However, some people might think, ‘I wonder if this fellow is from the same place as that fellow.’”
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Abdulmutallab, 23, was charged in a federal criminal complaint with attempting to destroy Northwest Airlines passenger flight 253.
Federal authorities allege that Abdulmutallab mixed concealed chemicals into explosives in an attempt to blow up the aircraft as the plane was making its final approach to Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport. He has been charged with willfully attempting to destroy an aircraft within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States and willfully placing and causing to be placed a destructive device within the proximity to the aircraft. If convicted, the defendant faces at least 20 years in federal prison.
Lansara Koroma (right), founder and executive director of the International Forum for the Rights of Black People, with shop owner Ishmael Donzo. Many question if increased racial profiling could happen in the African community with the attempted bombing of a passenger plane by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national. (Photo courtesy of Abdul R. Sulay/Philadelphia Tribune)
“The actions of Abdulmutallab are those of one man and are not representative of us,” saidbusinessman Lansara Koroma, a native of Sierra Leone. Koroma, who the founder and executive chairman of the International Forum for the Rights of Black People, also said that the actions of one man should not overshadow the achievements of African people.
“African people have done so much and accomplished so much that one man can’t tarnish who we are and what we’re capable of. This has nothing to do with us.”
According to recent reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, attempts to radicalize African Muslims are not a recent development. On Aug. 7, 1998, hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.
In November 2009, the Justice Department announced that terrorism charges had been filed against eight defendants in Minnesota in an ongoing terrorism investigation. The defendants are accused of providing financial support to individuals who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization. The defendants also allegedly attended terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab and fought on behalf of the organization. Almost all of the defendants were of Somali descent.
“The recruitment of young people from Minneapolis and other U.S. communities to fight for extremists in Somalia has been the focus of intense investigation for many months,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. David Kris in a press release. “While the charges underscore our progress to date, this investigation is ongoing. Those who sign up to fight or recruit for al-Shabaab’s terror network should be aware that they may end up as defendants in the United States or casualties of the Somali conflict.”
Federal investigators said that between September 2007 and October 2009, at least 20 young men, all but one of Somali descent, left Minneapolis for Somalia, where they trained with al-Shabaab. Many of them ended up fighting with al-Shabaab against Ethiopian forces, African Union troops and the internationally supported Transitional Federal Government.
According to federal investigators, Umaru Abdul Mutallab, the father of Abdulmutallab, contacted the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, on Nov. 19, and told of his son’s radicalization.
On Tuesday afternoon, President Barack Obama met with relevant agency heads to discuss the ongoing reviews of the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day and to move forward on rectifying the problems that were exhibited that day. Afterwards, he said, “The bottom line is this: The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack. But our intelligence community failed to connect those dots, which would have placed the suspect on the ‘no fly’ list.
“In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence; it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. The information was there. Agencies and analysts who needed it had access to it. And our professionals were trained to look for it and to bring it all together,” Obama said.
“Now, I will accept that intelligence, by its nature, is imperfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. That’s not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it.”
Meanwhile, Abana Kwaten, 25, from Ghana, said she hasn’t encountered any problems in the wake of tightened security and terrorism concerns.
“This isn’t going to tarnish our (Africans’) image. That’s like saying all black men are criminals shooting each other on the streets. All Africans aren’t terrorists and no one I know is suggesting that,” she said. “Of course some people are going to worry about you just because you have a different accent.”
(This report is special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune and includes information from whitehouse.gov.)
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