Voluntary Questioning Leaves U.S. Arabs Torn

He knew precisely what the letter was about. It was from the U.S. attorney’s office--there was no mystery. What he didn’t know was whether he should open it.

“I feel like I’m in trouble if I do or if I don’t,” said the 24-year-old, who asked to be identified only as Michael, even though that isn’t his given name, isn’t the name on the envelope. “Finally, I opened it. But I didn’t call them. I don’t know if I should talk to them. I don’t have anything to tell them.”

Michael is one of more than 600 Michigan men of Middle Eastern descent, the vast majority living in this Detroit suburb, to receive the letter asking them to speak with federal investigators. His quandary and anxiety go far in explaining the pall over the Arab community here--the largest in the United States--since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Michael, a native of Syria, falls into all the categories of men sought for questioning by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft: He’s within the age range of 18 to 33, arrived in the U.S. less than two years ago, holds a student visa and came from a nation believed to harbor terrorists.

His relatives, though, have been here for at least two generations, he says. Some of the youngest, born at local hospitals and as gastronomically inclined to McDonald’s Happy Meals as their grandparents were to lamb and lentils, don’t speak Arabic, only English.

Although suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his followers say the holy war against the United States is the duty of Muslims, Michael doesn’t share their religion. Like half of the Arabs in Dearborn, and about 70% of the nearly 3 million nationwide, he is Christian.

“I think I’ll call,” he said this recent day, after considerable thought. “I don’t want to be in trouble.”

Ashcroft has named about 5,000 visitors whom the government would like law enforcement to question by Dec. 21 in the hopes that some might shed light on the attacks or other terrorist activities. The men are not legally required to speak with investigators, and a few local agencies--first in Portland, Ore., then in some neighboring Oregon cities, and now police at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor--have refused to conduct the interviews, saying the Justice Department’s broad mandate violates state privacy laws.

Police here in Dearborn, where the department has numerous Arab American officers, have agreed to help but also have expressed concern that querying young men, mostly Arabs, who are neither charged with nor suspected of a crime could collapse bridges of mutual trust that took decades to build.

Most local Arabs, who already have been shocked to learn that some of the hijackers spent time in their communities, don’t seem overly surprised at the call for interviews. They seem disappointed.

George W. Bush, after all, was among the first presidential candidates during the 2000 campaign to openly court them. When former Sen. Spencer Abraham, an Arab American, lost his bid for reelection, President Bush appointed him Energy secretary. And since the attacks, Bush has repeatedly called for tolerance and caution, encouraging Americans not to presume that a neighbor of Middle Eastern descent or Muslim faith is somehow sympathetic to anti-American terror.

“We feel great pressure here, being set apart as not American because we are Arabs,” said the Rev. George Shalhoub of St. Mary’s Antiochian Orthodox Church. “We pray for our armed forces. We pray for our president and the health of our country. We are a nation of laws and if we act out of emotion, I fear for us.”

The story of how about 275,000 Arabs settled in and around Dearborn dates to the late 19th century, when men from the Mount Lebanon region--then part of the Ottoman Empire and now Lebanon--moved to the area and became traveling salesmen. They sent money home and sponsored relatives who wanted to join them.

About 1910, the first Christian Arabs began to arrive from northwest Iraq. The area soon became a haven for Arabs from virtually every nation in the Middle East, in part because of plentiful jobs at Ford Motor’s original manufacturing plant.

“Traditionally, however, this concentration of Arabs in southeast Michigan has not translated into either political power or a cohesive social community,” wrote Karen Rignall of the Near East Foundation, a New York-based international development agency, in a 1997 study of the Arab community.

The thing is, Dearborn Arabs don’t seem to seek any separate power base.

Unlike some ethnic communities in the U.S., which strive to maintain a measure of psychological distance from prevailing American culture in an effort to retain their traditions, Arabs here take great pride in their assimilation. And although falafel stands, Egyptian restaurants and the dense, sweet smell of Turkish coffee abound on Warren Avenue, stepping into Dearborn feels nothing like stepping into San Francisco’s Chinatown or Chicago’s Ukrainian village. It feels more like entering Everysuburb, USA.

The lawns are vast and well-groomed, the streets in the upscale sections lined with elms and in the downscale areas with litter, the Ford plants almost antiseptic in their outward cleanliness. And when a high school girl cheers the football team while wearing a traditional Middle Eastern veil, no one thinks twice. Not only have some women and girls here been dressing this way for more than a century, but the girl’s first name is as likely to be Ashleigh as it is Aa’isha.

“This is a nice, regular place,” said Abdul Alhag, 35, a native of Yemen who has lived in the U.S. for nine years.

Alhag is married, has five children and owns Motor City Auto Repair, but he has taken to selling Asian-made knockoff Nikes and Turkish rugs from the front lot to make up for his loss of business since the attacks.

“People now realize the government has the right to do anything for security purposes,” Alhag said, rubbing his hands together, winter clearly on its way. “It’s like, if you have a problem in your house, you do anything to protect it.”

It’s a notion that many Americans may agree with. Among those here who fled wars, dictatorships and martial law, it’s also an idea that prompts worry.

Before the attacks, the typical jaunt to or from Windsor, Canada, just across the Detroit River, took just minutes. It can now take hours.

Some of the hijackers entered the U.S. through the porous Canadian border, and now even U.S. citizens must show a passport or birth certificate to cross into Detroit.

“The terrorists,” one customs guard said recently, “all had driver’s licenses. . . . That’s not enough anymore.”

Hundreds of young men here are deciding whether or not to speak with investigators. In a few cases, it appears, they have simply returned to their home nations.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan is offering them free legal advice. Many religious leaders are recommending that they cooperate with law enforcement but are also pleading with authorities to tread cautiously in a community whose residents often wisely mistrusted authorities in other countries.

Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S attorney’s office in Detroit, said late Friday that several dozen people had responded to the letters, scheduling interviews. “One gentleman,” she said, “just showed up and said, ‘Hi, could you interview me now?’ ”

Balaya deemed the number of replies “quite good” and said the program is “going very smoothly.”

With less than three weeks to go before Ashcroft’s deadline, it was unclear to many here whether the effort is going smoothly or not. It also was not clear whether a success for law enforcement would also be a victory for justice.

“We know the questioning is voluntary,” the Rev. Shalhoub said. “But God help those who do not go for interviews.”