Click here to subscribe today or Login.
By MICHAEL McNARNEY
mmcnarney@leader.net
Friday, March 21, 2003 Page: 8A
DALLAS – Even here, at the Friendly’s on state Route 309, Saddam Hussein
reaches into the restaurant.
His touch passes the soccer moms eating salads and listening to the Everly
Brothers’ “Wake Up, Little Susie” but stops when it reaches Surood Nejib’s
booth.
There, the 52-year-old Kingston Township man drinks coffee – an indulgence
reserved for weekends or visits with friends – and talks about war and Iraq.
Nejib survived two wars in Iraq, his native country, before moving his
family to America.
And Nejib believes – “without a doubt” – that war is the answer, because
Saddam did not completely disarm or give up power. Saddam’s continued
possession of weapons of mass destruction is just too risky.
But Nejib is circumspect with his remarks because family members live in
Baghdad, and he knows there’s a risk – however remote – that they will pay for
what he says.
Nejib came to Luzerne County following in the footsteps of his older
brother, Umid, who taught electrical engineering at Wilkes University before
his death in July 2002. According to 2000 census figures, the Nejibs are among
the few – if not the only – Iraqi families in the county.
Nejib is a member of the Al-Noor mosque in Wilkes-Barre, where opinions
about the war are as divergent as they are every place else in American
society.
Fourteen-year-old Yousef Mahmoud of Forty Fort opposes the war, saying it
is unnecessary.
“War is not the solution,” said Mahmoud, an eighth-grader at Wyoming Valley
West Middle School. “(Saddam) should disarm. We shouldn’t do it by force. We
should let him do it by himself and then get him out of power.”
Mahmoud is like many of his WVW classmates. He talks with friends about
plans after high school, wears a University of North Carolina Tarheels cap
backwards and was born at Nesbitt Memorial Hospital – “right down the ave,”
as Mahmoud puts it, jerking his thumb south down Wyoming Avenue from Pizza
Bella, where he and friends, John and Ryan Makausky, are splitting a liter
bottle of Diet Pepsi.
Mahmoud said his heritage – his father was born in Jordan – doesn’t cause
problems with others, and he doesn’t expect war to change that.
“I’m Arab-American. It doesn’t feel any different. I feel like any other
American,” Mahmoud said. “There shouldn’t be war.”
Mahmoud isn’t shy about expressing his opinions – something many
Muslim-Americans are having a hard time with, said Mamoun Bader of Fairview
Township. Bader is a leader at the Wilkes-Barre mosque.
“People are afraid to make their views known,” Bader said. “If you are
Muslim and oppose the war, it’s unpatriotic. But if you are anyone else
opposed to the war, that’s your right.” Even if not true, Bader said, the
perception is strong among Muslims.
Bader’s son, a high school freshman, wants to change his name from Mohammad
– Islam’s most esteemed prophet – to something else.
Bader has consented to the change.
“Unfortunately,” Bader said, “there are people who manage to disgrace the
most honorable of us, the most honorable of names.”
Michael McNarney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7305.
CUTLINE