Mosque-Issippi Burning - By Amy Goodman

[kpete]

Mosque-Issippi Burning

Posted on Aug 17, 2010

By Amy Goodman

Salman Hamdani died on Sept. 11, 2001. The 23-year-old research assistant at Rockefeller University had a degree in biochemistry. He was also a trained emergency medical technician and a cadet with the New York Police Department. But he never made it to work that day. Hamdani, a Muslim-American, was among that day’s first responders. He raced to Ground Zero to save others. His selfless act cost him his life.

Hamdani was later praised by President George W. Bush as a hero and mentioned by name in the USA Patriot Act. But that was not how he was portrayed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. In October, his parents went to Mecca to pray for their son. While they were away, the New York Post and other media outlets portrayed Hamdani as a possible terrorist on the run. “MISSING—OR HIDING? MYSTERY OF THE NYPD CADET FROM PAKISTAN” screamed the Post headline. The sensational article noted that someone fitting Hamdani’s description had been seen near the Midtown Tunnel a full month after 9/11. His family was interrogated. Hamdani’s Internet use and politics were investigated.

His parents, Talat and Saleem Hamdani, had been frantically searching the hospitals, the lists of the dead and the injured. “There were patients who had lost their memory,” his mother, Talat, said. “We hoped he would be one of them, we would be able to identify him.”

The ominous reports on Hamdani were typical of the increasing, overt bigotry against Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and people of South Asian heritage. Talat, who worked as a teacher, told me how children in her extended family had to Anglicize their names to avoid discrimination:

“They were in second grade ... Armeen became Amy, and one became Mickey and the other one became Mikey and the fourth one became Adam. And we asked them, ‘Why did you change your names?’ And they said ‘because we don’t want to be called terrorists in the school.’ “

more:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/mosque-issippi_burning_20100817/