I didn’t have to buy an American flag on September 11^th like most of my neighbors. I already owned one.

Yet that fact seems to escape many other Americans who did rush out to Wal-Mart to buy American flags as a symbol of their newfound patriotism.

The first anniversary is a very traumatic moment for Americans, but it is even worse for Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and everyone who even looks Middle Eastern. It’s not an uneasiness, but a burden of fear that overshadows our lives in this country as people take their anger out on us.

I remember vividly the protesters who marched on a Mosque in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, some waving American flags but others waving a “Confederate Flag.”

I still see the shaken face of the Muslim woman whose 8 year old son had been called from his slumber by two FBI agents who had been “informed” that the boy a year earlier had made controversial comments about the violence in the West Bank against his people. The boy had merely said he felt sorry for the Palestinians who were dying in the Middle East and wanted to help them.

I recall the words in the hate e-mail I received in the days and weeks after September 11^th from individuals who openly identified themselves as my neighbors. “You’ll get yours,” one wrote defiantly and clearly, unafraid of the implications of his having committed a hate crime.

And I remember pulling into a shopping center near my home next to a white Ford that had words hand painted in yellow on all the windows. The message scrawled on the rear window warned readers, “If you want to see ala or jahad just mess with an American.”

The fact that the author couldn’t even spell Jihad or Allah, the Arabic word for “God,” didn’t concern me then. My only question was, who did this person write that message for? Was he expecting Osama bin Laden to come to Orland Park and read it? Or, was it a message of hatred and confrontation intended to be read by the many Arab and Muslim Americans who live in that area?

In Chicago’s Southwest Side where Arab families and Mexican American families live side-by-side, Mexican Americans were also targeted by haters and they began wrapping large Mexican flags on the front hoods of their cars to ward off would be killers, muggers and vandals who might mistake them for Arabs or Muslims.

Of greater concern were the murders of innocent Americans who happened to “look” Middle Eastern. These killings took place within a week of September 11^th and continued through the year. The Coalition for Collateral Compassion, founded by a Chicago area Jewish American housewife, was created to help lobby for support for the families of these forgotten victims of September 11^th.

While the Red Cross and other charities have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to support relatives and families of the nearly 3,000 people killed “on” September 11^th, none has been allocated to those victims who died “because” of September 11^th. Compassion seems to come down to a matter of words.

Arab and Muslim Americans continue to live watching their steps, walking carefully unsure about where the next attacks will come. We have to watch our words because our patriotism is being challenged.

It doesn’t matter that I served during the Vietnam War and nearly 10 years in the Illinois Air National Guard, or that my father and his brother both served four-year terms during World War II fighting to protect this country.

It doesn’t matter that one of the manufacturers of American Flags is a Palestinian American immigrant from Falls Church, Virginia.

No one cares that words have been distorted in a hate campaign driven in part by the American media, and that there is a political effort to merge the legitimate American War on Terrorism with the illegitimate war of occupation, brutality and terrorism by the right wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Our Future in America

The challenge we face is a tremendous uphill battle but it is one that we must take on. We don’t have a choice.

Our cause is a just cause. Fighting bigotry. Legitimately challenging American foreign policy as it applies to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

But we can’t argue our cause if we are denied the opportunity to participate in the American system of communications, which runs the gamut from Hollywood movies to TV sitcoms and docu-dramas, to newspapers, television news and radio talk shows.

We can’t allow ourselves to suffer because we have not done enough to confront the unfair challenges of racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. We need to become strategic about how we respond to this new world.

In America, perception is reality. Communications is power. In American communications, the process is different from what we have been used to as Arabs and Muslims. Our process relies on the fundamental essence of truth.

The truth is enough to set you free. All we need to do is tell people the truth.

But in America, it is almost as if people don’t want to hear the truth. Instead, they prefer to hear the reasons of cleverly and professionally packaged images and messages.

In American public relations, it’s not the truth of an issue that carries the weight with an audience. It is the manner in which a message is delivered. We, as Arabs and Muslims, must learn how to present the message in a way that properly delivers the truth to the American public. We must stop preaching to the friendly choir, and start taking on the tougher challenges of speaking to the American people.

It is not enough to learn how to speak English. We must learn how to speak “American.”

We must recognize that communications is not simply an instrument of politics or debates, but a profession that requires training and demands respect. We shouldn’t take it for granted and assign the job of communications to people untrained in the finesse of this profession.

Finally, we must recognize that the goal is not to win a debate or argument. The real challenge is to win the audience.

When you win the audience, the truth is so much easier for them to accept. And the perceptions which seem to drive and mingle in this one year anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attack against Americans in history.

If we fail, we face a far more uncertain future in this country.

Ray Hanania is an award winning Christian Arab American journalist who was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He is Vice President of the National Arab American Journalists Association (NAAJA).

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