ABDULRAHMAN Zeitoun is a Syrian Muslim carpenter who helped people and performed acts of amazing heroism during Hurricane Katrina and the catastrophic flood that followed.
It was about eight years ago when I first noticed him. New Orleans is small, and our Muslim community is spread out. But we all knew Zeitoun because he zipped tirelessly all over town in a white panel van emblazoned: “ZEITOUN!”
He was Arab, and proud of it. In a city of graft and opportunism, Zeitoun followed Shariah and was fair, even generous, in business. He worked hard, and he worked smart. He started as a lowly house painter, but he was always so much more. I once called him for an estimate on some renovations. We talked about Islam while he measured my house. And pretty soon, there were no fewer than four white “ZEITOUN” vans zipping around.
So when I heard Zeitoun rode out the storm in his uptown home after sending his family to safety, I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t surprised to hear he’d braved fetid floodwaters in his tiny canoe, risking his life to rescue elderly and sick neighbors and even dogs and cats, long before any city, state, or federal emergency services even appeared. While President Bush’s right-hand man “Brownie” was adjusting his evening shirt’s collar at a gala political dinner, Zeitoun emptied his freezer of meat and fish, and barbecued these to feed his starving neighbors.
While New Orleans’ mayor disappeared from the city and police abandoned their posts, Zeitoun paddled his canoe up and down the water-clogged streets, braving huge fires and armed looters to safeguard not just his own properties, but those of everyone who called him.
I was not surprised. Stand next to Zeitoun, and you’ll feel God’s presence.
What did surprise me, even shock me, was that Zeitoun was almost murdered by US troops when they did finally materialize.
They’d seen him drop off sick, elderly citizens at an emergency medical center. They saw he was an Arab. And so the soldiers followed Zeitoun home, knocked on his door, and asked to use his phone. They burst in like storm troopers even though Zeitoun opened his door wide to them. They pointed machine guns at his face and, while hordes of criminals and drug addicts ravaged New Orleans, US soldiers almost murdered an unarmed Arab.
“They were yelling at me to get in the boat,” Zeitoun recounted. “One of the military persons searched the house, for what? God only knows. They asked to see my ID card, I showed it to them, they didn’t even look at it. I told them, ‘I own this house’...they didn’t care. They forced me out at gunpoint.”
The soldiers claimed they were from Indiana. “I saw lots and lots of military personnel with many different types of guns.... After processing me, they put me in a makeshift chicken cage. It was filthy dirty. They left me there for three days on this stinky, oily, dirty floor.”
Military doctors refused to treat Zeitoun’s foot infection. Why? Because he was an Arab? One of Bush’s many “enemies?” On the third day, Zeitoun smashed a glass bottle of sauce included in his military-issued “Meal Ready to Eat,” and used a shard to conduct self-surgery on his pus-filled wound.
“I would ask the soldiers, ‘Why am I here?’ One would say because of looting, another would say because of terrorism.”
And despite Zeitoun telling officials that as a Muslim he couldn’t eat pork, pork was all they provided. “I was very lucky when they didn’t put pork on the grits. Otherwise, I starved.”
All told, Zeitoun — a Muslim man of God, friend of America, and good neighbor to us all — spent an unspeakable 23 days in prison, much of it without a lawyer. The military denied him telephone contact with his wife, who, returning to the deluged city, scraped through the collapsed rubble of one of Zeitoun’s offices to find his legal documents, and posted bail. Even then, the government delayed Zeitoun’s release.
Eddie Jordan, New Orleans’ district attorney, initially personally refused to return Zeitoun’s wallet with his identification until Zeitoun’s wife “fussed.” Jordan then returned Zeitoun’s wallet with his identification but minus all his credit and bank cards.
“My family, neighbors, and friends call me a hero. The military called me a terrorist. When that didn’t stick, they switched it to looter. What a bunch of liars,” Zeitoun says.
“My wife asked me if I was read my Miranda Rights,” Zeitoun recalls. Remember those? They’re in every American “cop” movie: “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to a lawyer...”
This is supposedly our great gift to the newly “free” Republic of Iraq. Miranda Rights are what make us different, supposedly, from Saddam Hussein’s regime. Did America grant Zeitoun, a tax-paying Muslim Arab in America, this great gift?
“They didn’t even do that,” Zeitoun says of America’s military. “If they didn’t read me my rights, then, I guess, that means I didn’t have any.”
Oh, what the flood’s revealed.
