My granddaughter, Mashael, a student at King Fahd Academy in Washington, recently won a prize in a local competition. The prize was a luxury car, but her happiness was short-lived. When she went to collect the prize, the organizers refused to give it to her because, according to them, prizes were only intended for those who hold American nationality. The news was devastating. Mashael was not prepared for such a shock. Imagine an excited girl, eagerly awaiting a prize she won fairly in an open competition being told she could not win because of her nationality! The machine that sorted the entries and selected the winners did not differentiate between an American and someone from another country.
Why do people behave in such a shameful manner in a country claiming to be the guardian of freedom and equality and one which doesn’t hesitate to launch war to liberate people from injustice and tyranny and spread human values — including equality.
When Mashael went to receive her prize, the members of the prize committee discovered she was of Middle Eastern origin and came from an area often associated with terrorism and violence.
The questioning then began: Where are you from? What is your nationality? What nationality are your parents? Such silly stuff! Because neither the girl nor her parents were American, she was told, “Sorry, we cannot give you the prize.”
Mashael did not expect to encounter such behavior from a country like the United States, but such twisted tactics are increasingly being applied to circumvent American laws which do in fact guarantee equality. If the reason for denying Mashael a legitimate prize is that she is not an American, that is unacceptable. The American system does not differentiate between whites and blacks, Muslims and non-Muslims, the weak and the strong who possess the power that allows them to lie and tamper with the law.
What if an American woman were denied a prize in another country on the grounds that she was not a citizen of that country? Would the Western media keep silent or would it demand action against the country which violated human rights and which dared to deny an American something she had fairly won?
Arabs and Muslims are sometimes treated as if they were not humans and to whom principles of justice and equality do not apply.
This is why so many Arabs and Muslims are now in American prisons without trial on the mere suspicion of having links with terrorism.
It is why American Muslims are treated unfairly while American Jews enjoy more rights than ordinary Americans.
Some Americans may not agree with their country’s foreign policy or with the way some of their own people treat others. At the same time, however, the image of Muslims and Arabs is being blackened and more people are keeping silent in the face of American injustice.
Arab News From the Local Press 17 May 2003
