Role Reversal: Who’s the Terrorist Now?

March 21, 2008

When I left New York, I had been through red and orange alerts, a time when the Department of Homeland Security was advising me to invest in drinking water, flashlights and canned goods because of the imminent terrorist threat. At the same time, the government had (and still has) the right to investigate every aspect of my personal affairs under the USA Patriot Act, my backpack was subject to search on the subway on my way to work and the authorities could monitor which books I had taken out of the library.

In Bay Ridge, the very Arab neighborhood in which I lived in the borough of Brooklyn, a popular hookah joint was swiftly renamed ‘Café San Giovanni,’ I suppose to avoid possible conflict with the local authorities. Moreover, if you were so misguided as to wear any kind of head covering whatsoever to any of the major NY airports, you were in for a long and wearisome time of it at security checkpoints.

Curiously, I now find myself in an eerily similar situation, only with a twist. The twice-postponed 11^th session of the Islamic Summit Conference is about to take place at Dakar’s fancy Meridien Hotel (a.k.a. my post office, see previous article, Going Postal). There are 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference - though they are not always all on speaking terms at any given time! – and they are coming together in the hopes of realizing a project which has been in the planning stages for more than 25 years, namely the establishment of a Trade Preferential System among the OIC countries (TPS-OIC), intended to increase levels of trade within the partner states to 20 per cent.

Accordingly, there will be many kings and heads of state and various and sundry VIPs plus entourage coming to town. Over 5,000 visitors are expected for the event all in all, and Senegalese President Wade, in a new take on Shakespeare, has even taken the unusual step of asking absentee luxury homeowners to make their homes in Dakar available so that all the high-ranking foreign visitors can be accommodated: “Friends, Dakarois, countrymen, lend me your homes!”

Security measures throughout the area are extremely tight, and when I recently tried to enter the hotel in order to buy stamps I was asked to surrender my passport at the gate. Articles have appeared in the local paper informing all residents of the area that there will be wiretaps and that roads will be blockaded; security has been and will continue to be tight for the duration of the summit, except this time, we are presumably securing the safety of the Arab oil sheikhs against the excessively patriotic and vengeful Westerners..? My blue passport immediately makes me suspect, you see, so I am lying low. (Why is it that wherever I go there seems to be trouble?)

I have never thought of myself as a potential terrorist before. Then again, I suppose many Middle Eastern immigrants to the US never thought of themselves as potential terrorists, either, yet found themselves being treated as such after the traumatic events of 9/11. I spend a lot of time talking with my students about cultural relativism, and how so much depends on one’s point of view, so I suppose that it is only logical that I might be considered suspicious.

It is rather chilling, however, to think that, under certain circumstances, whether in my own country or elsewhere, the presumption of innocence may be ignored, my civil liberties may be impinged upon and I might even be detained because of something I am or am not wearing, the color of my skin, etc. As a white woman residing in a country that is predominantly black and Muslim, it has become clear to me that today’s scapegoats may be those in power tomorrow, so it really is best to treat others as you would wish to be treated at all times, observing the rules of fair play and procedural safeguards even of immigrant and/or minority groups, a conclusion that I think will also be relevant when my students and I begin our discussion of human rights and torture and whether or not torture should ever be permissible under any circumstances.

On a happier note, however, SIDEWALKS are coming to Dakar! Yes, you have read correctly: the Saudis have given the Senegalese a substantial amount of money to help subsidize their hosting of the summit, and Mr. Wade, undoubtedly an enthusiastic reader of this column, has at long last decided to address my sidewalk-related concerns, for extensive road work is being done in preparation for the summit (read: all Dakar has become a construction site as workers scramble to complete sidewalks as well as additional hotels and highways in time for the conference, scheduled to begin the third week in March).

Once the rubble clears, inshallah, there will be no more wading through sand and dust (or, in the rainy season, mud!) and/or trying to jump out of the way of cars rapides with less-than-reliable brakes. In fact, I will have to come up with some ingenious new form of exercise – perhaps outrunning the security guards at the Meridien?!