<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>The Struggle within ADC (the American-Arab Anti-Discri</title></head><body> <div>*****  <font color="#000000"> _San Francisco Bay Guardian_  11 September 2002</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div> <div><font color="#000000">The Struggle Within</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div> <div><font color="#000000">An internal battle over tactics and control roils the venerable American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.<br> <br> By Camille T. Taiara</font><br> <font color="#000000"></font></div> <div><font color="#000000">ON JUNE 21 , Michel Shehadeh, one of the nation's foremost Arab American civil rights leaders, received his walking papers from one of the nation's foremost civil rights groups, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). The notice - a curt, two-paragraph letter stating that his position as western regional director had been terminated effective immediately - came just weeks after the federal government took steps to make him the first person to face trial under the USA PATRIOT Act.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"> <br> Shehadeh, who spent the past six years helping build up the ADC into the largest grassroots-based Arab American civil rights organization in the United States, is one of two remaining defendants in the infamous L.A. Eight case. He, six other Palestinians, and one Sudanese immigrant faced allegations that they illegally raised funds for hospitals, day care centers, and schools in Palestine. The federal government admitted long ago that the defendants' activities would have been protected by the First Amendment had they been carried out by U.S. citizens, and Shehadeh has been cleared three times, but the government continues to go after him.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "This is now the fourth statute that they've been prosecuted under since this case began," says Marc Van der Hout, a San Francisco-based immigration attorney who's been representing Shehadeh.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"> </font></div> <div><font color="#000000">It's the kind of case that would seem to be exactly what the ADC is fighting against. But instead of standing behind Shehadeh, the national office - in the name of "restructuring" - cut him loose with two weeks' severance pay. Computers and files from his office were carted away to ADC headquarters in Washington, D.C.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div> <div><font color="#000000">His firing, local Arab American activists say, is emblematic of a trend among the ADC's national leadership of turning their back on the organization's grassroots membership in favor of kowtowing to the Bush administration.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> The clash is a case study in how a civil rights group deals with a tricky political situation in the post-Sept. 11 environment. From the perspective of the D.C. office, the ADC needs to promote a positive image of Arab Americans and avoid "divisive" political positions. That means, for example, urging Arab Americans to cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> But grassroots activists see their efforts to fight discrimination as part of a broader struggle. "Our positions should be based on issues of justice, not political expediency," says Osama Qasem, the articulate 32-year-old president of ADC-S.F., the organization's Bay Area branch.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> In a statement dated July 11, 2002, and signed by members of half a dozen Western region chapters of the ADC, including ADC-S.F., internal dissenters refer to Shehadeh's firing as part of a larger effort by the national office to hijack the organization and institute a top-down, autocratic structure.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"> <br> "A new COINTELPRO is taking place today," they write in a seven-page treatise calling for concrete steps for the democratization of the organization. "The creation of an imposed 'leadership' ... that would pose little political challenge to the designs of the Bush administration is paramount to the success of this program."</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Now, the national office is moving to wrest control over grassroots branches much in the same way Pacifica Radio attempted to exert dominance over its Berkeley station, KPFA-FM: by establishing policy from above without adequate input from local community chapters and by appointing local representatives who can be fired at will. ADC-S.F. - one of the most active chapters in the nation - is in the eye of the storm.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "Our struggle to democratize our institutions is done in the spirit of reform, not of factionalism," Qasem insists. "We are very keen on preserving this organization as a whole. But we believe decision-making should involve the entire organization."</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Don't criticize the president<br> <br> In the months following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last Sept. 11, ADC-S.F. served as a clearinghouse for victims of hate crimes, small businesses caught in the crossfire, people suffering employment discrimination, and those simply afraid to leave their homes. It formed broad coalitions with immigrant and civil rights organizations. Members participated in dozens of educational events, rallies, and forums, speaking out against the invasion of Afghanistan and the attacks on domestic civil liberties - at a time when simply looking Arab put them at risk.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> The group petitioned local police not to cooperate with the FBI's witch hunts, and it began working with the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley to formulate responses to the backlash against Middle Eastern and South Asian communities.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> But while ADC-S.F. mobilized to protect local communities and stood firm against the war on terror, its national office was issuing formal statements supportive of the Bush administration. Rather than advise Arab Americans of their rights, as critics say a civil rights organization should do, the Washington office urged Arab Americans to cooperate fully with the FBI.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Shortly thereafter, it sent an internal directive to ADC chapter presidents telling local members not to speak out against Bush's military actions.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> The ADC leadership invited Secretary of State Colin Powell to speak at the group's national convention in Arlington, Va., June 6 through 9. (Powell refused the proposal to appear as the keynote speaker but met in private with ADC leaders instead.) For the first time ever, the FBI had a table at the convention, in a sanctioned attempt to recruit Arab speakers into its ranks. And the national office has issued policy statements that contradict resolutions passed by the membership.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "The ADC national board has said it would only oppose an 'unprovoked' attack on Iraq," says Elias Rashmawi, vice president of the Greater Sacramento Area Chapter of the ADC and official contact person for the statement sent by West Coast members to ADC headquarters following Shehadeh's dismissal. "[The word 'unprovoked'] was explicitly removed from the resolution that was passed at the convention."</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Rashmawi and others also say the ADC leadership has come out in support of a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict that includes specific details of the Bush administration's plan - without members' consent.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> The contradictory responses in the context of post-Sept. 11 America exacerbated a rift that already existed between more progressive local chapters and the national headquarters of the United States' most influential Arab American civil rights organization.<br> <br> A turn for the worse<br> <br> The ADC was established as a nonpartisan civil rights organization in 1980 by Sen. James Abourezk. But veteran Arab American activists say it never had the grassroots strength it could have. The ADC's initial support of the Gulf War and sanctions on Iraq, they explain, further alienated its constituency.<br> "The ADC never was a democratic organization," Shehadeh says.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> That all began to change when Hala Maksoud took the helm as national president of the ADC in 1996. Maksoud, a Lebanese-born American professor and prominent Arab American leader, took steps to democratize the organization and engage communities at the local level.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "When Hala Maksoud came into power, the organization was about to close," Shehadeh says. "She came in, hired me, and we started from scratch. When I started [the West Coast] had one dysfunctional chapter." Now Shehadeh estimates the Western region includes 13 active branches.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Most agree that the ADC continues to play a crucial role in the defense of Arab American civil rights. In the past year the organization, together with the American Civil Liberties Union and others, sued the federal government for details on the number of people detained as a result of the war on terror. It also took three major airlines to court, charging them with racial profiling.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> The ADC's national office recently embarked on a campaign to lobby Bush to remove Peter Kirsanow from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A Bush appointee, Kirsanow recently proposed the mass detention of people of Arab descent in internment camps as an idea to be seriously considered should there be another terrorist attack.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Still, organizers such as Shehadeh and Qasem point to ADC leaders' guarded support of the State Department's war on terrorism and their high-handed efforts to reign in local activists as evidence that the ADC has taken a turn for the worse. They report that the organization became more conservative after merging with the National Association of Arab-Americans, a foreign-policy lobbying group, in January of 2000.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Maksoud's illness and eventual death in April of last year reversed the balance of power, leaving in charge those who favor a more conciliatory - and Washington-based - political approach.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "Before Sept. 11, our chapter was for the most part autonomous in terms of its activities," Qasem says. "There was an understanding that there were different environments. We were doing what's in the best interest of the local community, and the national office was doing what was more appropriate to the D.C. environment."</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> Qasem and others within the local chapter agree that lobbying plays an important role in the overall scheme of the organization's activities. But they say the national office has become too entrenched in Capitol Hill.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "Social change doesn't come from the back rooms in the White House," local immigration attorney and ADC-S.F. member Heba Nimr says.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> The national office announced July 31 that it intends to open an office in San Francisco. But Qasem points out the ADC already has a fully functional office in the city - one staffed and equipped to handle the local needs of the organization. He says he sees no real reason for ADC leaders to open another one in the same location, other than to keep a shorter reign on local activists.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "Ideally, there shouldn't be this kind of conflict, once issues of transparency and democracy within the ADC are resolved," he says.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> "To accomplish anything, you have to flex your political muscle," he adds. "That can only come about when you empower the grassroots contingent of your community and encourage them to participate actively in political life. We have to build the base of the pyramid to enable someone at the top to achieve political gains."</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br> E-mail Camille T. Taiara at</font><font color="#FF0000"> camille@sfbg.com</font><font color="#000000">.</font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div> <div><font color="#000000" ><http://www.sfbg.com/36/50/cover_adc.html>   *****</font></div> <div>-- <br> Yoshie<br> <br> * Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html><br> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html><br> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/><br> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/></div> </body> </html>