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Volume XXXX, Number 46
Wednesday • December I. 2010
Established in 1970
~
Committed to Cultural Diversity
A Brush
with Terror
Calls for unity follow bomb plot
by M elissa C havez
T he P ortland O bserver
With the arrest of Somali-bom
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19,
for the foiled bomb attack Friday on
Pioneer Courthouse Square’s tree
lighting ceremony, local residents
and minority populations in par­
ticular are questioning their safety.
From attendees of the down­
town festivities— who were, thanks
to the FBI, never in any real danger
— to the local Somali and Muslim
populations — who are worried
about acts of retaliation after an
arson fire at the Corvallis-based
Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center—
it seems that everyone is more
closely looking at their community.
A Portlander who attended the
tree-lighting, and who was later
asked about the incident, was more
concerned with the FBI’s role in
providing support to the teenage
suspect in the bombing plot.
"What is distressing about the
incident is not so much that the FBI
arrested or otherwise intervened,"
said resident Joe Clement, 24, "but
that the FBI used him to create a
scenario that scared a lot of people."
This sentiment was echoed in
so cial m edia o u tle ts, w here
Portlanders asked M ayor Sam
Adams about the possibility of FBI
entrapment in the case, to which
Adams answered. “The FBI says
no'but a trial will airout that issue.”
On Monday at Mohamud’s ar­
raignment hearing, his attorney did
mention a defense of entrapment,
as the defendant plead not guilty.
Within the Somali community,
Kayse Jama, executive director of
the Center for Intercultural Orga­
nizing on North Killingsworth
Street, says that, “This is a time for
unity within the community ...
bringing it together as one.”
Somalis are the largest African
immigrant population in Oregon,
with an estimated 8,000 to 10,000
members in Multnomah and Wash­
ington counties alone.
photo by M ark
W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Intern Shamsa Hussein and Executive Director Kaysa Jama of the Center for Intercultural Organizing
on North Killingsworth Street field questions and encourage the support for struggling immigrant
youth in our community in the aftermath of a bombing plot tied to a Somali-born teenager who grew
up in Beaverton.
But that community is also dis­ specific issue, but a national issue
jointed at times, Jama says, because concerning Somali youth. W e’re
the United States’ culture is so dif­ asking for all community members
ferent for youth to adjust to.
to join together to help the youth;
Jama stresses that “This is not to support them, and make them
only a Portland-, or an Oregon- •feel a part of the community... both
the American and Somali ones.”
In the aftermath of the fire. Jama
said, “The community is trying to
go back to normal day-to-day ac-
continued
on page 18
Holiday Lights Delight
Zoo visitors treated to annual tradition
The Oregon Zoo is a winter wonderland with the annual Zoo
Lights display bringing more than a million colorful lights to
festivities that continue nightly throughout the holidays.
ZooLights, the Oregon Z oo’s
annual winter wonderland, is even
more w onderland-y this year.
Among the 1.25 m illion color­
ful lights, visitors should keep an
eye out for silhouettes o f Alice,
the Cheshire Cat and other char­
acters from “Alice in W onder-
Jand.” The characters are part of
a scavenger hunt that can earn
sharp-eyed visitors a free gift from
the Zoo Store.
ZooLights, supported by The
Boeing Com pany, runs through
Jan. 2 at the zoo. This traditional
holiday light show has delighted
zoogoers for more than two de­
cades with its dazzling life-size
animal silhouettes and m oving
light sculptures.
New this year is an interactive
barnyard display, where visitors
can press a button to make animal
silhouettes light up and moo,
neigh, crow or oink. An anim ated
cat will prowl its way into the
o p en -air plaza at the z o o ’s
Predators of the Serengeti ex­
hibit, joined by a 3-D secretary
bird, returning to the ZooLights
display after several years’ ab­
sence.
In keeping with the z o o ’s
com m itm ent to sustainability,
most o f the lights displayed are
light-em itting diodes (LEDs),
which use only about 1 percent
continued
on page 2