|
|
Discrimination Fails Us All
Chicago Sun-Times
December 04, 2005
By Ahmed Rehab
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) believes peace activists
from Egypt should be
greeted at O'Hare Airport with a hefty dose of
institutionalized
discrimination. Their offense? Being of the same
age group and national
origin as Mohamed Atta. "I'm OK with
discrimination against young Arab
males from terrorist-producing states," says
Kirk.
A Sun-Times Editorial ["Telling it like it is,"
Nov. 9] endorses this view.
It does not matter if you are a doctor from
Jordan here to attend a
neurological conference. It does not matter if
you are an investment banker
from Saudi Arabia here to create business
opportunities. What does matter
is where and when you were born; that is
sufficient to render you suspect
and qualify you for "intense scrutiny."
It comes as no surprise that Kirk's comments have
spurred an outcry in
Illinois. A coalition of 27 prominent
organizations that include Muslim,
Arab, Korean, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic,
Lutheran and Filipino groups, as
well constituents of Kirk's 10th district, have
joined voices to demand an
apology.
So let's tell it like it is. In this country,
discrimination has only ever
been an acceptable recourse for the unimaginative
and the uninspired. As we
battle a ruthless and resolute enemy, we need to
focus our national
security measures on that which works: gathering
enough hard intelligence
to nab individual culprits. We should not adopt
sloppy and desperate
measures that implicate the entire class of
people whose phenotype or
passport a culprit happens to share.
Ahmed M. Rehab,
Council on American-Islamic Relations, Chicago
copyright © 2005, Chicago Sun-Times
|
|
|
|
Copyright 2006 © CAIR Chicago
AmrexMedia.com