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Arab Students Abandon U.S. Studies, Seek Shelter Back Home
CHICAGO, Sept 28 (News Agencies) - Reluctantly, and in small but increasing numbers, Arab students studying in the United States are packing up and going home.
Harassed on campus and forced into a kind of self-imposed purdah (veil) for their own safety, some are abandoning their studies and heading home to ride out the anti-Arab backlash that followed the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC.
"I have decided to withdraw this semester and, depending on how the situation goes, it may be for good," said Abdul Alqatami, a second-year mechanical engineering student at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Worn down by the threatening phone calls, the "Arab go home," remarks, the stares and verbal abuse he has endured in the past two weeks, the 22-year-old Kuwaiti native is planning to hop a flight home in the next week.
It's "disappointing," he says, but concern for his safety has compelled him to call it quits - at least for now.
"I hope things may get better in a few weeks," he said, but the "terrible experience" of the past days, and family pressure have convinced him to beat a strategic retreat to Kuwait City.
Fahah Saeed, a third-year engineering student at the same university is holding out until the end of the semester.
"It's been a terrible week," said the 21-year-old from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, "but I'm a third of the way through the semester and I just want to finish."
"I'll transfer to the American University in my country if the situation gets worse."
The pressure is on him from all sides.
Closeted in his home, afraid to leave except to attend classes and prayers at the mosque, unable to enjoy his usual game of football or the odd trip to the cinema, he's also on the receiving end of almost daily, panicky, phone calls from home.
"They want to see me back home. They've told me repeatedly to just drop everything and come back.
"They're very frightened because of the TV coverage of the attacks on Arabs here."
In spite of the best efforts of Tucson college authorities to assure them a safe environment on campus in the face of the sporadic hate attacks on Arabs across the country in the past fortnight, some 39 Arab students have pulled out of their courses since September 11th, college officials confirmed.
Another 45 - out of 250 overseas students enrolled at the college - have temporarily quit their studies at the University of Colorado in Denver.
And in the nation's capitol, American University reported that 71 students have dropped out of classes as of Thursday - the majority of them from Arabic-speaking countries.
"Some students told us that they had tried to negotiate with their parents so they could at least finish the semester," related Fanta Aw, director of International Student Services at American University.
"But their parents were seeing a lot of reports about anti-Arab sentiment in the media back home and didn't feel comfortable with their children staying in the United States."
College authorities in Denver and Washington DC reported that it was parental pressure and not hostility from other students that had persuaded their students - mostly undergraduates studying business and engineering courses - to leave.
"One student talked about getting a call from his mother every hour on the hour," related Larry Bell, director of International Student Services at the University of Colorado in Denver.
But reports of hate attacks on Arabs have soared in recent weeks, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Washington DC-based advocacy organization has logged more than 600 cases of hate incidents in which Arabs have been either been verbally or even physically abused.
The most extreme, albeit isolated cases, such as the gunning down of a Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona - in what appears to be a botched hate-crime in which an Indian was mistaken for an Arab - have weighed heavily on the minds of students' family members back home in the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
"They don't know these instances of violence or harassment are somewhere else in this big country of ours," lamented a chagrined Bell in Denver.
Also playing on parental minds are the repercussions for their offspring if the world's remaining superpower swings into action in its declared "War on Terrorism," - the target of which is alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his followers in the al-Qaeda movement.
"They're concerned that their children might get stuck here if the airlines are grounded again," explained Aw.
U.S. authorities imposed a blanket ban on air travel in the United States in the two days immediately following the terrorist attacks which claimed more than 6,000 lives, stranding hundreds of travelers who were scheduled to fly in and out of the country.
Bearing that in mind, parents in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait City, are determined that their children should not be stuck without an exit strategy, if, and when, the United States does indeed go to war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan which is sheltering bin Laden.
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