In the offices of the New York Times of America’s Arab community

by Ray Hanania on October 30, 2009 in Society & Culture with 5 Comments

I’m
in the offices of the Arab American News newspaper in Dearborn
Michigan, the capitol of America’s Arab
American community.

There
are about 100 Arab newspapers in this country but the Arab American news is one
of the few and maybe the only one that has its own building and a fulltime
staff that churns out a newspaper not once a month, not once every two weeks
but every week.

Tonight
is the deadline and Osama Siblani is working with a full staff of reporters to
finish the layout for the latest edition which goes to the press tonight and
will be distributed throughout Michigan, the
Midwest and other cities across the United States.

The
big news today is the killing of an African American Imam at a mosque in nearby
Detroit by the
FBI. Six of the imam’s followers were arrested. The incident involved a
shootout between the members of the mosque and the FBI agents who charged the
Imam was planning to organize violent attacks against American targets.

The
American press is all over it but the Arab American news, which publishes in
Arabic and English, better understands the issues of Islam and the differences
between Sunni’s, Shi’ites and the African American Islamic sects.

The
Arab American News is located on Chase off Ford Avenue in the heart of Dearborn’s
30,000 Arabs and Muslims. The newspaper is celebrating its 25th year
and is distinguished by publishing one fresh edition every week that is never
under 48 pages.

“This
issue is 52 pages but the largest we have published is 72 pages,” Siblani says
between directing the editing of a story and its placement and my queries from
a nearby desk.

Siblani
is also the president of the Arab American Political Action Committee, which
celebrates its 12th Anniversary tonight with a banquet where I will
be performing standup comedy and satire on American politics, Arab American
life and culture.

The
typewriter keys on five computers are buzzing. It reminds me of my days working
as the City Hall reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times back in the 1980s and
1990s. It’s all done electronically these days. In the old days, we’d call our
stories in and dictate the sentences over the telephone. Now, the stories are
typed and typeset all in one motion using complex software.

Dearborn is unique for
many reasons. It is the one place where all the different Arab sub-groups at
least pretend to get along. In Chicago,
they stay apart. In Los Angeles,
they separate themselves by country clubs. But in Dearborn, they all come together because they
recognize that the simple formula for empowerment that power starts at the
grass roots level, not at the top offices of the President or the U.S.
Congress.

As
a result, dozens of candidates, including many of Arab heritage, Muslim and
Christian, are running for election in Michigan’s
general election Tuesday, November 3.

I
get this amazing sense of cultural Arab pride when I drive through Dearborn and see the
billboards with Arab names and Arabic writing. Every corner has an Arab
restaurant, shop or retail establishment.

The
names of the candidates vary and represent what every other community continues
to try to achieve, complete diversity.

John
benntt. Rose Mary Robinson. Mohamed Okdie. John O’Reilly. Hussein Berry. Abdul Algazali
and Abdalla Awwad. The big candidate is Ali Sayed, a life-long Dearborn
resident only 28 years old who is seeking a position on the Dearborn City
council. The list of candidates names running for the Dearborn City Council are
all Arab except one, Brian O’Donnell.

The
candidates will be feted at the AAPAC dinner and their slogan this year is one
that only Dearborn
has been able to achieve: “Strength in Unity.”

Down
the street from the newspaper’s offices is the country’s only Arab Museum.

Every
Arab living in America
should make one trip to this city at least to see with their own eyes what true
Arab involvement in American society could be like someday in their cities.

It’s
inspirational. And I’ll leave with a sense of where Chicago’s divided and distraught American
Arab community might one day reach. I hope other cities will also do the same.

 

 

Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist with Creators Syndicate, media consultant, radio host and Palestinian American stand-up comedian. (Journalism and comedy? What's the difference?). Named Best Ethnic American Columnist for 2007 by the New America Media, Hanania received the 2009 Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award, the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi National Award for Column Writing, and four Lisagor Awards. Hanania is the host of several Radio programs on WSBC 1240 AM radio in Chicago every Sunday from 8-11 am CST, on WNZK AM 690 in Detroit at 8 am EST and on the Internet at BlogTalkRadio.com, A former Chicago City Hall reporter and columnist, Hanania provides informed insight into the complexities of Chicagoland politics and the Middle East.
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  • http://palestinenote.com/cs/members/Palestinian-Patriot/default.aspx Palestinian Patriot

    I’d like to read an article about the palestinenote.com , what are they doing with this site? I read the about page, but I want to read Ray Hanania is the offices of huffingtonpost of the arab world on palestinenote

    I never heard of the “new york times of the arab community” … they should just be on the internet like this stie.

  • http://palestinenote.com/cs/members/Mythbuster/default.aspx Mythbuster

    I’m looking forward to your upcoming column about this. See http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=236070

    Hint the farmers are innocent.

    Will I have to wait forever?

  • http://palestinenote.com/cs/members/PissedOffAmerican/default.aspx PissedOffAmerican

    Mythbuster….

    So what is your implication? Do you consider this site less than honest, or slanted against true change?

    It is interesting to me that this site was launched in unison with the J Street event. As I consider J Street a more “moderate” champion of the status quo, there is a certain amount of distrust I feel for this site as well. But so far, I really don’t have enough history to look back at the site and draw firm conclusions.

    In the back of my mind, as an American, whenever I address the issue of Isr/Pal, I think of Tristan Anderson, lying in his bed in Tel aviv, abandoned by his country and Secretary of State, and completely and utterly ruined by the Israelis. To me, it is a gauge of sorts. No one has taken up Tristan’s cause, no one has, on any scale, supported his family. What amazes me about this, is that Tristan was a stepping stone. He provided the opportunity to shove the “plight of the Palestinians” into the media spotlight. Here you had an American citizen, engaged in peaceful protest against an ILLEGAL Israeli separation fence, shot in the head by IDF jackboots. What better way to wake up the American people than to make an issue of an American kid shot in the head in a foreign country?

    But nothing has come of it. An opportunity was missed, and Tristan languishes in bed, a vegetable, with Israel refusing to accept responsibility, morally or fiscally, and our State Department turning a blind eye to the whole affair. It makes me ashamed of my country, and disgusted with Hillary Clinton.

    So, in effect, I agree with you. If sites such as this one ignore the more egregious Israeli actions, how can we trust in their motives and conviction? Time will tell.

  • http://palestinenote.com/cs/members/Mythbuster/default.aspx Mythbuster

    POA; My implication is very simple. There are multiple non-violent paths available to pro-Palestinians. One is to nonviolently delegitimize Israel.

    Making nice with liberals while liberals talk about their “unbreakable bonds” with Israel is a fool’s errand. Israel will not change until its economy is sanctioned, its officials cannot travel for fear of war crimes prosecution, and it is internationally shunned like the Apartheid Regime in South Africa.

    Notice how the “make nice” approach has worked? The US government blocks the Goldstone Report and settlement building continues.

    And Ray calls me an “extremist.” I think I a realist.

  • http://palestinenote.com/cs/members/PissedOffAmerican/default.aspx PissedOffAmerican

    Mythbuster….

    OK, so lets assume your position is the correct one, and believe me, I do not dismiss that premise….

    Do you think Ray’s position is founded in dishonesty or a lack of conviction, or do you think he is as fervently convinced of his own argument as you are?

    And secondly, do you believe the Palestinian people can hold out long enough for world sentiment, (and particularly United States policy), to do a 180 degree about face, and sanction the Israeli economy, arrest Israeli leaders that travel abroad, and shun Israel internationally? Frankly, I strongly doubt it.

    You might have the most “realistic” scenario of what it will take for the Palestinians to finally be free of Israeli oppression, but the least “realistic” oulook on whats actually possible.

    There must be a middle ground somewhere. Those like you and Ray need to find it. QUICK. Time is running out for you and yours.

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