In an incident that echoes the 9/11 backlash in New York City, a Bangladeshi man was assaulted after the Boston Marathon bombings by four men in the Bronx on the mistaken assumption that he was an Arab.
The New York Post reported that 30-year-old Abdullah Faruque, who was born in Bangladesh but grew up in the Bronx, was having dinner at a Bronx restaurant Monday night when three or four Hispanic men apparently wanted revenge for the Boston Marathon bombings earlier in the day (presumably they had already ascertained that the Boston blasts were perpetrated by Arabs or Muslims).
The paper noted that the four men viciously beat Faruque while shouting “f–king Arab” at the Bengali man as he stepped out of the Applebee’s restaurant on Exterior Avenue in Melrose for a smoke.
“One of the guys asked if I was Arab,” Faruque told the Post. “I just shook my head, said like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I didn’t even know that Boston happened because I had a busy day.”
As Faruque, a network engineer, turned to return to his meal, one of the other men said: “Yeah, he’s a f–king Arab,” leading to a brutal pummeling that dislocated Faruque’s left shoulder and left him semiconscious.
“Before I could grab the door, they started swinging at me,” Faruque said.
“I’ve been jumped before. If you can’t win, you back up, you try to protect yourself.”
Only after he returned home and learned of the Boston tragedy from the TV news did Faruque understand.
“I saw the news, and then it hits me: That’s why I got jumped,” he said.
The New York Police Department is probing the beating as a hate crime.
People from South Asia, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are sometimes targeted for violence and abuse by people who mistake them for Arabs whenever news of terror attacks emerge in the media.
This situation was particularly dangerous for turbaned Sikhs (who are not Muslims) in the wake of 9-11, leading to at least one murder and innumerable assaults.
Source: International Business Times
Americans gone wild as they are increasingly realising how their short sighted effort to tackle the worldwide terrorism is back firing. Blinded by their arrogance of power and driven by their extreme desire for vengence, means used (drones, missiles, nuclear weapons etc.) in these efforts have made them more enemies all over the world and Americans are now a legitimate target for anyone who should decide so. Situation can only get worse.
Mr. Sadaruddin Hossain:
You are the same guy who sneered how Bangladesh Hindus could not be trusted and how your beloved Pakistan did not trust them. Now, consider this Boston bomber guys who came to US as Chechen refugees, went to US schools, got scholarships and yet got radicalized by some jingoistic Islamist like yourself, and blew it up. How easy it was to accuse your Hindu countrymen, right? You are so phoney, it is not even funny.
I find Mr. Deepak’s comment above somewhat of a cacophony of a confused mind.
Certainly we must always condemn all forms of terrorism and reject outright the notion that means justifies the end.
Mr. Hossain’s basic premise that in order to pursue its hegemonic intents if someone by taking advantage of its superior military capacity consistently conducts acts of state sponsored terrorism it is bound to encounter reprisal, however reprehensible this may be.
Ordinary Americans must dig deep into their brain and indeed tickle their conscious a bit to discover the kind of cruelties their imperialist government is unleashed all over the world and reflect on what it means in terms of hurt it is causing and seething anger such actions are fomenting. To think that people will take these murderous acts lying low forever would be looking for place at the fool’s paradise. In such circumstances, reprisals are a natural response. and therefore, by not addressing the real issue simply going after one or two individuals here and there or bombing a nation to pulp is not going to Americans a different result.
Furthermore,it is equally important to remember that just because someone has come to the US as a refugee and gained shelter does not automatically free this person from the brutality and hurt Americans inflict almost on a daily basis on fellow compatriots. Indeed what this fellow did if he did this at all (by the way, at this stage these guys are ‘suspects’ and therefore, let us not jump to conclusions. Besides, America’s intelligence community is not exactly Madam Teresa’s brigade and therefore, to be taken for telling truth outright) is wrong but this does not take away the fact that as long as America’s institutionalized injustices continue they remain a “legitimate target”. both at home and abroad.
Finally, it is little unkind for Deepak to bring in the issue of Bangladeshi Hindus to damn Mr. Hossain’s basic logic which is quite sound.
To me these two issues – America’s imperialism and reprisal and plight of Bangladeshi Hindus – are entirely different but where they converge is on this that as long as the state of Bangladesh continues to treat its minorities (religious and ethnic) iniquitously the latter born, bred and educated by Bangladesh shall have no reason to accept injustices, rather reserve every right to critically attack its policies, sometime, as the Chakmas in Hill Tracts have done in recent past, even violently. This will be quite legitimate..
While we must always condemn all forms of violence we must always stand up against injustices be that at home or abroad!