Campus Muslims Fear Backlash, Stereotyping in Wake of Attacks

As blame for Tuesday’s catastrophe focuses on terrorist Osama bin Laden, fear of violent retaliation against the entire Arab community has prompted concern among Islamic and Muslim groups at Harvard, as well as local citizens.

The president of the Harvard Islamic Society (HIS), Saif Shah Mohamed, said that he has few fears about violence from the Harvard community—but he has advised HIS members to be extra careful and take precautions, such as “telling your roommate where you’re going and not walking on empty streets. “

In addition, Mohamed has requested that the Harvard University Police Department “keep an eye” on the prayer room in Canaday basement.

“[We don’t fear] so much backlash on campus—we have great faith in the reasonableness and decency of the Harvard community,” Mohamed said. “But the fact remains that in the rest of the country, acts of retaliation have taken place, and it would be prudent for Muslims on this campus to take precautions.”

Tomorrow, HIS will be holding a meeting to discuss the aftermath of Tuesday’s events at 7:30 p.m. in the Leverett JCR.

Outside the Harvard gates, local citizens joined forces last night to rally against any possible violent retaliation, which many feared could strike the Arabic community.

Between 6 and 7 p.m., a highly diverse crowd of more than 400 filled Mass. Ave. between Church and Garden Streets and a line of people extended down to Byerly Hall. Whether they were clad in business suits or blue jeans and regardless of their ethnicity or class, all clutched candles as they gathered in silence to encourage peace.

Joseph Gerson, of the peace-promoting American Friends Service Committee, began organizing the vigil on Tuesday by contacting members of a variety of local peace groups, including the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights (BCPR) and the Cambridge Peace Commission.

“We are concerned about scapegoating and hate attacks, which may well be visited at this time,” Gerson said.

The organizers of last night’s rally, who represented a wide spectrum of peace organizations, handed out a joint statement, passed around candles and occasionally broke the silence with statements of their hopes for peace.

“I’m desperately worried about the safety of people in Palestine, and there’s great concern about the safety of Arabs in this county,” said Hilda B. Silverman ’60. Silverman, who helped organize the vigil, represents Jewish Women for Justice in Israel and Palestine.

As she spoke before the gathering, Silverman took the hand of Merrie Najimy, a representative of the BCPR, in a show of solidarity.

“It’s amazing to see, in exactly 24 hours from the time Joseph Gerson called us together, that hundreds of people have come in sympathy,” Najimy said to the crowd. “An eye for an eye for an eye, leaves us all blind,” Najimy read from the statement prepared by all the organizers.

Najimy—who lost a family friend in one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center—emphasized that all Americans were affected by Tuesday’s catastrophe.

“With the experience we had with the Oklahoma City bombing, we knew that the most predictable scapegoat would be the Arab community,” Najimy said. “We’re Americans as well as Arab Americans.”

As many students and local residents observed silence, life in Harvard Square went on as always. Students carrying Coop bags shuffled between the Yard and the Square and rush hour traffic sped by.

Originally slated to take place in Copley Square, the vigil was moved to Harvard Square after a midday bomb scare and FBI raid caused the original location’s safety to be called into question.

“Our thought was that we needed to go ahead with the vigil and we wanted to do it in a way that permitted as many people as possible to attend,” Gerson said of the mid-afternoon decision to move the peace rally to Harvard Square.

Yesterday’s vigil wasn’t the only local rally that came as a reply to the tragedy on Tuedsday. A 400-strong rally of people waving American flags and holding patriotic signs emerged outside of the Boston State House this afternoon after a press conference by Acting Governor Jane Swift.

—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.