Muslims Get Compassion, Support
In the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, many American Muslims went to work with some trepidation, expecting cold shoulders or even harassment, based on their experiences during the Persian Gulf War and other periods of U.S. tension about the Middle East.
But to their surprise, many have found normality, acceptance, even open expressions of solidarity. And when there were incidents of harassment, many have reported, their employers came to their defense swiftly.
Habib Ghanim Sr., for example, wasn’t surprised when his secretary was accosted in the lobby by an employee of the next-door office, who yelled at her, “You’re working with the terrorists. You’re all the same.” He experienced such incidents after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and during the initial hours after the Oklahoma City bombing.
What came next did surprise him. Ghanim, who is president of the Arab American Chamber of Commerce in Washington, was informed that the man’s bosses had issued an ultimatum: Apologize to the secretary within 48 hours. When the deadline passed, Ghanim was told that the man had been fired.
“Their office sent doughnuts over to us. Now, their employees talk to us in the hallways and restrooms and ask us how we are doing,” said Ghanim, who is 49. “Other tenants asked if they could do anything for us. I did not expect them to respond like this. To be quite honest, I expected more insults.”
Even as police and Arab and Islamic groups continue to gather allegations of hate incidents against Muslims, another trend has emerged: American bosses and co-workers have gone the extra mile to reassure, support, communicate and even open their homes to their Muslim colleagues.
“This is something I’ve never seen before. This kind of [sympathetic] reaction was nonexistent in the past, after the Gulf War and the Iranian hostage situation. It’s a backlash to the backlash,” said Kahlil Jahshan, a vice president at the Washington-based American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee.
“Initially, we were getting a lot of workplace complaints, people being verbally harassed and abused,” Jahshan said. “Then the victims began calling us back and telling us that it had worked out fine. The person was disciplined or thought better of it and came back and apologized. All kinds of strange things are happening.”
Too Soon to Judge Embracing Response
Not everyone agrees that something substantive is happening in the American workplace or that it is much more accommodating of religious diversity. Some argue that it is too soon to tell. Some observers wondered whether some Arab and Muslim groups were trying to pump up claims of harmony in the workplace.
“I’m skeptical,” said Khaled Abou El Fadl, who serves as the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at the UCLA Law School. “There is a tendency among some of these groups to want to be friendly to power rather than speak the truth. They have been largely ineffective in working against hate crimes. I can’t help but wonder whether it is much easier for them to tell happy stories.”
Despite his skepticism, Abou El Fadl, too, has been surprised. At an on-campus forum, the mood was “decidedly less hawkish” than he had expected.
“In some ways, I get the sense among the people reacting with kindness that this is a way of expressing patriotism,” he said. “As one student put it to me, ‘I don’t want us to turn ugly.’ That was a surprising and mature sentiment.”
Accommodating Religious Needs
Several Muslims said they still feel free to integrate the needs of their religion into the workplace. They also dress mostly in office attire, although a few women, like Hedab Tarifi, an e-business technology information manager for GE Rotoflow, wear the hijab , or scarf, to cover their hair.
Followers of Islam have come up with several ways to fit their daily prayers into the workplace. It’s particularly easy for anyone who has his or her own office, but others have used everything from the grounds outside of their buildings to the computer server room.
On Fridays, men such as 24-year-old Ali Sedehi, a software engineer at financial services company SunAmerica Inc., say they have found little resistance to their leaving for more than an hour to go to a mosque for prayers.
Aida Morad, associate director of public affairs at Cal Poly Pomona, said her colleagues have always understood that she closes her office door for only two reasons: “for important meetings and for meetings with God.”
She said it helps that the United States now has people in positions of power who understand what misplaced anger and suspicion can do and will not repeat that mistake.
“When classes reopened on Sept. 20, the president of our university, Bob H. Suzuki, held an open house,” Morad said. “He was very warm to me and gave me a big hug, and I knew why. Bob’s family had been thrown into an internment camp for the Japanese during World War II.
” We look to our leaders to help us focus. People are looking for ways to unite.”
Tarik Trad, manager of advertising for Northrop Grumman Corp., said he has felt no ill will at the office. “My co-workers not only are supportive of me and my family’s feelings, but also they have been asking how can they help me. My response has been to keep showing the love. We are American, and we have been just as hurt by all of this,” he said.
Several of the Muslims interviewed for this report said their employers had issued statements about how they expected their employees to respond to the attacks.
Kent Kresa, chairman of Northrop Grumman, released a statement to all 80,000 employees saying there is a zero-tolerance policy against racial, ethnic or religious hate.
Other bosses made their wishes known by seeking out Muslim employees directly.
“My region and district supervisors called me and took me out to lunch,” said Fawzia Asmatey, a World Bank branch manager. “They said they wanted to find out whether I was OK, whether my family was OK.”
“A lot of us were afraid to let our families out,” said Talha Rizvi, 24, who has worked for an e-commerce publication called Line 56 for six months. “My boss has allowed me to leave early to be with them.”
Rizvi’s boss at Line 56, chief information officer Ian Lyons, said, “It’s a complex place we live in, and we all have to learn to coexist.”
Rizvi believed that workplace backlash against Muslims “was imminent after Sept. 11,” remembering the way some Americans initially reacted after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing in assuming that the perpetrators were Middle Eastern.
“Instead, my experience at work has been very good,” Rizvi said.
Similar reports emanate from Silicon Valley, where many Muslims have immigrated to work in the high-tech industry. Pakistani immigrants, in particular, have long been a force there, starting or leading dozens of successful companies. Few have even heard of anti-Islamic incidents in the region.
“We come from all around the globe with a very simple goal--wealth, creation and innovation,” said Idris Kathari, vice president of engineering for Esset, a San Jose-based Web company. “I bet nearly every nation on the face of the Earth is represented in this 25-square-mile area. This is the only place you’ll find Indians and Pakistanis getting along.”
Ahmar Abbas, a network equipment executive in San Jose, worked recently at a company founded by an Israeli American and staffed with Pakistanis and other nationalities. “You’d think that typical animosities would [emerge], but for the most part, you don’t see it,” he said. “If there’s anywhere you’d want to be at this time in the United States, if you’re dark-haired and dark-skinned, it’s Silicon Valley.”
Differing Views on Religious Diversity
Two groups offer differing views of how well employers are doing in dealing with increasing religious diversity. In a pre-Sept. 11 study, the Society for Human Resource Management found indications of increasing cooperation and acceptance of religious diversity.
But the New York-based Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding found a broad gap between the kinds of flexibility employees wanted and what employers were willing to offer.
Of the generally positive reactions of bosses and co-workers since Sept. 11, Tanenbaum Center President Dr. Georgette F. Bennett had this response: “Have diversity programs worked? I have no idea. Does exposure and dialogue work? Absolutely.”
Tarifi of GE Rotoflow understands that. “We have a lot of different religions and backgrounds in our local office,” she said. “After Sept. 11, they all got together and decided to ask me to lead a prayer for the victims of the attack. That was very emotional for me.”
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Times staff writer Charles Piller in San Francisco contributed to this report.
