Eugene weekly., November 06, 2003, Page 14, Image 14

but good things to say about Eugene,” says Sarah, who
now thinks twice about waiting by the road or after dark
for a bus.
A second incident occurred at the campus eatery
where Sarah works as cashier. A group of young men
scrawled “Free Islamic Militants” on a suggestion card
while laughing in her direction. “It didn’t hurt me physi-
cally, but after reading it I felt so tired,” Sarah says. “(I feel)
I’m drowning, I’m trying to fight it but it’s too much. It’s just
ignorant people.”
Maryam Rankin argues her own headscarf attracts cu-
riosity, not malice. Born in Eugene, she converted to Islam
17 years ago. “You know, you have to think about this just
like this — if you went down the street in a costume of
some sort, people would look at you,” says Rankin. “It
doesn’t have to be a negative look at all.” However, Rankin
says after 9/11 she has stopped covering her head when
she travels, concerned about heightened security meas-
ures at airports.
Rankin emphasizes she finds Eugene safe, although
general awareness about Islam is not high. “Eugene is a lit-
tle village compared to the world, so a lot of people
haven’t been to places where they can see Muslims,” she
says.
Hamida Bruton, originally from Malaysia, thinks the
self-consciousness immigrants sometimes feel may be
self-inflicted. “Maybe it’s human; you feel you are so differ-
ent, you feel that people are looking at you differently,”
she says, explaining that with time she has stopped feeling
conspicuous in Eugene. But she admits that if she covered
her head, that could change.
Both Rankin and Sarah say they are careful to be open
and friendly toward others when they wear their scarves.
“I try to keep that posture very present when I’m covered
and in a public place, because if we ever needed at any
time in history to make our religion accepted, it’s now,”
says Rankin.
Most Muslims who spoke to EW mentioned a personal
need to counter negative public perceptions and lack of
awareness about Islam. Most also said they felt very com-
fortable in Eugene, and attributed the thin but persistent
streak of harassment incidents to ignorance and misdi-
rected anger.
One aggravated case began soon after 9/11, when
Joseph Mungra, of Indian origin and not Muslim, received
threatening phone calls at home. Then, his Dunkin’ Donuts
franchise on West 11th and Garfield became a repeated tar-
get: Store windows were broken almost monthly, says
Mungra, and store equipment stolen.
Harassment still surfaces
sporadically in Eugene.
Love Thy Neighbor
W
Tolerance and ignorance
side by side in Eugene.
By Kaukab Jhumra Smith
hile most Muslims feel very comfortable in
Eugene, a smattering of incidents shows that a
headscarf, a turban, or just brown skin can an-
tagonize Eugene’s small intolerant minority. Sometimes
such harassment unwittingly targets people who aren’t
Muslim at all.
Last spring, someone from a nearby car hurled a golf
ball at “Sarah,” a Muslim who covers her head, and her
kids outside the YMCA. The ball missed and hit a tree in-
stead. She filed a police report in case anything more seri-
ous came up later.
“While I’m not surprised it happened, I have nothing
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Mungra believes the attacks occurred because his cus-
tomers included worshippers from the nearby As-Siddiq
Islamic Center. “You don’t question anything, like what reli-
gion you are,” he says about his customers. “They’re part
of your family, as a business owner or as a human.” After
the vandalism began, regular customers from the mosque
stopped frequenting his store out of fear for him and
themselves, says Mungra. He decided to close his store
after the Iraq war brought more trouble. “I think Eugene
has good people but it’s very hard for a businessperson to
run a business here,” he says.
Other non-Muslims have also felt a 9/11 backlash in
Eugene. Several incidents of harassment have been
recorded against Sikhs in the Eugene-Springfield area.
Originating in India, Sikhism encourages its practitioners
to leave their hair uncut. To outsiders used to images of
Osama bin Laden, a Sikh turban and long beard show up
as red flags — such as when a carload of young men on
West 11th a few weeks ago shouted at Sat Nam Khulsa, a
Sikh convert of German descent, to go back to Iraq.
The Sikh community has rallied and developed close
ties with other community groups, says Sat Ganesha
Khalsa of the Eugene Sikh Gurdwara. Since 9/11, Sat
Ganesha says, he answers questions about his religion in
more detail, explaining that Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism
are three distinct faiths. Sikhs will not isolate themselves
but will use this time to educate others, he says.
Farid Hassan and Tammam Adi, both Muslims who
faced threats immediately after 9/11, wholeheartedly sup-
port that message. Hassan, owner of Ali Baba Café, and
Adi, director of the Islamic Cultural Center, stress the value
of meeting ignorance with education.
Hassan once phoned an intimidating caller at his
restaurant right back, using caller ID. “What do you have
against me?” Hassan asked him, emphasizing they were
both Americans who “should be helping each other in-
stead of jumping at each other’s throat.” At the end of
their conversation, the man apologized, Hassan says.
Adi, who sees such calls not as threats but as expres-
sions of anger, reached a similar accord with one of his
callers. Put into a police mediation program with the Adis,
the caller was instructed to participate in educational
events about Islam, Adi says. After one such event, the
two shook hands. Adi praises Eugene authorities, who
have “reached out tremendously” to the Muslim commu-
nity after 9/11.
People behind such harassment, sums up Sat Nam, are
“feeling a lot of hate and they’re projecting it on someone
■
else.”